“Chapter 15. Summary” in “Read, Think, Write”
Chapter 15 Summary
Learning Objectives
- • Understand the function and purpose of a summary
- • Demonstrate proficiency in the process of writing a summary
- • Identify and avoid the challenges of writing summaries
- • Write a concise, accurate, effective summary
Every day, you summarize movies, books, and events. Think about the last movie you saw, the last novel you read, or the last hockey game you attended. Afterward, in a conversation with a friend, co-worker, or classmate, did you summarize what you saw or read? If so, you compressed all the action of a two-hour film or a two-hundred-page book or a sixty-minute game into a brief description of the major events. You probably described the main points in just a few sentences, using your own vocabulary and manner of speaking, and you omitted extraneous details that weren’t essential to the main events.
You already know how to summarize, and you will use that skill as you learn how to write academic summaries.
What Is a Summary?
Like the summary’s purpose in daily conversation, the purpose of an academic summary is to accurately convey the thesis and essential ideas of a longer document. Often, a summary condenses a long piece of writing into only one paragraph by conveying only the most vital information. A summary includes only the thesis, main points, and keywords of the text you’re summarizing.
Although summarizing shrinks a large amount of information into only the essentials, it is very important that a summary accurately represents the author’s meaning. A summary must not misrepresent the author’s ideas.
A summary must be much shorter than the text it’s summarizing. The length of a summary is often 15 to 25 percent of the length of the text. Therefore, a summary must be succinct and to the point.
A summary primarily uses the summary writer’s words (yes, that is you) along with key terms from the article when necessary.
There are many situations in which you might write a summary:
- • You may be required to write and submit a summary as a stand-alone assignment.
- • You may be required to write a summary to (a) demonstrate your understanding of the content of an article or (b) demonstrate your ability to summarize—or both!
- • You may choose to write summaries of course readings for your own purposes, to support your learning.
- • You may choose to write a summary as part of actively reading an article to check your understanding and retention of course materials in preparation for an exam or assignment.
- • You may choose to write short summaries of the articles you read during a research project to help you organize your research and to keep track of the main ideas authors have presented about the topic you’re researching.
This chapter primarily focuses on writing a summary as a distinct assignment; however, the summarizing skills that you will learn will be applicable to many other academic situations. Summaries are useful not only for remembering and studying information before exams but also for looking at sources and incorporating their information into your essays—your summaries of evidence from research will make your arguments more convincing.
Read the following paragraphs from an article in the magazine Shape about the benefits of cross-country skiing. Then read a student’s summary of the paragraph.
Student’s Summary
In the article “Is Cross-Country Skiing Good Exercise?” Megan Falk reports that research shows that being in nature, especially forests, enhances a person’s mental and physical well-being by lowering blood pressure and stress levels. Falk’s source, Rosie Brennan, states that exercising outdoors is better than exercising indoors. In particular, cross-country skiing creates good feelings associated with rhythm and easy movement, which also contribute to well-being.
Notice that the summary is much shorter than the excerpt from the article. Also notice that although the student has mostly paraphrased Falk’s ideas in his own words, the summary needed to include some key terms from the source. For instance, the student includes the terms cross-country skiing, nature, forests, stress, and blood pressure. It would be almost impossible to write an accurate summary of Falk’s article without the terms cross-country skiing and nature. If the student were to use a thesaurus to replace these keywords with synonyms, the student might misrepresent Falk’s meaning. You’ll learn more about this in To Quote or Not to Quote later in this chapter. For now, remember that a summary must convey the author’s meaning accurately.
How to Write a Summary
The remainder of this chapter will focus on the task of writing a summary as an assignment to be submitted to an instructor. We will focus on writing a summary of a short article, which is the most common summary assignment for first-year students. However, as you progress through your studies, you may be required to write summaries of longer articles, books chapters, and even books! Nevertheless, the concepts presented here will apply to any summarizing task.
First Things First
It goes without saying that in order to summarize a text, you must first understand the content of the text. Close reading is required if you are to write an accurate and effective summary. Before proceeding, take a few minutes to review Chapter 2: Survey and Chapter 2: Close Reading.
As you read a text in preparation for summarizing, mark up the text as you learned to do in Chapter 2: Reading Strategies and take notes, focusing on main points and omitting examples, statistics, and other details. Write down the following information: the title of the text you’re summarizing, the author, the source, and the date of publication.
Next, carefully read the assignment instructions. Look for the length limit of the summary you are expected to write. It might be one hundred words, two hundred words, or one page, for example. Take this limit seriously. While conciseness is important in all writing, it’s especially important in a summary, and you may lose marks if your summary is over the limit.
Finally, read Table 15.1: The Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Summary to learn about the conventions of writing a summary.
Now that you’ve carefully read the text you’re summarizing, you’ve examined the assignment instructions, and you’ve become familiar with some of the conventions of summaries, it’s time to write the summary, using a step-by-step process.
Do | Don’t |
|---|---|
Focus on what the author writes | Focus on how the author writes |
Objectively convey the content the author has written | Evaluate, assess, or criticize the writer’s thesis or supporting points |
Include all of the author’s main points | Include statistics and specific details unless they are essential to conveying the author’s thesis |
Make each section of the summary proportional to the section it summarizes | Skip over paragraphs or sections of the article |
Include the author’s metaphors or analogies only if they are essential to conveying the thesis or a main point | Create your own figures of speech (metaphors, allusions, analogies, etc.) related to the topic |
Use your own words and wording to paraphrase the author’s ideas | Include your own ideas about the topic |
Enclose any copied phrases in quotation marks | Quote entire sentences or include excessive quotations |
Acknowledge the author as the source of the ideas by using phrases such as “According to Falk . . .” and “Falk argues that . . .” | Bring in research or other information from outside the article unless your instructor asks you to |
Use third-person point of view, formal diction, and an objective, neutral tone | Use first-person pronouns (I/we/our) or second-person pronouns (you/your) and an informal tone |
Refer to an author by their last name | Refer to an author by their first name |
Be concise | Be wordy |
Ten Steps to Writing an Effective Summary
- Step 1. Survey the article to get the gist of the text: How long is it? What is its primary topic?
- Step 2. Read the article closely all the way through, marking up the text and making notes.
- Step 3. Reflect on what you have read. What is the writer’s central theme or argument? What are the most important supporting points?
- Step 4. Close the article, and write the first draft of your restatement of the author’s thesis. This one-sentence statement should convey the author’s thesis (the central argument) in your own words.
- Step 5. Decide how to divide up the article to make it manageable. Think about how long the text is and how long your summary is supposed to be. Let’s say you have been asked to write a one-page summary of a four-page article. If the article contains ten substantial paragraphs, it would make sense to summarize each paragraph in one sentence. If the article contains thirty very short paragraphs, it may make more sense to summarize three paragraphs in one sentence.
- Step 6. Now that you’ve divided up the article, read the first section again closely. At the end of that section, close the article, and in your own words, write one sentence that summarizes the main idea of that section. Be concise!
- Step 7. Move on to the next section, and repeat step 6. The sentence you write now will be the next sentence of your summary. Repeat this process until you have finished the article.
- Step 8. Now reread the sentences that you wrote to summarize each section of the article. Keep them in the same order that you wrote them. Consider these questions:
- • Have you captured all the main points? Have you missed anything important? If so, add it now.
- • Have you included any unnecessary details? If so, delete them now.
Check that all the sentences make sense and connect well to one another. Perhaps some sentences can be combined. If necessary, insert transitional words to make connections between sentences clear.
- Step 9. Next, reread the draft of the restatement of the author’s thesis that you wrote in step 2. Do you still think it accurately conveys the author’s thesis? If not, revise it so that it does. This sentence will become the first sentence of your summary.
- Step 10. Quickly read the article one last time, considering these questions:
- • Does your summary accurately convey the author’s thesis and main points?
- • Have you accidentally copied the author’s wording without enclosing the words in quotation marks? If so, add the quotation marks and the page number.
Remember, the first draft of your summary is unlikely to be the final draft that you will submit to your instructor. Set aside the first draft for a few hours, and then return to it with the intention of revising it to make it better. In particular, refer to Table 15.1: The Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Summary as you revise. For tips on revising effectively, refer to Chapter 7: Revise: Improve What You’ve Written.
Avoiding Plagiarism While Summarizing
Because a student must work so closely with a text while writing a summary, and because the purpose of a summary is to accurately convey the author’s ideas, it can be very easy to slip into plagiarism. In this section, we’ll introduce some considerations that must be made to avoid plagiarism, including deciding when to quote and altering sentence structure as you summarize.
To Quote or Not to Quote
For many students, one of the most challenging aspects of writing a summary is deciding whether or not to use the author’s keywords and, if you do, whether or not to enclose them in quotation marks. This takes practice!
Remember, a summary should be primarily paraphrased, and it should contain only a few essential quotations, at most. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of paraphrasing, it would be a good idea to read about it in Chapter 21: Paraphrasing and Quoting.
When you’re writing a summary, you will certainly need to use some of the keywords and terms from the article in order to accurately convey the author’s thesis and main points. The question is how to determine whether those words should be enclosed in quotation marks or not. On one hand, you need to use some key terms, and you don’t want to accidentally plagiarize. On the other hand, you know that a summary should not contain too many quotations. What should you do?
To explore this question, let’s look at some examples. Earlier in this chapter, you read an excerpt from Megan Falk’s article “Is Cross-Country Skiing Good Exercise? Top Benefits, According to an Olympian.” Then you read a student’s summary of the article.
Student’s Summary
In the article “Is Cross-Country Skiing Good Exercise?” Megan Falk reports that research shows that being in nature, especially forests, enhances a person’s mental and physical well-being by lowering blood pressure and stress levels. Falk’s main source, Rosie Brennan, states that exercising outdoors is better than exercising indoors. In particular, cross-country skiing creates good feelings associated with rhythm and easy movement, which also contributes to well-being.
Notice that the student has included some key terms from the article: cross-country skiing, nature, forests, stress, and blood pressure. These are factual words that Falk uses literally and neutrally, and there are no other perfectly synonymous terms for them. In order to convey Falk’s thesis, the student must use these terms. Because these words are common words that are used in a usual way, and they do not imply any judgment, they do not need to be enclosed in quotation marks.
However, let’s say that the student wanted to include Rosie Brennan’s description of cross-country skiing to better convey a sense of the mental health benefits. Notice the changes to the last sentence of the summary:
Student’s Summary
In the article “Is Cross-Country Skiing Good Exercise?” Megan Falk reports that research shows that being in nature, especially forests, enhances a person’s mental and physical well-being by lowering blood pressure and stress levels. Falk’s main source, Rosie Brennan, states that exercising outdoors is better than exercising indoors. In particular, cross-country skiing creates good feelings associated with the feeling of “gliding on snow” and achieving a “little sense of freedom,” which contributes to well-being (qtd. in Falk).
In this version of the summary, the student has enclosed two phrases in quotation marks: “gliding on snow” and “little sense of freedom.” These phrases do require quotation marks because not only is the student copying a series of words instead of a single word, but those words imply the speaker’s opinion about cross-country skiing and create a visual image in the reader’s mind. The words are put together in a distinct way for a special effect, so they must be enclosed in quotation marks and attributed to Rosie Brennan.
Often, in their attempts to avoid plagiarizing, students will try to find synonyms for key nouns and verbs. However, this is dangerous because it can distort the author’s meaning. Let’s look at another example, in which you must summarize this paragraph from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “Three Ways of Meeting Oppression”:
A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred. Violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem; it merely creates new and more complicated ones.
Source: King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Three Ways of Meeting Oppression.” Arguing Through Writing, 21 July 2023, courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-jefferson-collegecomposition/chapter/martin-luther-king-jr-three-ways-of-meeting-oppression/.
Perhaps you are nervous about using the word violence because you are afraid of plagiarizing, so you refer to a thesaurus to look for synonyms. You find the words warfare, sadism, and ferocity. You choose one of the synonyms to write a sentence for your summary:
- • Another approach to oppression is warfare, but King argues that it is not a solution.
- • The second response some people take is sadism, but King argues that it is not a solution.
- • Ferocity is another approach to oppression, but King argues that it is not a solution.
Unfortunately, all of these sentences misrepresent King’s points. King is certainly not writing about warfare, and he is also not writing about sadism or ferocity, both of which have different connotations. King is writing about violence, so violence is the word you must use. You cannot effectively convey King’s idea without using the word violence.
Do you need to enclose the word violence in quotation marks, though? Often, to avoid plagiarizing, students will enclose all keywords in quotation marks. However, violence is a common word with a fairly straightforward meaning, and King is not using it in a special way. Therefore, it doesn’t need to be enclosed in quotation marks. You could write this sentence in your summary without fearing plagiarism:
- Violence is the second response to oppression, according to King.
Let’s say you also want to include the part about hatred. Like violence, hatred is a common word with a straightforward meaning, so it wouldn’t need to be enclosed in quotation marks. However, perhaps you find the phrase “corroding hatred” very powerful and you want to include it in your summary. Now is the time for quotation marks because King has combined two words in an unusual way, and one of those words (corroding) indicates assessment of the other (hatred). Therefore, in your summary, you must acknowledge the words as King’s:
- Violence combined with “corroding hatred” is the second response to oppression, but violence is not the solution to oppression (King).
Mind Your Sentence Structure
Many students are not aware that copying an author’s grammar is a form of plagiarism! In the “thesaurus method” of paraphrasing, a student simply rewrites the source material, swapping out most of the nouns, verbs, and adjectives with synonyms but retaining the essential grammatical structure of the sentence.
For example, look closely at this sample of a student’s paraphrased version of a sentence from King’s speech:
- Original:
- A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression . . .
- Summary:
- Another way that subjugated individuals often respond to subjugation . . .
In the rewrite, the student has swapped these keywords with synonyms:
- another → a second
- oppressed → subjugated
- people → individuals
- sometimes → often
- dealt with → respond to
- oppression → subjugation
However, the structure of the second sentence is the same as King’s! The positions of the nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives are exactly the same in both sentences:
Original: | A second | way that | oppressed | people | sometimes | deal | with | oppression . . . |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adjective | way that | adjective | noun | adverb | verb | preposition | noun | |
Summary: | Another | way that | subjugated | individuals | often | respond | to | subjugation . . . |
Adjective | way that | adjective | noun | adverb | verb | preposition | noun |
Both sentences have exactly the same structure:
- adjective way that adjective noun adverb verb preposition noun
This is plagiarism because the student has copied King’s grammar. The thesaurus method often leads a student into accidental plagiarism. Swapping out a few keywords is not sufficient to avoid charges of plagiarism.
With the article in front of you, it’s very easy to unintentionally copy the author’s grammar, which is why it’s essential to close the article before you write each sentence of your summary. This forces you to use your own words and grammar, which are the two key components of paraphrasing. To learn more about paraphrasing and plagiarizing, refer to Chapter 21: How to Paraphrase Effectively, Chapter 21: Guidelines for Quoting, and Chapter 22: Plagiarism and Academic Integrity.
Abstracts
When reading journal articles, you will notice there is often an abstract before the article starts: this is a summary of the article’s contents. If you are required to summarize an article, do not depend on the abstract, as it is already a condensed version of the content. The author of the abstract identified the main points from their perspective; these may not match your purpose or your idea of what is important. What may also happen if you try to use the abstract as the basis for your summary is you will likely end up replacing some words with synonyms and not changing the overall ideas into your own words because the ideas are already condensed, and it is difficult to make them more generalized (we will discuss this more in Chapter 21). You’ll need to closely read the entire article to determine for yourself what the key and supporting ideas are.
Preparing a Summary for Submission
To prepare your assignment for submission, structure it like this:
- 1. The title of a summary should include the word summary, the title of the text, and the name of the author of the text:
- Example: Summary of Megan Falk’s “Is Cross-Country Skiing Good Exercise?”
- Example: Summary of “The Ways of Meeting Oppression” by Martin Luther King Jr.
In the first sentence of the summary, introduce the name of the author, the title of the article, and your restatement of the thesis.
- Example: In “The Ways of Meeting Oppression,” Martin Luther King Jr. explains that there are three common ways that oppressed people react to oppression—acquiescence, violence, and nonviolent resistance—but he argues that of the three, nonviolent resistance is the only right and effective response.
- 2. Then add the sentences from step 8 of Ten Steps to Writing an Effective Summary, ensuring they present the main ideas in the same order they appeared in the original text.
Checklist 15.1: For a One-Paragraph Summary of a Short Article
- Review this checklist to ensure your summary is ready for submission.
- ☐ The first sentence includes the title of the article and the name of the author.
- ☐ The first sentence includes my restatement of the author’s thesis, in my own words.
- ☐ The rest of the paragraph summarizes the authors’ main supporting ideas in the same order they appeared in the article.
- ☐ Each section of the summary is proportional to its corresponding section of the article.
- ☐ The summary does not skip over sections of the article.
- ☐ The summary is written from the third-person point of view.
- ☐ The tone is neutral and objective.
- ☐ The summary does not contain any evaluation of the content of the article or the writing itself.
- ☐ The summary does not contain analogies, metaphors, or other figures of speech that did not appear in the article.
- ☐ The summary does not contain any information that does not appear in the article (such as information from other texts).
- ☐ The summary does not contain my thoughts about the topic or the writing.
- ☐ Most of the summary is paraphrased (there are few, if any, quotations).
- ☐ In the few cases in which a quotation is needed, the quoted material is enclosed in quotation marks and followed by a citation.
- ☐ The summary is concise.
- ☐ The summary is followed by a list of sources, if required (see Chapter 22: List of Sources).
Sample Summary
Read this excerpt from a report on the use of alcohol by adolescents, which is followed by a student’s summary of the excerpt.
Now read the student’s summary of the above excerpt:
In “Underage Alcohol Use: Summary of Developmental Processes and Mechanisms: Ages 16–20,” Sandra A. Brown et al. demonstrate the increasing use of alcohol by American students from the beginning of high school through college. Researchers found that from grades 10 to 12, there are significant increases in the percentage of high school students who have tried alcohol, who drink frequently, and who binge drink. After high school, consumption increases again, and college-aged students consume more alcohol than people in any other age group. Young people who go to college drink more alcohol than those who don’t. The use of alcohol also correlates with demographic factors such as gender, race, geographic location, and socioeconomic status, and research shows that the college students who drink the most are male, white or Hispanic, from the northern states, and from higher socioeconomic classes.
Notice that the summary retains the thesis and the key points made by the writers of the original report but omits most of the specific statistical data. A summary does not need to contain all the specific facts and figures in the original document. Instead, it provides an overview of the essential main ideas.
Now, using the skills you’ve learned in this chapter, write your own summaries. Before you move on to the practices, review these sections of this chapter:
- • Ten Steps to Writing an Effective Summary
- • Table 15.1: The Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Summary
- • Checklist 15.1: For a One-Paragraph Summary of a Short Article
Practice 15.1
- A. In preparation for writing a one-sentence summary of the main idea, carefully read the following paragraph and (a) mark up the text and/or (b) take notes to identify the main point(s).
Several factors about the environment influence our behaviour. First, temperature can influence us greatly. We seem to feel best when the temperature is in the high teens to low twenties. If it is too hot or cold, we have trouble concentrating. Lighting also influences how we function. A dark lecture hall may interfere with the lecture, or a bright nightclub might spoil romantic conversation. Finally, our behaviour is affected by colour. Some colours make us feel peaceful, while others are exciting. If you wanted a quiet room in which to study, for example, you would not paint it bright orange or red.
Passage taken from Ueland, B. Becoming a Master Student. Houghton Mifflin College Div., 2007, p. 121.
- B. Write a single sentence that summarizes the paragraph’s thesis.
- C. Collaboration: Share with a peer and compare your answers.
Practice 15.2
- A. In preparation for writing a short summary paragraph, closely read the passage below. Underline the sentences that contain the most important information. (Hint: Underline six sentences). Then reread the underlined sentences and double-underline the thesis statement.
Most people drink orange juice and eat oranges because they are said to be rich in vitamin C. There are also other foods that are rich in vitamin C. It is found in citrus fruits and vegetables such as broccoli, spinach, cabbage, cauliflower, and carrots.
Vitamin C is important to our health. Do you really know how essential this nutrient is to our health and well-being? Our body needs to heal itself. Vitamin C can repair and prevent damage to the cells in our bodies and heal wounds. It also keeps our teeth and gums healthy. That is not all. It protects our body from infections such as colds and flu and also helps us get better faster when we have these infections. That is why a lot of people drink orange juice and take vitamin C tablets every day. This wonderful vitamin is also good for our hearts. It protects the linings of the arteries, which are the blood vessels that carry oxygenated blood. In other words, it offers protection against heart disease.
If we do not get enough vitamin C, which means we are not eating enough food that contains this vitamin, it can lead to serious diseases. Lack of vitamin C can lead to scurvy, which causes swollen gums, cheeks, fingers, hands, toes, and feet. In serious conditions, it can lead to bleeding from wounds, loss of teeth, and opening up of wounds. Therefore, make sure you have enough vitamin C in your diet.
- B. Write a six-sentence summary of the paragraph, referring to How to Write a Summary and Checklist 15.1: For a One-Paragraph Summary of a Short Article.
- C. Collaboration: Share with a peer and compare your answers.
Exercise taken from “English Language Form 3 Composition—Summary Writing.” Penerbitan Pelangi, reprinted by Scribd.com. www.scribd.com/doc/98238709/Form-Three-Summary-Writing-Exercise. Accessed 8 Aug. 2023.
Practice 15.3
- A. Choose any article that you have been assigned to read for one of your courses. Write a one-paragraph summary of the article, following Ten Steps to Writing an Effective Summary.
- B. Use Checklist 15.1 to check your summary, and revise the summary if necessary.
- C. Collaboration: Share with a peer and compare your answers.
Key Takeaways
- • Summaries have many purposes in post-secondary courses and research.
- • A summary should objectively and concisely convey the thesis and main ideas of a text, omitting details, examples, and statistics that are not essential.
- • A summary should be primarily written in your own words, but you may need to use some keywords from the text to effectively convey the author’s ideas.
- • It’s essential to paraphrase effectively so that you don’t accidentally plagiarize.
- • Paraphrasing effectively includes using your own sentence structure.
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