Writing Lesson 1 Week 1

Common Core Writing

Summary Writing
What is a Summary?

A summary is a restatement of someone else's words in your own words. There are many
different kinds of summaries, and they vary according to the degree to which you interpret
or analyze the source. Some are pages long, while others are just one or two sentences.
However, for all types of summary, the writer is responsible for generally stating, in his or
her own words, the main information or argument of another writer.

Purposes of the Summary

Before you write the summary, consider why your audience (professor, boss, client) wants
to read it. Why shouldn't the reader just read the original? Summaries benefit the reader
because they offer a concise, general version of the original information. For a busy reader,
summaries provide quick overviews of material. Summaries also show readers that you
have understood the general point of a text, and in this way, teachers can test your
knowledge. The process of summarizing someone else's material enables you to better un-
derstand that material. Finally, summaries allow you to introduce knowledge within a re-
search context: you can summarize someone's argument in order to analyze or critique it.

When to Summarize?
 To show how an author's ideas support your argument.
 To argue against the author's ideas
 To condense a lot of information in a short space.

Elements of a Good Summary

 Tell the main idea clearly.
 Are written in your own style.
 Are shorter than the original document.
 Explain all of the important ideas/arguments.
 Condense a lot of information

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How to Summarize

 Read the original passage or text very carefully.

 Use a pencil to highlight or underline what you take to be the main point of the origi-
nal text, or make notes in the margins or on another sheet of paper.

 If you're summarizing an entire essay, outline the writer's argument.

Now tell your audience what the original source argued.

Summary Conventions

 Summaries can range in length from two sentences to several pages. In any case, use
complete sentences to describe an author's general points to your reader. Don't quote
extensively. If you quote, use quotation marks and document the quotation. If you fail
to document the quotation, even one word that the author used, you are plagiarizing
material (presenting another person's information as if it were your own).

 Use the author's last name as a tag to introduce information: "Smith argues that
population growth and environmental degradation are causally related." "Brown notes
that education in the U.S. has undergone major revolutions in the past 20 years."

 Use the present tense (often called the historical present tense) to summarize the
author's argument. "Green contends that the Republican and Democratic parties are
funded by the same major corporations."

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Summary Practice - Short Paragraphs
Directions: Read each passage and…

1. Create a title for the passage related to the main idea.

2. Accurately summarize the text.
3. Your summary must describe all key ideas from the text.
4. Do not include opinions or personal info in your summary.
5. Highlight or underline key ideas in each passage.

Read the following Example Paragraph:

What's dressed in all black, practices stealth, and is a master of espionage, sabotage, and assassina-
tion? You guessed it: it's a ninja! Perhaps the only thing more elusive than a ninja is the source of
the word ninja. In China ninja are more often referred to as shinobi. The Chinese word shinobi,
short for shinobi-no-mono, means "to steal away." The word shinobi appears in Chinese poems as
far back as the eighth century. So how did this word become ninja? Some believe that during the
Edo period in Japan, the word shinobi-no-mono was appropriated and transformed to the very sim-
ilar word ninja. This probably happened because it was a lot quicker and easier to just
say ninja. It is difficult to see how such a transformation could have occurred when we look at the
words using our alphabet, but if you look at the kanji representing these words, it may make more

sense to you. This is how you write shinobi-no-mono in Chinese: And this is how you

write ninja: Now do you see the similarities?

1. Main idea related title for the passage:

Example Answer: The Mysterious Origin of the Word Ninja

2. Summarize the passage in your own words:

Example Summary: The word ninja has mysterious origins, but it probably derived from the
word shinobi-no-mono, which looks nothing like ninja in English but is very similar in kanji.

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Picture this: a herd of elephants flies past you at sixty miles per hour, followed by a streak of tigers, a
pride of circus lions, and a bunch of clowns. What do you see? It must be a circus train! One of the
first uses of the circus train is credited to W.C. Coup. He partnered with P.T. Barnum in 1871 to ex-
pand the reach of their newly combined shows using locomotives. Before circus trains, these opera-
tors had to lug around all of their animals, performers, and equipment with a team of more than 600
horses. Since there were no highways, these voyages were rough and took a long time. Circuses
would stop at many small towns between the large venues. Performing at many of these small towns
was not very profitable. Because of these limitations, circuses could not grow as large as the imagina-
tions of the operators. After they began using circus trains, Barnum and Coup only brought their
show to large cities. These performances were much more profitable and the profits went toward cre-
ating an even bigger and better circus. Multiple rings were added and the show went on. Today,
Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus still rely on the circus train to transport their astound-
ing show, but now they use two.

1. Main idea related title for the passage:

2. Summarize the passage in your own words:

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How do you say “Holy cow” in French? The fastest thing in France may just be the fastest ground
transportation in the world. The TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse: French for very high speed) is
France’s national high speed rail service. On April 3rd, 2007, a TGV test train set a record for the
fastest wheeled train, reaching 357.2 miles per hour. In mid 2011, TGV trains operated at the high-
est speed in passenger train service in the world, regularly reaching 200 miles per hour. But what
you may find most shocking is that TGV trains run on electric power not petrol. Now if you’ll ex-
cuse me; I have a record to catch.

3. Main idea related title for the passage:

4. Summarize the passage in your own words:

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Giddy-up, cowboys and girls! In the Southwest during early half of the 1800s, cows were only
worth 2 or 3 dollars a piece. They roamed wild, grazed off of the open range, and were abun-
dant. MidwayPicture this: a herd of elephants flies past you at sixty miles per hour, followed by
a streak of tigers, a pride of lions, and a bunch of clowns through the century though, railroads
were built and the nation was connected. People could suddenly ship cows in freight trains to
the Northeast, where the Yankees had a growing taste for beef. Out of the blue, the same cows
that were once worth a couple of bucks were now worth between twenty and forty dollars each,
if you could get them to the train station. It became pretty lucrative to wrangle up a drove of
cattle and herd them to the nearest train town, but it was at least as dangerous as it was profita-
ble. Cowboys were threatened at every turn. They faced cattle rustlers, stampedes and extreme
weather, but kept pushing those steers to the train station. By the turn of the century, barbed
wire killed the open range and some may say the cowboy too, but it was the train that birthed
him.

5. Main idea related title for the passage:

6. Summarize the passage in your own words:

____________________________________________________________________________

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Electric trolley cars or trams were once the chief mode of public transportation in the United
States. Though they required tracks and electric cables to run, these trolley cars were clean and
comfortable. In 1922, auto manufacturer General Motors created a special unit to replace elec-
tric trolleys with cars, trucks, and buses. Over the next decade, this group successfully lobbied
for laws and regulations that made operating trams more difficult and less profitable. In 1936
General Motors created several front companies for the purpose of purchasing and dismantling
the trolley car system. They received substantial investments from Firestone Tire, Standard Oil
of California, Phillips Petroleum, and other parties invested in the automotive industry. Some
people suspect that these parties wanted to replace trolley cars with buses to make public trans-
portation less desirable, which would then increase automobile sales. The decline of the tram
system in North America could be attributed to many things—labor strikes, the Great Depres-
sion, regulations that were unfavorable to operators—but perhaps the primary cause was having
a group of powerful men from rival sectors of the auto industry working together to ensure its
destruction. Fill it up, please.

7. Main idea related title for the passage:

8. Summarize the passage in your own words:

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 Writing:
Common Core Writing
Steps for Writing a Summary

STEP #1 FIND THE MAIN IDEA

In a summary, you want to identify the main idea of the article and put this information in
your own words. Plan to read the article several times. In the first reading you want to get the
general point of the essay. Write that down after you finish reading. That will be the thesis of
your summary. Include the author's first and last name and the title of the article.
To figure out the central idea, you should ask yourself why this essay was written and
published. Clues to help determine this are:
1. The title.
2. The place it was published (which can help you determine the intended audience).
3. The date of publication.
4. The type of essay.
5. The tone of the piece.
6. Ideas which seem to be repeated throughout.

STEP #2 IDENTIFY IMPORTANT ARGUMENTS

Now you want to do a second reading. This time, read more carefully to get the other im-
portant arguments. Here is how to do that:
1. Read on a paper copy or use a computer program that lets you annotate.
2. Underline the topic sentence of each paragraph. If no one sentence tells the main concept,
then write a summary of the main point in the margin.
3. Write that sentence in your own words on the side of the page or on another piece of
paper.
4. When you finish the article, read all the topic sentences you marked or wrote down.
5. In your own words, rewrite those main ideas.
6. Use complete sentences with good transition words.
7. Be sure you don't use the same words, phrases, or sentence structure of the original.
8. You may find you need to leave out some of the unimportant details.
9. Your summary should be as short and concise as possible.

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STEP #3 WRITE YOUR SUMMARY

1. Your summary should start with the author’s name and the title of the work. Here are several
ways to do this correctly:
 In "Cats Don't Dance," John Wood explains...
 John Wood, in "Cats Don't Dance," explains...
 According to John Wood in "Cats Don't Dance"...
 As John Wood vividly elucidates in his ironic story "Cats Don't Dance"...
 John Wood claims in his ironic story "Cats Don't Dance" that...
2. Look for the thesis sentence or write out a thesis sentence that summarizes the main idea. Un-
derline a topic sentence for each paragraph or write a sentence in the margins or on notebook
paper for each paragraph. Combine that thesis with the title and author into your first sentence
of the summary.

Example first sentence: In "Cats Don't Dance," John Wood explains that in spite of the fact
that cats are popular pets who seem to like us, felines are not really good at any activities that
require cooperation with someone else, whether that is dancing or sharing.

3. The rest of your summary should tell some of the central concepts that are used to support the
thesis. Be sure to restate these ideas in your own words. Make your summary as short and con-
cise as possible. Condense sentences and leave out unimportant details and examples. Stick to
the important points.

STEP #4 IMPORTANT TIP: MENTION THE AUTHOR

In writing your summary, you need to clearly state the name of the author and the name of the
article, essay, book, or another source.
Example: According to Mary Johnson in her essay, "Cats Make Good Pets," the feline domestic
companion is far superior to the canine one.
You also need to continue to make it clear to the reader when you are still talking about the ide-
as in that author's work. To do this, use "author tags," which is either the last name of the author
or a pronoun (he or she) to show you are still discussing that person's ideas.

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 Author Tags Verb List

said explains comments

persuades suggests understands
argues reminds helps us understand
proves presents suggests
concludes presents the idea creates the impression
criticizes defines highlights
concedes shows states
thinks rejects lists
notes analyzes disagrees
observes points out emphasizes
discusses identifies implies
insists responds shows

EXAMPLES
1. When you refer to the author after the first time, you always use the last name.
 Johnson comments...
 According to Wood's perspective...
 As Jones implies in the story about...
 Toller criticizes...
 In conclusion, Kessler elaborates about…

2. Use different verbs. Your choice of author tag verbs can contribute to the way you analyze
the article. Certain words will create a specific tone. See the tables for a selection of different
word choices.
3. You don't need to use an author's title (Dr., Professor, or Mr. and Mrs.) but it does help to
add their credentials to show they are an authoritative source.
Examples:
 In "Global Warming isn't Real," Steven Collins, a professor at the University of Michigan,
claims that...
 New York Times critic Johann Bachman argues in "Global Warming is the Next Best
Thing for the Earth" that…

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 4. You always need to make it clear when you are discussing the ideas of the author. Here are
some ways to do that:
 Use author tags.
 Use mentions of "the article" or "the text."
 Add the page number that the information is found on in parenthesis at the end of the
sentence.

Summary Template

1. Start with an author tag that includes the first and last name of the author and the title of the
text. Examples:
 In “My Favorite Shoe,” Treyvon Jones explains...
 Treyvon Jones in his article “My Favorite Shoe” explains....
2. Finish the sentence with the main point of this article. Answer the question, "What is this es-
say mostly about?" Think: "What does the author want you to say/do/believe after reading this
article?"
3. Next, talk about the main reasons the author believes this and give a few brief examples.

Example Paragraph
In "My Favorite Shoe," Treyvon Jones explains that Nike shoes are the best brand of running
shoe for serious track athletes. Jones supports this view by pointing out that Nike shoes are
more comfortable, last longer, and provide more cushioning for the feet. He notes that the
statistics from sales and scientific evidence of how Nike shoes are better for the feet support his
claim. In addition, Jones points out that most professional runners use Nike and he tells his own
story of how he won the 100-meter men's competition after switching to Nike shoes.

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 WRITING TOPIC

There are many wonderful articles in magazines both online and in print. Choose two
articles which interest you and write a summary for each one.

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