1. English B50
Summary

2. What is a summary? A summary is a condensed version of a text.
It includes only the main points and leaves out the minor supporting ideas and examples.
Summarizing a text involves careful reading to identify thesis and major supporting points.

3. When to summarize
Summarizing a source in your writing is a good choice when the piece is useful but goes into more detail than you need for your purposes.
If your audience needs the general concept (without all of the specific examples in the original text), then you should include a summary of that piece rather than a direct quote or a paraphrase.
Quotes, remember, should be reserved for memorable language.
Paraphrases are helpful when we need source material in its entirety.

4. How to summarize
Read the passage carefully. Make sure you look up new vocabulary words as you go.
Break the reading up into chunks (paragraph breaks are good natural stopping points) and summarize each chunk in one sentence.
Go back and put your one-sentence summaries together.
Proofread to make sure that the summary accurately reflects the content of the reading.

5. Some points to remember…
Summaries should NOT contain your opinion on the reading. They should be based solely on the text.
Summaries should be BRIEF. They should be about ¼ the length of the original text.
Summaries should be IN YOUR OWN WORDS. You should not borrow passages from the text in your summary without putting those words in quotation marks.
Summaries should be INTRODUCED and CITED just like quotes and paraphrases. Any ideas that are not your own need to be introduced and cited.

6. Activity Read “The Right to Be Vile”
As you read, look up new vocabulary words.
Break the reading up into chunks or use the natural paragraph breaks to divide it.
Create a one-sentence summary of each chunk.
When you are finished, put your one-sentence summaries together.
Proofread for content—does your summary accurately portray the main ideas of the article? Is it brief (1/4 the length of the original)?
Bonus—this is your ICE#2 article for Thursday, so consider this summary exercise part of your pre-writing! 