Summary Writing
Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
Quoting: including another person's exact words within your own writing.
Paraphrasing: restating in your own words what another person has said/written. Paraphrasing is usually reserved for short stretches of a passage, one or two sentences that you paraphrase in one or two sentences. The original's same order of ideas is followed. It is the most reliable way of making sense of a difficult passage. Paraphrases should be cited.
Summarizing: condensing a passage or text into a relatively brief presentation of the main ideas. It should make sense as an independent, coherent piece of writing. Unlike a paraphrase, a summary does not try to include everything or order ideas exactly as in the original.
Types of Summaries
1. Descriptive. No critical comments added by the writer of the summary. It is a non-judgmental description of a piece of research. Formal abstracts required by APA journals are descriptive.
2. Critical. Allows for critical comments on the content. Comments can also address the intent and style of the work. It is usually considered good form to begin with a descriptive summary and then end with critical comments. This is called the refutation model: 1) objectively and accurately outline an opposing case, 2) list which item you wish to attack (or commend), and then refute those items you disagree with counter support or explanation for the author's faulty reasoning (or give some credible support or reason for your commendation). The Abstract must never be critical.
Basic Questions for Summaries of Empirical Studies
1. What question (or hypothesis) is posed by the research? What does the research hope to reveal about the subject?
Note: Sometimes the abstract begins with a brief statement of why the question (or hypothesis) is important.
2. What is the method of data collection and analysis? This includes specifying the human subject that were studied. Who are they? How were they selected?
3. What are the findings? What was uncovered by the data collection and analysis?
4. What conclusion(s) was drawn from the findings? What generalizations were made?
Pointers for Writing a Summary of Non-Empirical Research Articles
Read the article carefully. Determine its structure. Identify the author's purpose in writing. (This will help you to distinguish between more important and less important information.)
Reread. This time divide the passage into sections or stages of thought. The author's use of paragraphing or subheadings will often be a useful guide. Label, on the article itself, each section or stage of thought. Underline key ideas and terms.
Write one-sentence summaries, on a separate sheet of paper, of each stage of thought.
Gimmick: List all the subheadings on a separate sheet of paper. What ordering of information does the list suggest: 1) chronological? 2) spatial? 3) logical? Logical ordering will frequently fall into one of two sequences--least important to most important or most remote to most recent. Determining the ordering sometimes gives you a template for your summary.
Write a thesis. a one sentence distillation of the article's point (claim). The thesis should express the central idea of the article, as you have determined it from the preceding steps. You may find it useful to keep in mind the information contained in the lead sentence or paragraph of most newspaper stories the what, who, why, where, when, and how of the matter. For persuasive pieces, summarize in a sentence the author's conclusion. For descriptive pieces, indicate the subject of the description and its key feature(s). Note. in some cases a suitable thesis may already be in the original article. If so, you may want to quote it directly in your summary.
Write the first draft of your summary by 1) combining the thesis with your list of one sentence summaries or 2) combining the thesis with one sentence summaries plus significant details from the article. In either case, eliminate repetition. Eliminate less important information. Disregard minor details, or generalize them (e.g., Reagan, Bush and Clinton might be generalized as "recent presidents"). Use as few words as possible to convey the main ideas.
Check your summary against the original article, and make whatever adjustments are necessary for accuracy and completeness.
Revise your summary, inserting transitional words and phrases where necessary to ensure coherence. Check for style. Avoid a series of short, choppy sentences. Combine sentences for a smooth, logical flow of ideas. Check for grammatical correctness, punctuation, and spelling.
This section is from Behrens & Rosen's Writing & Reading Across the Curriculum, p.5
Special Purpose of an Abstract
For empirical studies, an abstract is a narrow set of answers to those special summary questions in the order indicated. For all articles, researchers make their initial judgment on the relevance of a piece of scholarship based on a quick reading of its abstract. It must therefore be brief and unambiguous.
General Rules and Observations about Summary Style
1. Economy of phrasing at all times.
Too Repetitious and choppy:
maintains
Example Abstract for an Exploratory (Empirical) Study
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Although previous research in ESL composition has suggested a link between writing in a first and second language, few studies have investigated such a relationship in revising processes. Therefore, this exploratory study examines revisions in controlled L1 and L2 writing tasks. Four advanced ESL writers with differing first language backgrounds wrote two argumentative essays in their native languages and two in English. Revisions were then analyzed using a modified taxonomy developed by Bridwell (1980). The results, for the most part, indicated similarities across languages. However, some differences were noted in editing strategies, suggesting that while proficient writers are capable of transferring their revision processes across languages, they are also capable of adapting some of those processes to new problems imposed by a second language.
Source for Abstract:
Hall, C. (1990). Managing the complexity of revising across languages. TESOL
Quarterly, 24, 43-60.
Example Objective Summary for an Academic Criticisms
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According to Hamil (1981), no proposal for a standard language is likely to succeed in the future. The almost 2800 languages spoken in the world have been a major source of confusion and conflict throughout history. To solve this problem, some critics have proposed that the entire world use a single language, either an existing language or an artificially created one. However, not everyone who has studied the problem agrees that standardization is desirable or even feasible. In any event, a unifying world language is only a remote possibility because nations continue to use language to dominate other nations.
Source for summary:
Ralph Hamil's "One World, One Language" from The Futurist, June 1981.
1.
2. Put your (a) name, (b) the course number, and (c) the date the paper is submitted in the upper left corner flush with the left margin.
3. Double space between the date and your title.
4. Triple space between your title and the body of the work. (This is my
personal preference so the title is not confused with the body of the text.)
5. Center the title between the left and right margins
6. Follow APA formatting restrictions for margin size, line spacing and page header.
Note: This should be a one-page manuscript. Number it as page one (with your last name as the page header). The page header and page number should be approximately 1/2 inch from the top of the page and flush with the right
margin with about five spaces between the page header and the page number. Your name is approximately one inch from the top of the paper.
Glot 1
Poly Glot
English 700
January 20, 1999
My purpose in having you write this descriptive summary is to give you some practice with the more difficult style features associated with writing about human research. Here are my grading criteria:
1. Success in employing an economy of wording and in striking a compromise between your style of writing and this notion of economy of wording.
2. Attention to tense/style concerns when reporting research
3. Adherence to APA format requirements described in class and outlined in your
manual.
