Writing a summary

Summary: A brief statement of the main points of something (e.g. book, article, movie, play, etc.)

 
The following steps were taken from and slightly modified for our purposes from this website.

Recommendations for writing a summary:

1. Note the major points of the work you a summarizing, either in an outline or bulleted list.

2.Write a first draft of the summary without looking at the article. Then go back to the article and include any major points you missed.

3. A summary paraphrases someone else's work.  If you do copy a phrase from the original, be sure it is a very important phrase that is necessary and cannot be paraphrased. In this case put "quotation marks" around the phrase.

4. Summaries are meant to be brief but also thorough. If you leave out main points, then it is not a thorough summary.

The features of a summary:
1.Start your summary with a clear identification of the type of work, title, author, and main point in the present tense.

Example: In the feature article "Four Kinds of Reading," the author, Donald Hall, explains his opinion about different types of reading.

2.Check with your outline and your original text to make sure you have covered the important points.

3.Never put any of your own ideas, opinions, or interpretations into a summary.

4. Write using "summarizing language." Periodically remind your reader that this is a summary by using phrases such as the article claims, the author suggests, etc.

Improving our summarization skills

I've noticed we need to work on writing better summaries. First we must know what a summary is. Here are the ideas we came up with in class today:

A summary:

• Sums up your reading
• A shorter version of what you read in your own words
• Gives the most important facts and ideas from the text
• Usually AT LEAST a paragraph in length

So now it's your turn to write a summary.

1) Read this blog post by Kelly Barnhill
2) In your writers' notebook, make a list of the important points and facts about the story
3) On a sheet of loose leaf, write a summary of the story that is AT LEAST one paragraph.