Summary
Definition: n. a comprehensive and usually brief abstract, recapitulation, or compendium of previously stated facts or statements.
Purpose: To condense a piece of writing. To show that you understand the important ideas in a text of any length or variety. To make the author’s purpose and methods clear to someone who has not read the piece.
How to Write a Summary
- Read the piece ACTIVELY, which means:
- Underline, highlight, make notes on the important information
- Look up unfamiliar words
- Reread if necessary to make sure you understand the content
- Write
Read and take notes on the Cannibal article–To take notes on the document rather than on paper, follow the instructions below:
- Highlight and copy the article. including the citation information at the bottom
- Open a blank document–Google Docs, Word, Pages, whatever
- Save the document as Cannibal article
- Paste the article into the document
- Use underlining, change of text color, and insertion of comments to note important info
See my notes and highlights here.
Rules to follow when writing a summary:
- Write in the present tense.
- Include the author, article title (in quotation marks), and source of article (in italics) in the first sentence
- Be concise–summary should be shorter than the original
- Include info in the order it appears in the original
- Use your own words
- Use “” around any of the author’s original words
- Leave out your opinions, ideas, interpretations
Format
First sentence: thesis– Author’s name, article’s name, source of article, action verb, main idea(s)
Wade C. Pendelton, in his World Book Advanced encyclopedia entry “Cannibal,” explains when, where and why different cultures practiced cannibalism.
Who: Wade C. Pendelton
What: Encyclopedia entry on cannibals, World Book Advanced
When:
Where:
Why:
How:
Example of a summary
Wade C. Pendelton, in his World Book Advanced encyclopedia entry “Cannibal,” explains when, where and why different cultures practiced cannibalism. Cannibals are people who eat human flesh and existed as many as 500,000 years ago in all parts of the world. They ate flesh for religious and traditional reasons and usually ate only the parts of the body they considered important. Some reasons they ate humans were to show respect to dead friends and family, to insult conquered enemies, and to gain qualities such as courage and wisdom.
Practice 1:
- In small groups (no more than 4) ACTIVELY read the first 4 paragraphs of this article. Stop at “Game Breaks.”
- Save it as you did the cannibal article so that you can easily highlight and take notes. Remember to include the author, title and source so that you can include it in your summary.
- Write a summary (one for the whole group)of no more than 50 words (“a,” “an,” “the,” do not count toward your word total)
- Type it after the copied and pasted article
- Be ready to share it with the class
Assignment:
- Copy and paste this essay into a new document
- Save your document as First Name Last Name period Summary. I, for example, would title mine thus: Eila Overcash period 1 summary)
- Read it ACTIVELY
- Write a concise summary of no more than 50 words (“a,” “an,” “the,” do not count toward your word total)–do this after the article in the same document
What I will be grading you on:
- quality of your highlights and notes on the article
- “Rules to follow when writing a summary” (see above)
- Content of topic sentence (see “Format” above)
- Overall content (see “Format” above)
- Conventions
Email your finished summary to me: [email protected]