When writing your summary, you should consider two stages to go through:
- WRITING of the first draft.
- REVISION of your work.
WRITING of the first draft
The recommendation any expert would give when you start writing is: “Put your text away and try to write your summary from your notes“.
Start your summary with an identification of the work. Clearly express the context information about the text you summarise: title, author, and the main theme.
For this first part of your summary you can use a frame of typical format.
The article/book “(Title of the article/book)” by (authors’ name) has been written-published-created in (year).
The book “Harry Potter the Philosopher Stone” by J. K. Rowling has been first published in 1997.
“(Title of the article/book)” by (authors’ name) is (information and comments on the article/book).
“Harry Potter the Philosopher Stone” by J. K. Rowling is the first novel from Harry Potters’ series, one in the most-in-demand among young readers.
(Authors’ name)’s article/book/play “(Title of the written material)” is a (considerations on the written material).
William Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet” is a famous tragedy and the most powerful love story ever told.
If you are summarising a text from the public domain or from a source not requiring copy right, it is mandatory to mention your source.
After the first paragraph, mention, as briefly as possible, the major aspects, facts or reasons presented or discussed in the text. Use reporting verbs to introduce the texts’ ideas. The reporting verb is generally in present tense and should be neutral.
state, report, explain, discuss, illustrate, observe
In the first draft, try to frame simple sentences. Then insert words, phrases or short sentences plying the role to logically link your already formulated sentences.
therefore, because, nevertheless, however, on the other hand, such as
Write using “summarising language.” Present the material in a neutral fashion. Your reader or listener needs to be reminded that this is not your own work. Use “reminder phrases” that remind readers or listeners of your role: you are the “summariser” not the author of the material presented.
Frames that are suitable when you summarise an article or a fictional work:
(authors’ last name) suggests (main idea)
According to (authors’ last name), (main idea)
(authors’ last name)’s article on (topic) discusses the (main idea)
(authors’ last name) in his/her work, argues that (main idea)
According to “(Title of the article)” (main idea) has a major impact on (topic)
In your summary use “cue phrases” to indicate the degree of importance of the ideas you selected from the original text.
Some words and phrases indicate centrality:
it is important to note that…, significantly, in conclusion…, etc.
Others phrases indicate ideas that should be scored lower:
for example, hardly, impossible, etc.
At this stage it is also essential to develop structured sections (paragraphs): divide your summary in well-defined parts (called sections or paragraphs).
Your first draft must be a complete overview of the text you want to summarise. Avoid including in your draft examples, anecdotes, and other redundant information from the text. Use discourse markers that reflect the organisation and controlling idea from the original, for example: classification, chronological order, cause-effect, comparison-contrast.
Conclude you summary with a final statement. This statement should reflect the meaning of the article/book/text from the author’s standpoint.
For scientific, non-fictional works, be careful not to include your own opinions.
REVISING the work
A first draft of a summary always requires improvements, so it is essential to revise it. Refer back to the original text to make sure your summary reflects fairly the authors’ ideas and his/her degree of certainty on the subject.
Your summary should clarify the original text, using your own words. During this stage it is recommended to check for logical arrangement of your summary.
It is also essential to adjust length of summary: it must be shorter than the original, but keep in mind that the length depends on the purpose of the summary. If the purpose of your summary is to give a general idea of what is in the original, the summary can be very short, less than 1 percent of the original. This is the case of descriptive summaries of books, plays, movies.
The other extreme is the summary which contains all the necessary information, so the user has no need to read the original e.g. executive summaries. For scientific, non-fictional works or for short literary writings, you can tailor your summary to one third of the original text.
The final revision of your work should include the following two steps.
First verify if you respected the “10 commands” of summarisation:
You included all major ideas in text.
You logically linked each section in your summary.
You were objective and wrote your summary at third person.
You avoided redundancy and repetition.
You limited the length of your summary.
You respected the rules of paraphrasing and quoting.
You did not reproduce literally sentences from original text.
You did not introduce your ideas or opinions in the summary.
You did not criticise the original source.
You did not “rewrite” the whole original text.
Then, assess your summary and verify if:
- the meaning is the same in your summary as it is in the original text
- you expressed the text’s ideas in your own words
- your summary is shorter than the original text
- the sources of information you used have been clearly referenced in your summary.
PARAPHRASING and QUOTING
Paraphrasing signifies restating an original wording in “parallel phrases“. It means to express in your own words the author’s wordings. You can paraphrase a word, a sentence, or a group of sentences, and even a short story, as a fairy tale or a fable.
Paraphrasing have similar features with summarising: in both cases you must use your own words to express or describe an author’s ideas.
A simple strategy can help you to develop paraphrasing sections in your summary:
- read carefully the fragment you want to paraphrase
- underline any subject-specific word and try to find substitutes for them
- try to express in a different way the information in groups of words
- put your text out of your sight and write from memory the ideas in text.
You will find below good example of paraphrasing a fable by Aesop, an Ancient Greek fabulist and storyteller.
The fable “The North Wind and the Sun” by Aesop
“The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that Traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.”
“So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the Traveller. But the harder he blew the tighter the Traveller wrapped his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.
Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the Traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.”
The story paraphrased in the a Wikipedia page
“The fable story concerns a competition between the North Wind and the Sun to decide which is the stronger of the two. The challenge was to make a passing Traveller remove his cloak. ”
“However hard the Wind blew, the Traveller only wrapped his cloak tighter to keep warm, but when the Sun shone, the Traveller was overcome with the heat and took his cloak off.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_North_Wind_and_the_Sun
Quoting (or quotation) means to use a particular word, phrase, sentence, or even fragment as it appears in the original text. When you quote from a text, you must to reproduce identically the original wording and to put it in double quotation marks. While paraphrasing is an effective way to describe the author’s ideas, quotation allows you to present the way those ideas are expressed by author of a text.
When you summarise a text, it can be challenging to express the original ideas using your own words, or to develop a very compacted restatement of them. In this case you can use quotation. It is also recommended to use quotation when it is necessary to convey to readers the author’s particular wording or specific language.
Keep in mind that a quotation should not stand by itself in a single sentence, especially if you are summarising a scientific, a non-fictional text, an article, etc.
Another important rule is to use quotation only if you have the acknowledgement of the source in your paper. European copy right regulations only permit you to quote only short fragments from a book or from a text that is not subject to copy right laws.
You will find below an example of quoting from classical authors, who wrote about the moral Aesop’s fable “The North Wind and the Sun”.
The fable “The North Wind and the Sun”
“The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveller coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that Traveller to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.”
“So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the Traveller. But the harder he blew the more closely did the Traveller wrapped his cloak around him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the Traveller, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.”
The fable moral
While modern authors consider that the fable moral could be: “Kindness effects more then severity“, antique author Avianus has a more political conclusion for this fable: “They cannot win who starts with threats“.
The classical French author La Fontaine, in his poem that retold the fable, concludes: “Gentleness does more than violence“, whilst the English writer Walter Crane interprets fable sense as: “True strength is not bluster“.
