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

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

3. 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”.

4. 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).

5. 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