Lesson 1: Critical Reading and Summary Writing—Foundations for Course Success
Guidelines for Writing a Summary
The following guidelines are intended to help you get started with your own written summary. They are adapted from Behrens and Rosen, Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum 9th Edition.
- Read the article carefully.
- Determine the author’s purpose. What is she trying to accomplish?
- Describe the overall structure or method of development and divide the article into stages of thought. Label what the author is doing in each stage. For example, is she introducing the topic? Sharing a personal experience? Presenting evidence?
- Write a one-sentence summary of each main point Yuh Ji-Yeon makes.
- Write a one-sentence summary of the entire article. Your sentence should offer an overview of the content and purpose of the article. This sentence will serve as your thesis. Warning: this is tough to do well!
- Write the first draft of your summary by combining your one-sentence summary of the entire article with your summaries of each main point.
- Check your summary against the original article. Have you included all the main points and key supporting examples or evidence? Have you described the structure of the article sufficiently so that a reader has a sense of how the article develops? Have you left anything out?
- You may feel you are ready to seek input from a reader. Give your reader a copy of your draft. Emphasize that you want feedback especially on any aspect of your summary which is confusing or unclear. Ask if he or she has an understanding of the content of the article from what you have written. What questions does your summary raise for the reader about the article? Do your reader’s questions suggest a need for more information?
- Revise your summary. This may involve adding main points you forgot. It may involve rewriting to eliminate wordiness or repetition. It may mean cutting minor details. You may need to insert transitional words and phrases to ensure that your summary is coherent. Will you need to add attribution tags and parenthetical documentation? Are the ideas presented in the same order as in the original article? You may find that you work through two or three versions before you have what you feel is a well-written summary that meets the criteria on the rating sheet.
- Proofread and edit your final version. Check for run-on, incomplete, or muddy sentences. Check for spelling. Are verb tenses consistent? Generally, when summarizing an article, use present tense verbs.
Steps eight and nine may be recursive—that is, you may have to repeat them more than once. Your reader may be willing to provide feedback on more than one draft.
Who should serve as your reader/ reviewer? The best readers are knowledgeable, objective, and honest. You want a reader who understands the level of writing expected in an advanced writing class in high school or college. You want someone who will tell you when what you are writing makes no sense. You want someone who will be focused and specific in their feedback. Someone who tells you “Your summary rocks!” (or “This really sucks!”) won’t be much help.
When your summary essay is complete and ready to submit, go to the lesson 1 assignment in the Assignments page and fill out the Summary Assignment Rating Guide. This self-assessment goes through the same guidelines and point system that your instructor will use to grade your essay. Completing this step before you submit your file will give you a chance to check your work and make any final revisions that your essay might need.
