what to include in a summary of a story

How to Write a Summary | 5 Steps & Real Examples

Published on November 23, 2020 by Shona McCombes.

Summarizing means giving a curtailed overview of a text's main points in your own words. A summary is ever much shorter than the original text.

Writing a summary does non involve critiquing or analyzing the source—yous should only provide a clear, objective, accurate account of the most important information and ideas, without copying whatever text from the original and without missing any of the primal points.

When to summarize

In that location are many situations in which y'all might have to summarize an article or other source:

• As a stand up-alone assignment to testify y'all've understood the material.
• To keep notes that will help y'all retrieve what you've read.
• To give an overview of other researchers' work in a literature review.

When you're writing an bookish text like an essay, enquiry paper, or dissertation, yous'll engage with other researchers' work in a multifariousness of ways. Sometimes you might use a brief quote to support your betoken; sometimes you might paraphrase a few sentences or paragraphs.

But information technology'south often appropriate to summarize a whole article or chapter if it is especially relevant to your ain research, or to provide an overview of a source before you analyze or critique information technology.

In whatever example, the goal of summarizing is to give your reader a clear understanding of the original source. Follow the 4 steps outline beneath to write a good summary.

Step 1: Read the text

You should read the article more than one time to make certain you lot've thoroughly understood it. It'due south oft constructive to read in 3 stages:

1. Scan the article rapidly to get a sense of its topic and overall shape.
2. Read the article advisedly, highlighting important points and taking notes as you read.
3. Skim the commodity once more to confirm you've understood the key points, and re-read whatsoever particularly of import or difficult passages.

There are some easy tricks y'all can apply to identify the key points as you read:

• Offset by reading the abstruse—this already contains the author's own summary of their piece of work, and it tells you what to expect from the article.
• Pay attention to headings and subheadings—these should requite you lot a skillful sense of what each part is about.
• Read the introduction and the determination together and compare them: what did the author set out to do, and what was the outcome?

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Step two: Interruption the text down into sections

To make the text more manageable and understand its sub-points, intermission it down into smaller parts.

If the text is a scientific newspaper that follows a standard empirical structure, it is probably already organized into clearly marked sections, normally including an introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

Other types of articles may not be explicitly divided into sections. Only about manufactures and essays volition be structured around a series of sub-points or themes.

Try writing a word or phrase in the margin next to each paragraph that describes the paragraph'southward content. And so yous can see at a glance what each office of the article focuses on. If several paragraphs cover like or related topics, you may group them together in sections.

Stride three: Place the key points in each department

At present it's time become through each function and pick out its most of import points. What does your reader need to know to empathize the overall argument or conclusion of the article?

Go along in mind that a summary does not involve paraphrasing every single paragraph of the commodity. Your goal is to excerpt the essential points, leaving out anything that tin can be considered groundwork information or supplementary item.

In a scientific article, there are some easy questions you tin ask to identify the fundamental points in each part:

Introduction	What research question or problem was addressed? Are there any hypotheses formulated?
Methods	What type of research was done? How was data collected and analyzed?
Results	What were the virtually of import findings? Were the hypotheses supported?
Discussion/determination	What is the overall respond to the research question? How does the writer explain these results? What are the implications of the results? Are at that place whatever important limitations? Are there whatever fundamental recommendations?

If the article takes a different form, you lot might have to call up more carefully virtually what points are well-nigh important for the reader to understand its argument.

In this instance, pay particular attending to the thesis statement—the central claim that the author wants us to accept, which usually appears in the introduction—and the topic sentences that point the principal idea of each paragraph.

Step 4: Write the summary

Now that you know the key points that the article aims to communicate, you need to put them in your own words.

To avoid plagiarism and show you've understood the commodity, it's essential to properly paraphrase the author's ideas. Do non copy and paste parts of the article, non even but a sentence or two.

The best way to do this is to put the article aside and write out your own agreement of the author'due south primal points.

Let's take a await at an instance. Below, we summarize this article, which scientifically investigates the one-time maxim "an apple a day keeps the physician away."

Example of a full commodity summary

Davis et al. (2015) set out to empirically test the pop maxim "an apple tree a day keeps the doctor away." Apples are often used to represent a salubrious lifestyle, and research has shown their nutritional properties could be beneficial for diverse aspects of health. The authors' unique approach is to take the saying literally and enquire: do people who eat apples use healthcare services less frequently? If at that place is indeed such a human relationship, they suggest, promoting apple consumption could assist reduce healthcare costs.

The report used publicly bachelor cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants were categorized as either apple eaters or non-apple tree eaters based on their self-reported apple consumption in an average 24-hr period. They were also categorized as either avoiding or non fugitive the use of healthcare services in the past twelvemonth. The data was statistically analyzed to test whether there was an association betwixt apple tree consumption and several dependent variables: physician visits, hospital stays, utilize of mental health services, and use of prescription medication.

Although apple eaters were slightly more likely to accept avoided physician visits, this relationship was non statistically meaning subsequently adjusting for various relevant factors. No association was found between apple tree consumption and hospital stays or mental health service utilise. Nonetheless, apple eaters were found to be slightly more than probable to have avoided using prescription medication. Based on these results, the authors conclude that an apple a day does not keep the doc away, but information technology may keep the pharmacist abroad. They suggest that this finding could have implications for reducing healthcare costs, considering the high annual costs of prescription medication and the inexpensiveness of apples.

However, the authors also note several limitations of the study: most importantly, that apple eaters are likely to differ from non-apple eaters in ways that may take confounded the results (for example, apple eaters may exist more than likely to be health-witting). To plant any causal relationship between apple consumption and avoidance of medication, they recommend experimental enquiry.

An article summary similar the higher up would be appropriate for a stand-lone summary consignment. However, oft, you lot'll want to give an even more concise summary of an article.

For example, in a literature review or research paper, you may want to briefly summarize this report as part of a wider discussion of diverse sources. In this example, we can boil our summary down fifty-fifty further to include only the well-nigh relevant information.

Instance of a concise article summary

Using national survey data, Davis et al. (2015) tested the assertion that "an apple a day keeps the medico away" and did not find statistically significant bear witness in support of this hypothesis. While people who consumed apples were slightly less likely to use prescription medications, the written report was unable to demonstrate a causal relationship betwixt these variables.

When summarizing as office of a larger text, it'south essential to properly cite the source of the summary. The verbal format for citing depends on your commendation way, but it normally includes an in-text citation and a full reference at the stop of your newspaper.

You can easily create your citations and references in APA or MLA using our free Citation Generators.

APA Commendation Generator MLA Citation Generator

Pace 5: Check the summary against the article

Finally, read through the commodity again to ensure that:

• Y'all've accurately represented the author'southward piece of work
• You haven't missed any essential information
• The phrasing is non too like to whatever sentences in the original.

If you lot're summarizing lots of articles as part of your own work, it's often a good idea to utilize a plagiarism checker to double-check that your text is completely original and properly cited. Just be sure to utilise one that'south rubber and reliable.

Plagiarism Checker comparing

Frequently asked questions about summarizing

What is a summary?

A summary is a short overview of the main points of an article or other source, written entirely in your own words.

How long is a summary?

A summary is always much shorter than the original text. The length of a summary tin can range from merely a few sentences to several paragraphs; it depends on the length of the commodity you're summarizing, and on the purpose of the summary.

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