How to Write an Effective Summary of Lauren Shields' “My Year of Modesty”

Step 1: Read

Scenario 

You are working for a company that is developing a new social media product that aims to help people with their overall well-being. Your supervising director heard of Shields’s article, but she doesn’t have time to read it. To save her time, she asks you to read the article, summarize the most important points in one paragraph, and have it on her desk as soon as possible.

Since you are summarizing for your director, you know that you should use appropriate language when writing and format your paragraph professionally. Remembering what you learned back in college (in COM101) about writing an effective summary, you should do the following:

· list the title, author (first and last name), and year in the first sentence

· identify Shields’s key points

· be concise (5-8 sentences in length)

· be objective and formal

· use your own words (no direct quotations or slight changes with a thesaurus)

· leave out unnecessary details and examples

· leave out your own comments, opinions, or evaluations of the article

· provide a concluding sentence

Instructions

Step 1: Read

Read “My Year of Modesty” by Lauren Shields.

Step 2: Think 

Consider what your director needs to know. What are Shields’s important points? List a few key points Shields makes in her article.

Step 3: Write 

Type one short paragraph (5-8 sentences) that summarizes the key points from Shields’s article. Remember to include the points that are the most important ones for your director to know. Don’t forget to include a concluding sentence to nicely wrap up your summary paragraph.

Step 4: Format 

Format your writing in APA style and add a reference at the end of your document. Please refer to the online Seneca APA Guide to ensure your formatting is correct. The references page should identify only the article summarized (“My Year of Modesty”) in APA style.