Summarizing a journal article or other reading. Steps to a Summary Summarizing a journal article or other reading.

Step 1 Write your first sentence which IDENTIFIES the important information: Author Article Title Year Topic or question of the article

Example sentences: In their 2005 article, “TITLE”, John Smith and Jacob John investigate _________________________. In their article, “TITLE” (2005), John Smith and Jacob John investigate _________________________. (less common): John Smith and Jacob John investigate ________________________ in their article, “TITLE” (2005). John Smith and Jacob John investigate ________________________ in their 2005 article, “TITLE”.

Step 2 Write 1-3 additional sentences to SUMMARIZE the findings of the article. What did they find? Did they make any recommendations? (Usually only write this if their recommendations were interesting, but some classes will expect you to do this).

Step 3 Check that you have PARAPHRASED carefully! You don’t want to do all of this hard work and be accused of plagiarism! Add or remove information Change the order of information Change the words that you used