Summary Skills DLA

Chaffey College Writing Center presents…

Why summarize?

Reading

Comprehension

The best way to understand any text is to condense it

into its main points.

Before you can summarize, you must understand the

information that you are condensing.

Research

Paper

Summarizing is important when you need to

condense ideas from sources (e.g., books, articles,

websites) for a research paper.

Summary & Analysis

Summary and analysis assignments require you to

express and analyze the main ideas of a text.

Summary

A condensed version of text that only includes the main ideas.

It may consist of

a single word

a single phrase

several sentences

and/or

several paragraphs

Summaries

Should be written in your own words

Should match the tone of the original text

Should not include any of your opinions

Should make specific reference to the author and/or title and the page(s) of the text

Weak SummaryOriginal Text

One of the first problems I had to confront in junior high school was my ethnic background. Redlands is in southern California and had a large Mexican population, consisting mainly of immigrants and illegal aliens who came up from Mexico to pick fruit. At school they banded together, speaking Spanish – the girls with mountains of black hair, fizzed from sleeping all night long on masses of pin curls, wearing gobs of violet lipstick, tight skirts and nylons, and blouses with the collars turned up in back. The boys were pachucos, tough guys, who slicked back their gorgeous hair with Three Roses Vaseline tonic and wore their pegged pants so low on the hip that walking without losing them had become an art. Few Mexicans were interested in school and they were ostracized by the whites. So there I was, with a Mexican name, skin, and hair: the Anglos couldn’t accept me because of all three, and Mexicans couldn’t accept me because I didn’t speak Spanish.

-Joan Baez, And a Voice to Sing With

Weak Summary

In Redlands, CA, Joan Baez attended a junior high with Spanish speaking girls, who wore violet lipstick, and Spanish speaking boys, who were pachucos, neither of whom accepted her (201).

Explanation

The details in this summary are too specific and do not relate to the author’s main idea.

Excerpt from lnlandia

One of the first problems I had to confront in junior high school was my ethnic background. Redlands is in southern California and had a large Mexican population, consisting mainly of immigrants and illegal aliens who came up from Mexico to pick fruit. At school they banded together, speaking Spanish – the girls with mountains of black hair, fizzed from sleeping all night long on masses of pin curls, wearing gobs of violet lipstick, tight skirts and nylons, and blouses with the collars turned up in back. The boys were pachucos, tough guys, who slicked back their gorgeous hair with Three Roses Vaseline tonic and wore their pegged pants so low on the hip that walking without losing them had become an art. Few Mexicans were interested in school and they were ostracized by the whites. So there I was, with a Mexican name, skin, and hair: the Anglos couldn’t accept me because of all three, and Mexicans couldn’t accept me because I didn’t speak Spanish.

-Joan Baez, And a Voice to Sing With

This summary states the author’s main idea without including any specific details.

Original Text

Strong Summary

In junior high school, Joan Baez felt unaccepted by her Mexican classmates because she did not speak Spanish and unaccepted by her Caucasian classmates because she was Mexican (201).

Explanation

Strong SummaryExcerpt from lnlandia

Steps to Summarizing

Preview

Subtitle

Other Items

First and last several paragraphs

A title usually condenses the main idea of the article.

The subtitle, caption, or any other words in large print under or next to the title may highlight important ideas

.

The first and last several paragraphs often introduce and conclude the author’s argument or main point

Bold-faced words, pictures, charts, or diagrams can “illustrate” main ideas.

Before you read the text…

Title

Headings and SubheadingsHeadings and subheadings break down the article into sections that relate to the author’s main idea.

ReadRead once through

without stopping.

Do not focus on the

details during your

first reading.

Just try to

understand the main

idea.

Evaluate

Carefully read the text a second time.

Use the surrounding context to

understand words that are unfamiliar. Or

use a dictionary!

Look for definitions, examples, lists,

tables, and graphs, which indicate key

terms.

Underline important ideas.

Circle key terms.

Note the main idea of each paragraph.

Find the author’s main point or

argument of the whole entire text.

Organize

1. Start the summary with the title and author of the work.

2. Write the author’s main point or argument in your own words.

3. Write the remaining important ideas in your own words.

• Do not include examples, statistics, specific details, and quotations, if possible.

4. Write the article’s conclusion in your own words.

5. Organize the summary similar to the original text’s organization.

Check List

Make sure that the summary is no more than 20% of the original.

Do not use technical words from the original; use your own words as much as possible.

Do not include too many details from the original.

Do not plagiarize.

• Cite author and page numbers

Proofread.

Meet with a tutor at the Writing Center to receive feedback on your summary.

CreditsThis PowerPoint Presentation is adapted from the following:

Baez, Joan. Excerpt from And a Voice to Sing With. Inlandia. Ed. Gayle Wattawa.

Berkely: Heyday, 2006. 201-04.

Drucker, Phil. “How to Summarize.” Advanced Technical Writing. 2006. University

of Idaho. 4 Mar. 2008 <http://www.class.uidaho.edu/adv_tech_wrt/resources/

general/how_to_summarize.htm>.

Folwer, H. Ramsey and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown Handbook. 10th ed. New

York: Pearson Longman, 2007.

Langan, John. College Writing Skills. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008.

Wehmeyer, David. “Summary Writing.” Wisconsin Online Resource Center. 2007. 4

Mar. 2008 <http://www.wisc-online.com/objects/index_tj.asp?objID=TRG2603>.