A summary is a synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of writing, restated in your own words – i.e., paraphrased. You may write a summary as a stand-alone assignment or as part of a longer paper. Whenever you summarize, you must be careful not to copy the exact wording of the original source.
How to Create a Good Summary
A good summary:
- Identifies the writer of the original text.
- Synthesizes the writer’s key ideas.
- Presents the information neutrally.
Summaries can vary in length. Follow the directions given by your instructor for how long the summary should be.
Guideline in Summarizing
- Write in the present tense.
- Make sure to include the author, the year, and title of the work.
For Example:
- In Pixar’s 2003 movie, Finding Nemo…
- In Stephen Kings horror book The Shining (1977),…
- In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death (1890),”
- Be consice: a summary should not be equal in length to the original text; it should be about 1/10 as long.
- Include 2-3 main points of the text or work.
- Include the conclusion of the final finding of the work.
- Avoid using quotations. A summary is not a paraphrase or a direct quote. If you must use the author’s key words or phrases, always enclose them in quotation marks and cite.
- Don’t put your own opinions, ideas, or interpretations into the summary. The purpose of writing a summary is to accurately represent what the author wanted to say, not to provide a critique.
Example of Summarizing
Original Text:
“…there are two ways to become wealthy: to create wealth or to take wealth away from others. The former adds to society. The latter typically subtracts from it, for in the process of taking it away, wealth gets destroyed. A monopolist who overcharges for his product takes away money from those whom he is overcharging and at the same time destroys value. To get his monopoly price, he has to restrict production.”
– Stiglitz, J.E. (2013). The price of inequality. London: Penguin.
Summary:
Stiglitz (2013) suggests that creating wealth adds value to society, but that taking away the wealth of others detracts from it. He uses the example of a monopolist who overcharges for his product resulting in loss of wealth for the customer, but also loss of value as the monopolist has to restrict production in order to charge the higher price.
References:
Massachussetts Institute of Technology Summarizing. July 3,2018 Retrieved from:
- https://integrity.mit.edu/handbook/academic-writing/summarizing
- https://awc.ashford.edu/cd-guidelines-for-summarizing.html
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