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Summarizing

The document discusses summarizing written works. It states that a summary accurately describes the main point and important details of the original piece in a shorter form, allowing someone who did not read it to understand what it is about. To write a good summary, one must fully understand the original work by reading it multiple times and relating the thesis and important supporting points while being significantly shorter than the original. Summaries should be about one quarter to one third the length of the original piece. The document provides tips for writing summaries, such as using the author's full name and present tense, including direct quotes or paraphrases to support claims, and formatting titles correctly.

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Maria Emilia del Castillo
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406 views1 page

Summarizing

The document discusses summarizing written works. It states that a summary accurately describes the main point and important details of the original piece in a shorter form, allowing someone who did not read it to understand what it is about. To write a good summary, one must fully understand the original work by reading it multiple times and relating the thesis and important supporting points while being significantly shorter than the original. Summaries should be about one quarter to one third the length of the original piece. The document provides tips for writing summaries, such as using the author's full name and present tense, including direct quotes or paraphrases to support claims, and formatting titles correctly.

Uploaded by

Maria Emilia del Castillo
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SUMMARIZING

A common writing assignment in a variety of college courses is the summary of a


particular essay or journal article. The purpose of a summary is to accurately describe
the main point and the important details of the piece. In short, you are describing what
the essay (or other piece of literature) is about to someone who has not read it.

While summary writing is generally fairly short, it is not easy. A good summary
incorporates all of the important aspects of a particular essay so that a reader who has
not read the original work can understand what it is about. Thus, the most important
element of a good summary is the ability to accurately depict what is in the original
article.

In order to do so, you must be familiar with the work you are summarizing. A good
summary begins by reading the piece many times in order to gain a full understanding of
it. Once the work is fully understood, it is important to relate the thesis and the
important points that support it.

Summaries should be fairly short and significantly shorter than the work itself. If your
summary is close to the overall length of the work, chances are you are simply
paraphrasing the majority of the work rather than summarizing. If the summary is too
short, then you probably missed some important points. Generally, the length of a
summary should be about one quarter to one third of the total length of the article that is
being summarized. For example, if the essay you are summarizing is three pages, the
summary should be roughly three-quarters to one full page).

Tips for Summarizing


Read the essay as many times as necessary to gain a full understanding of it.

Do not interject your personal opinion into any summary. No first person ("I"
statements) are allowed (save these for the response portion, if there is one).

Always name the author (full name) and the article or essay title in the
introductory paragraph, usually in the first or second sentence.

After introducing the author with the full name, refer to the author by last name
throughout the rest of summary.

Always use present tense to discuss the essay and facts from the essay.

Use direct quotes from the text or paraphrase examples to support your claims.
Paraphrasing should be done more than quoting, which should be kept to a
minimum. Quoting should only be used with unique language that is hard to
paraphrase.

When talking about an essay or article, always capitalize the title and place it in
quotation marks. Do not use italics. Italics should only be used when referring to
longer works, such as books or movies. Example: "Just a Smile and a Handshake."
Not "Just a Smile and a Handshake."

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