Course Title: Composition and Communication Skills

Course Code: ENG-301

Course Credits: 3(3-0) Theory: 3 Lab: 0 Total: 03

Program: BSc. (Hons) Agriculture Sciences

Department: Humanities & Linguistics

Instructor: Prof: Mubashar Ali

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LECTURE NO: 13 Summarizing

Summarizing
Summarizing teaches students how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to
ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way.
Teaching students to summarize improves their memory for what is read. Summarization
strategies can be used in almost every content area.
A summary is a synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of writing, restated in your own
words – i.e., paraphrased. You may write a summary as a stand-alone assignment or as part of a
longer paper. Whenever you summarize, you must be careful not to copy the exact wording of
the original source.
Why use summarizing?
 It helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that
support them.
 It enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned text that are worth
noting and remembering.
 It teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points
for more concise understanding.

How to use summarizing

1. Begin by reading OR have students listen to the text selection.

2. Ask students the following framework questions:

1. What are the main ideas?

2. What are the crucial details necessary for supporting the ideas?

3. What information is irrelevant or unnecessary?

3. Have them use key words or phrases to identify the main points from the text.

How do I summarize?
A good summary:
 Identifies the writer of the original text.
 Synthesizes the writer’s key ideas.
 Presents the information neutrally.
Summaries can vary in length. Follow the directions given by your instructor for how long the
summary should be.
An example of summarizing:
Original text:
America has changed dramatically during recent years. Not only has the number of graduates in
traditional engineering disciplines such as mechanical, civil, electrical, chemical, and
aeronautical engineering declined, but in most of the premier American universities engineering
curricula now concentrate on and encourage largely the study of engineering science. As a
result, there are declining offerings in engineering subjects dealing with infrastructure, the
environment, and related issues, and greater concentration on high technology subjects, largely
supporting increasingly complex scientific developments. While the latter is important, it should
not be at the expense of more traditional engineering.
Rapidly developing economies such as China and India, as well as other industrial countries in
Europe and Asia, continue to encourage and advance the teaching of engineering. Both China
and India, respectively, graduate six and eight times as many traditional engineers as does the
United States. Other industrial countries at minimum maintain their output, while America
suffers an increasingly serious decline in the number of engineering graduates and a lack of well-
educated engineers. (169 words)
(Source: Excerpted from Frankel, E.G. (2008, May/June) Change in education: The cost of
sacrificing fundamentals. MIT Faculty Newsletter, XX, 5, 13.)
One-paragraph Summary:
In a 2008 Faculty Newsletter article, “Change in Education: The cost of sacrificing
fundamentals,” MIT Professor Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel expresses his concerns regarding the
current state of American engineering education. He notes that the number of students focusing
on traditional areas of engineering has decreased while the number interested in the high-
technology end of the field has increased. Frankel points out that other industrial nations
produce far more traditionally-trained engineers than we do, and believes we have fallen
seriously behind. (81 words)

Why is this a good summary?

The summary identifies the writer, the date of publication, and the source, and restates the key
ideas using original wording. The summary reports on the author’s point of view, but reports
this neutrally.
One-line summary:
MIT Professor Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel (2008) has called for a return to a course of study that
emphasizes the traditional skills of engineering, noting that the number of American engineering
graduates with these skills has fallen sharply when compared to the number coming from other
countries. (47 words)
Why is this a good summary?
This one-line summary identifies the writer and synthesizes the key ideas. A short summary like
this might appear in the literature review of research paper in which the student gathers together
the findings or opinions of scholars on a given subject.
What is the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing?
Summarizing and paraphrasing are somewhat different. A paraphrase is about the same length as
the original source, while a summary is much shorter. Nevertheless, when you summarize, you
must be careful not to copy the exact wording of the original source. Follow the same rules as
you would for paraphrase.

LESSON CLOSURE
Today’s
lesson................................................................................................................................................
One key idea
was………………………………………………………………………………….. ......................
............................................................................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................This is important, because....
………………………………………………....................................................................................
................................................ Another key idea..............................................................
………………………………………………………………………………………………………
.............................................................................................. This matters because………….……..
............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................
. In sum, today’s lesson.....................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................
............................................................................................................................................................
 Summarizing
Definition
Buckley (2004), in her popular writing text Fit to Print, defines summarizing as reducing text to
one-third or one-quarter its original size, clearly articulating the author’s meaning, and retaining
main ideas. Diane Hacker (2008), in A Canadian Writer’s Reference, explains that summarizing
involves stating a work’s thesis and main ideas “simply, briefly, and accurately” (p. 62).
Purpose
The purpose of summarizing is to briefly present the key points of a theory or work in order to
provide context for your argument/thesis.
Process
Read the work first to understand the author’s intent. This is a crucial step because an incomplete
reading could lead to an inaccurate summary. Note: an inaccurate summary is plagiarism!
In your own words, write the thesis and main ideas in point form.
Decide which points are crucial to an accurate summary of the author’s work. It is very
important that the summary does not misrepresent the author’s argument.
Edit the summary by deleting extraneous descriptors, details, and examples.
Reread the original work to ensure that you have accurately represented the main ideas in your
summary.
Opposite to solid essay writing, the goal is to be brief and general rather than supporting all
statements with facts, examples, or other details.

When summarizing is useful

Summarizing is useful in many types of writing and at different points in the writing process.
Summarizing is used to support an argument, provide context for a paper’s thesis, write literature
reviews, and annotate a bibliography. The benefit of summarizing lies in showing the "big
picture," which allows the reader to contextualize what you are saying. In addition to the
advantages of summarizing for the reader, as a writer you gain a better sense of where you are
going with your writing, which parts need elaboration, and whether you have comprehended the
information you have collected.
You can summarize:
results of studies you are reporting on methods or approaches others have taken in an area you
are describing various researchers’/authors’ viewpoints on given issues Academic Learning
Centre 2 points you have made in an essay at any juncture or in a conclusion contents of a text
you are reviewing issues peripheral to your paper but necessary for providing the context for
your writing historical events leading to the event/issue/philosophy you are discussing.
Reading to Write: Summarizing
Summarizing a text, or distilling its essential concepts into a paragraph or two, is a useful study
tool as well as good writing practice. A summary has two aims: (1) to reproduce the overarching
ideas in a text, identifying the general concepts that run through the entire piece, and (2) to
express these overarching ideas using precise, specific language. When you summarize, you
cannot rely on the language the author has used to develop his or her points, and you must find a
way to give an overview of these points without your own sentences becoming too general. You
must also make decisions about which concepts to leave in and which to omit, taking into
consideration your purposes in summarizing and also your view of what is important in this text.
Here are some methods for summarizing:
a. Include the title and identify the author in your first sentence.
b. The first sentence or two of your summary should contain the author’s thesis, or central
concept, stated in your own words. This is the idea that runs through the entire text--the one
you’d mention if someone asked you: “What is this piece/article about?” Unlike student essays,
the main idea in a primary document or an academic article may not be stated in one location at
the beginning. Instead, it may be gradually developed throughout the piece or it may become
fully apparent only at the end.
c. When summarizing a longer article, try to see how the various stages in the explanation or
argument are built up in groups of related paragraphs. Divide the article into sections if it isn’t
done in the published form. Then, write a sentence or two to cover the key ideas in each section.
d. Omit ideas that are not really central to the text. Don’t feel that you must reproduce the
author’s exact progression of thought. (On the other hand, be careful not to misrepresent ideas by
omitting important aspects of the author’s discussion).
e. In general, omit minor details and specific examples. (In some texts, an extended example
may be a key part of the argument, so you would want to mention it).
f. Avoid writing opinions or personal responses in your summaries (save these for active reading
responses or tutorial discussions).
g. Be careful not to plagiarize the author’s words. If you do use even a few of the author’s
words, they must appear in quotation marks. To avoid plagiarism, try writing the first draft of
your summary without looking back at the original text.
Reading to Write: Summarizing
Summarizing a text, or distilling its essential concepts into a paragraph or two, is a useful study
tool as well as good writing practice. A summary has two aims: (1) to reproduce the overarching
ideas in a text, identifying the general concepts that run through the entire piece, and (2) to
express these overarching ideas using precise, specific language. When you summarize, you
cannot rely on the language the author has used to develop his or her points, and you must find a
way to give an overview of these points without your own sentences becoming too general. You
must also make decisions about which concepts to leave in and which to omit, taking into
consideration your purposes in summarizing and also your view of what is important in this text.
Here are some methods for summarizing: