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How to Write a Summary
Last Updated: July 26, 2024 Approved
Reviewing the Piece
Writing the summary in your own words, revising your draft into a coherent summary, sample summaries, expert q&a.
This article was co-authored by Richard Perkins . Richard Perkins is a Writing Coach, Academic English Coordinator, and the Founder of PLC Learning Center. With over 24 years of education experience, he gives teachers tools to teach writing to students and works with elementary to university level students to become proficient, confident writers. Richard is a fellow at the National Writing Project. As a teacher leader and consultant at California State University Long Beach's Global Education Project, Mr. Perkins creates and presents teacher workshops that integrate the U.N.'s 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the K-12 curriculum. He holds a BA in Communications and TV from The University of Southern California and an MEd from California State University Dominguez Hills. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article received 26 testimonials and 85% of readers who voted found it helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 1,841,054 times.
Writing a summary is a great way to process the information you read, whether it’s an article or a book. If you’re assigned a summary in school, the best way to approach it is by reviewing the piece you’re summarizing. Read it thoroughly and take notes on the major points you want to include in your summary. When you get to writing your summary, rely on your memory first to make sure the summary is in your own words. Then, revise it to ensure that your writing is clear and the grammar, punctuation, and spelling are all perfect.
How do you write a good summary?
Start by reviewing the piece and identifying what the major points of it are. Highlight the author and the name of their work first, and then try to recall all of the major plot points from memory. Tighten up your draft by ensuring that your content is in chronological order, and by checking for errors or repetition.
- The author might also state their thesis more plainly by saying something like "my argument is...." or I believe...
- In a fiction piece, the author will more likely emphasize themes. So if you notice that love - discussions or descriptions of it, for example - come up a lot, one of the main points of the piece is probably love.
- To put something in your own words, write it down as if you were explaining or describing it to a friend. In that case, you wouldn't just read what the author wrote. Do the same when you're writing down the major points in your own words.
- For fiction pieces, this means avoiding rewriting every single thing that happens in the piece. Focus instead on the major plot points and the main motivator for those points. Don't include everything that happens to the character along the way.
- For example, you can start with something like “George Shaw’s '‘Pygmalion’' is a play that addresses issues of class and culture in early twentieth-century England.”
- If you absolutely must use the original author’s words, put them in quotation marks. This tells your reader those words aren’t yours. Not doing this is academic plagiarism, and it can get you in a lot of trouble.
- Make sure you format the quote correctly!
- For example, you might think that Hamlet spends a lot of time thinking and not a lot of time acting. You can say something like, "Hamlet is a man of thought, rather than action," instead of saying, "Why doesn't Hamlet do something once in a while?"
- In fiction pieces, you can say something like "Shakespeare's Hamlet then spends a lot of time brooding on the castle ramparts." This tells your reader you're talking about Shakespeare's play, not inventing your own story.
- For example, in a summary of an article about the cause of the American Revolution, you might have a paragraph that summarizes the author's arguments about taxes, and another about religious freedom. You can say something like, "Although some colonists believed that taxes should entitle them to representation in Parliament, the author also argues that other colonists supported the Revolution because they believed they were entitled to representation in heaven on their own terms."
- Don't use spell-checker for spelling errors. It will catch if you spell something wrong, but not if you use the wrong spelling of a word. For example, it won't catch that you used "there" when you meant "their."
- Generally, a summary should be around one quarter the length of the original piece. So if the original piece is 4 pages long, your summary should be no more than 1 page. [13] X Research source
- Not only should they be comparing your work for accuracy, ask them to read it for flow and summation. They should be able understand what happened in the article or story by reading your summary alone. Don't hesitate to ask for criticism; then weigh those criticisms and make valid changes.
- If you notice an author has made the same point multiple times, though, it’s a good indicator that this is an important point, and it should definitely be in your summary. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Tips from our Readers
- Start your summary out with where the story takes place, or something that is on the first page or in the first chapter.
- Look at the chapter title of the book.This might help summarize the chapter as you start working on your summary.
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- ↑ http://teacher.scholastic.com/reading/bestpractices/comprehension/authorsmainidea.pdf
- ↑ Richard Perkins. Writing Coach. Expert Interview. 1 September 2021.
- ↑ http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310/summaryhints.htm
- ↑ https://public.wsu.edu/~mejia/Summary.htm
- ↑ http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/invention/Guidelines-for-Writing-a-Summary
About This Article
Before you write a summary, read the piece you’re summarizing, then make notes on what you think the main point and major supporting arguments are. When you’re ready to draft your summary, start with the author and title, then use your own words to write what you think the author’s main point is in each section. Be sure to focus on what the author thinks and feels rather than what you do! Finally, reread your summary and check it for good spelling, punctuation, and grammar. For more suggestions from our reviewer about polishing your summary and improving transitions, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No
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