Summary Writing

The most frequent and most important use of summary, of course, is to refer to another writer's work. A summary, then, is a brief statement of the essential and the original thought of a longer composition or essay.

Summary has the advantage over paraphrase in that it allows the writer to pick out and fo­cus on only those aspects of the original that are most relevant to the new points being made. The flexibility of wording in a summary also allows the writer to fit in smoothly with his or her original, ongoing statements. But, it is Important to re­member that, when incorporating a summary, you should summarize only as much of the original text as is necessary to advance your own argument; do not let the summary carry any elements that are not included in the original text. Therefore, you should not put in the summary your own feelings and emo­tions.

By summary, we mean a brief restatement, in your own words, of the content of a passage. This restatement should focus on the passage's central idea. It should indicate all the main points in the passage that support this central idea and the relationships between them, including their order and their emphasis. In the case of longer pieces, it should also include a very few important illustrations or examples from the passage. And it should indicate the slant, bias, and possibly even the tone of the piece, if these are important. But the summary should not contain any of your own ideas, opinions, or conclusions.

When you fail to pick up the meaning and the implications of a sentence or two, there's no real harm done. Rather, it is over the longer stretches of reading - the paragraph, the section, the article, or the chapter - that inattentive or haphazard reading creates problems. Over these longer stretches, you have to try not only to catch every word, but also to perceive the shape of the argument.

You have to grasp the central idea, to distinguish the main points that comprise it, to relate the parts to the whole, and to note key examples. This kind of reading, of course, takes a lot more energy and determination than casual reading. But in the long run, it's an energy-saving method because it enables you to retain the content of the material and to use that content as a basis for your own responses. In other words, it allows you to develop an accurate and coherent written commentary that goes beyond a summary.

Writing summaries is an excellent way of encouraging the essential habit of close, accurate, thoughtful reading. It is also an excellent way of encouraging your writing habits in general, since a good summary exhibits almost all of the qualities of any other piece of good writing: unity, clarity, coherence, accuracy, tightness, stylistic maturity, and of course grammatical correctness.

How long should a summary be? This depends both on the length of the original passage and on the purpose of the summary. But a good rule of thumb is that a summary should be no longer than one-quarter the length of the original passage. Of course, if you were summarizing an entire chapter or even an entire book, it would have to be much shorter than that. This particular summary is about a third of the length of the original passage; and while it should not be longer, it could very well be shorter.

To make our points clear, we'd introduce some of the rules governing the writing of précis and summary together with some sample summary writings. It is hoped that students will study the sample summary and compare it with the original text from which the summary results.

Qualities of a Summary

The qualities of a summary are as follows:

Objectivity: No idea that is not the author's should be included in the summary, and no opinion of the summary writer should be in the summary. No judgements are permitted in a summary.

Completeness: Depending on the assignment, the summary should contain every main idea in the article. Stating only the first main idea or only one main idea and details to support it will not give the reader a complete idea of what the article was about.

Balance: Giving equal attention to each main idea and stressing ideas that the author stresses will result in an accurate summary.

After finishing writing a summary, how do you judge or check it? Questions to judge a valid summary are as follows:

1) Did I include all the important ideas?

2) Did I omit all unnecessary words and phrases?

3) Does the summary read smoothly ?

4) Would a reader of my summary who had not read the article get a clear idea of the article?

How to Write Summaries

You should bear in mind the following requirements: your summary should not be longer than a third of the original passage; it should be faithful to the original, with no change in facts or views, and no important points left out; and it should be written in continuous prose, not in the form of an outline. Here is a five-step process for writing summaries:

1. Read the article carefully, try to understand it accurately and look for main ideas.

2. Write a list of points in note form while reading the passage or the article.

3. Connect your points to write a rough draft of the summary in your own words. Refer to the passage or the article only when you want to make sure of some points. Do not count the number of words until you have finished your rough draft.

4. Revise the rough draft, inserting transitional words and phrases where necessary to ensure coherence.

5. Write a fair copy of the summary within the word limit after checking for grammatical corrections, punctuation and spelling.

Sample 1

At noon, just as I was leaving my friend's office, it suddenly struck me that I had no idea where I had parked my car I could hardly go up to a policeman and tell him that I had lost a small green car somewhere. I would simply have to look for it myself. Walking down street after street, I examined each car closely and was greatly relieved to see a small green car just behind an old cart. But how disappointed I was to discover that though the car was exactly like my own, it belonged to someone else. Feeling quite tired now, I gave up the search and went off for lunch. Some time later I left the restaurant and walked idly down the street. Turning the corner I nearly jumped for joy: my car was right in front of me - and there was no mistaking it this time. I could not help smiling as I drew near Pasted on the wind-screen was a little ticket which informed me that the car had been visited by a policeman in my absence. To add to it all, I was now guilty of a parking offense. (196 words)

Making a list of main points:

1. Could not remember

2. Walked down street after street

3. Examined each car

4. Saw small green one

5. Same - but someone else's

6. Gave up search

7. Went for lunch

8. Left restaurant

9.Turned corner - found car

10. Saw ticket - windscreen – police

Writing a rough draft

Because the writer could not remember where he had left his car, he walked down street after street looking carefully at all the parked cars. At last, he saw a small green one which was just the same as his but which belonged to someone else. He now gave up the search and went to a restaurant for lunch. He left the restaurant some time later and walked down the street. When he turned the corner he suddenly found his car As he went closer he noticed that there was a police ticket on the wind-screen. (96 words)

Making a fair copy:

Unable to remember where he had parked the car the writer went down street after street looking carefully at each car At last, he saw a small green one which looked like his own but belonged to someone else. He now gave up the search and went for lunch. On leaving the restaurant some time later he walked down the street and suddenly found his car just around the comer As he drew near; he noticed a police ticket on the wind-screen.