Writing a Summary

What is a Summary?  Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s).  Summaries are significantly shorter than the original written piece (such as a text chapter) and take a broad overview of the source material.

Why write a summary?  Summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to..  Give examples of several points of view on a subject  Highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage  Call attention to information that you wish to point out

What does a 100-word Summary Look Like? If he was a fool, call him a fool. Hedging about with “in-my-opinion’s” and “it-seems-to-me’s” and “as-I-see-it’s” gains you nothing. Delete these phrases whenever possible. Decide what you want to say and say it as vigorously as possible, without apology and in plain words. Instead of stuffing your sentences with straw, try to get rid of the padding…make your sentences lean and tough… You dig up better content. Instead of taking a couple of obvious points off the surface of the topic and then circling warily around them for six paragraphs, you work in and explore, figure out the details. If he was a fool, call him a fool. Hedging about with “in-my-opinion’s” and “it-seems-to-me’s” and “as-I-see-it’s” gains you nothing. Delete these phrases whenever possible. Decide what you want to say and say it as vigorously as possible, without apology and in plain words. Instead of stuffing your sentences with straw, try to get rid of the padding…make your sentences lean and tough… You dig up better content. Instead of taking a couple of obvious points off the surface of the topic and then circling warily around them for six paragraphs, you work in and explore, figure out the details.

Your Job Now is to…  Write a 100-word summary for each of the four Texas Regions.  You can use the information you located and wrote in your regions chart, as well as your textbook.  You must write your summaries in COMPLETE SENTENCES!  Write legibly and neatly.