Summary Writing: Explanation, Importance, and Strategies

What is a summary and why is it useful?

Explain what a summary is and why summary skills are useful
Develop your own summary preparation chart (outline)
Create an appropriate first sentence of a summary
Analyze a sample summary by following criteria in a checklist
Compare your summary with a sample summary using specific criteria

Have you ever seen the 1997 movie Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet? It’s a 3-hour movie about two people in 1912 finding romance on a gigantic ship, the Titanic, which tragically sinks in the ocean, causing many working class people to drown. Even if youNhaven’t seen the movie, maybe you have heard of the ship and what happened to it. Let’s pretend that your friend has never seen Titanic and knows nothing about the boat.

Maybe she doesn’t have 3 free hours to watch the movie, so she has asked you to tell her what happens. When you tell your friend about the movie, what will you focus on? How long will it take for you to tell your friend about the movie?  June 2017 2

For example, when telling your friend about the movie, you might say this: Will it take you 3 hours, about the length of the movie, to tell your friend about Titanic? No. Of course not. In fact, it will just take you a minute or two, and in this short time, you will focus on the following:
• What the movie is about
• Who the main characters are
• What happens to them

What you are doing is summarizing the story of the movie Titanic.
A summary is a short verbal or written explanation that focuses only on the main points of a longer article, chapter, film or book. It can be spoken or written.
How do we know it’s an appropriate summary of the movie Titanic?
• It is in your own words. You are not copying the words from the movie.
• You are telling what happens by focusing on the main events, not the details.
• Your summary is much, much shorter than the movie.
• Your ideas and opinions are not included.

Summary writing is quite common for college students. In fact, many college professors ask their students to complete summary assignments. Why do they want their students to summarize?
• Summarizing demonstrates your understanding about an article, chapter or book.

• Summarizing helps you avoid plagiarizing (direct copying) the original source

What is the benefit of summarizing?
Summarizing is a great study tool. If you can summarize something by focusing on the main points of the original, you can remember this information effectively on a test or exam.

How many words should an academic summary be?
Summaries are 20-25% the length of the original text, up to a maximum of 200 words.
Take a look at the summary of the following paragraph. Notice how six sentences can easily be summarized into one sentence by employing paraphrasing techniques.

Original passage:
When one hears the term “reality” applied to a television show, one might expect that the events occurred naturally or, at least, were not scripted, but this is the case only 50% of the time. Many reality shows, like “the Bachelor”, occur in unreal environments, like rented mansions occupied by film crews in Bali or Tahiti. These living environments do not reflect what most people understand to be “reality”. Worse, there have been accusation that events not captured on film were later re-staged by producers. Worse still, some involved in the production of “reality” television, like “Big Brother”, claim that 90% of participants were urged to act out story lines premeditated by producers. With such accusations floating around, it’s no wonder many people take reality TV to be about as real as the sitcom (Morton, 2011).

Outline (paraphrased):
Main idea: Reality television is not what it appears to be.
Support:

a) Shows are filmed in unrealistic locations.
b) Producers re-stage events that were not previously caught on film.
c) Most participants act out story lines that are pre-planned. Strategies used for summarizing? → Synonyms, reversed sentence structure, omitted numbers.