writing an assignment summary

Have a language expert improve your writing

Run a free plagiarism check in 10 minutes, generate accurate citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Working with sources
• How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples

How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples

Published on November 23, 2020 by Shona McCombes . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Summarizing , or writing a summary, means giving a concise overview of a text’s main points in your own words. A summary is always much shorter than the original text.

There are five key steps that can help you to write a summary:

• Read the text
• Break it down into sections
• Identify the key points in each section
• Write the summary
• Check the summary against the article

Writing a summary does not involve critiquing or evaluating the source . You should simply provide an accurate account of the most important information and ideas (without copying any text from the original).

Table of contents

When to write a summary, step 1: read the text, step 2: break the text down into sections, step 3: identify the key points in each section, step 4: write the summary, step 5: check the summary against the article, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about summarizing.

There are many situations in which you might have to summarize an article or other source:

• As a stand-alone assignment to show you’ve understood the material
• To keep notes that will help you remember what you’ve read
• To give an overview of other researchers’ work in a literature review

When you’re writing an academic text like an essay , research paper , or dissertation , you’ll integrate sources in a variety of ways. You might use a brief quote to support your point, or paraphrase a few sentences or paragraphs.

But it’s often appropriate to summarize a whole article or chapter if it is especially relevant to your own research, or to provide an overview of a source before you analyze or critique it.

In any case, the goal of summarizing is to give your reader a clear understanding of the original source. Follow the five steps outlined below to write a good summary.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

You should read the article more than once to make sure you’ve thoroughly understood it. It’s often effective to read in three stages:

• Scan the article quickly to get a sense of its topic and overall shape.
• Read the article carefully, highlighting important points and taking notes as you read.
• Skim the article again to confirm you’ve understood the key points, and reread any particularly important or difficult passages.

There are some tricks you can use to identify the key points as you read:

• Start by reading the abstract . This already contains the author’s own summary of their work, and it tells you what to expect from the article.
• Pay attention to headings and subheadings . These should give you a good sense of what each part is about.
• Read the introduction and the conclusion together and compare them: What did the author set out to do, and what was the outcome?

To make the text more manageable and understand its sub-points, break it down into smaller sections.

If the text is a scientific paper that follows a standard empirical structure, it is probably already organized into clearly marked sections, usually including an introduction , methods , results , and discussion .

Other types of articles may not be explicitly divided into sections. But most articles and essays will be structured around a series of sub-points or themes.

Now it’s time go through each section and pick out its most important points. What does your reader need to know to understand the overall argument or conclusion of the article?

Keep in mind that a summary does not involve paraphrasing every single paragraph of the article. Your goal is to extract the essential points, leaving out anything that can be considered background information or supplementary detail.

In a scientific article, there are some easy questions you can ask to identify the key points in each part.

If the article takes a different form, you might have to think more carefully about what points are most important for the reader to understand its argument.

In that case, pay particular attention to the thesis statement —the central claim that the author wants us to accept, which usually appears in the introduction—and the topic sentences that signal the main idea of each paragraph.

Now that you know the key points that the article aims to communicate, you need to put them in your own words.

To avoid plagiarism and show you’ve understood the article, it’s essential to properly paraphrase the author’s ideas. Do not copy and paste parts of the article, not even just a sentence or two.

The best way to do this is to put the article aside and write out your own understanding of the author’s key points.

Examples of article summaries

Let’s take a look at an example. Below, we summarize this article , which scientifically investigates the old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

Davis et al. (2015) set out to empirically test the popular saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Apples are often used to represent a healthy lifestyle, and research has shown their nutritional properties could be beneficial for various aspects of health. The authors’ unique approach is to take the saying literally and ask: do people who eat apples use healthcare services less frequently? If there is indeed such a relationship, they suggest, promoting apple consumption could help reduce healthcare costs.

The study used publicly available cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Participants were categorized as either apple eaters or non-apple eaters based on their self-reported apple consumption in an average 24-hour period. They were also categorized as either avoiding or not avoiding the use of healthcare services in the past year. The data was statistically analyzed to test whether there was an association between apple consumption and several dependent variables: physician visits, hospital stays, use of mental health services, and use of prescription medication.

Although apple eaters were slightly more likely to have avoided physician visits, this relationship was not statistically significant after adjusting for various relevant factors. No association was found between apple consumption and hospital stays or mental health service use. However, apple eaters were found to be slightly more likely to have avoided using prescription medication. Based on these results, the authors conclude that an apple a day does not keep the doctor away, but it may keep the pharmacist away. They suggest that this finding could have implications for reducing healthcare costs, considering the high annual costs of prescription medication and the inexpensiveness of apples.

However, the authors also note several limitations of the study: most importantly, that apple eaters are likely to differ from non-apple eaters in ways that may have confounded the results (for example, apple eaters may be more likely to be health-conscious). To establish any causal relationship between apple consumption and avoidance of medication, they recommend experimental research.

An article summary like the above would be appropriate for a stand-alone summary assignment. However, you’ll often want to give an even more concise summary of an article.

For example, in a literature review or meta analysis you may want to briefly summarize this study as part of a wider discussion of various sources. In this case, we can boil our summary down even further to include only the most relevant information.

Using national survey data, Davis et al. (2015) tested the assertion that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” and did not find statistically significant evidence to support this hypothesis. While people who consumed apples were slightly less likely to use prescription medications, the study was unable to demonstrate a causal relationship between these variables.

Citing the source you’re summarizing

When including a summary as part of a larger text, it’s essential to properly cite the source you’re summarizing. The exact format depends on your citation style , but it usually includes an in-text citation and a full reference at the end of your paper.

You can easily create your citations and references in APA or MLA using our free citation generators.

APA Citation Generator MLA Citation Generator

Finally, read through the article once more to ensure that:

• You’ve accurately represented the author’s work
• You haven’t missed any essential information
• The phrasing is not too similar to any sentences in the original.

If you’re summarizing many articles as part of your own work, it may be a good idea to use a plagiarism checker to double-check that your text is completely original and properly cited. Just be sure to use one that’s safe and reliable.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• ChatGPT vs human editor
• ChatGPT citations
• Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
• Using ChatGPT for your studies
• What is ChatGPT?
• Chicago style
• Paraphrasing

 Plagiarism

• Types of plagiarism
• Self-plagiarism
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Academic integrity
• Consequences of plagiarism
• Common knowledge

A summary is a short overview of the main points of an article or other source, written entirely in your own words. Want to make your life super easy? Try our free text summarizer today!

A summary is always much shorter than the original text. The length of a summary can range from just a few sentences to several paragraphs; it depends on the length of the article you’re summarizing, and on the purpose of the summary.

You might have to write a summary of a source:

• As a stand-alone assignment to prove you understand the material
• For your own use, to keep notes on your reading
• To provide an overview of other researchers’ work in a literature review
• In a paper , to summarize or introduce a relevant study

To avoid plagiarism when summarizing an article or other source, follow these two rules:

• Write the summary entirely in your own words by paraphrasing the author’s ideas.
• Cite the source with an in-text citation and a full reference so your reader can easily find the original text.

An abstract concisely explains all the key points of an academic text such as a thesis , dissertation or journal article. It should summarize the whole text, not just introduce it.

An abstract is a type of summary , but summaries are also written elsewhere in academic writing . For example, you might summarize a source in a paper , in a literature review , or as a standalone assignment.

All can be done within seconds with our free text summarizer .

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, May 31). How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved August 13, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/how-to-summarize/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to paraphrase | step-by-step guide & examples, how to quote | citing quotes in apa, mla & chicago, the basics of in-text citation | apa & mla examples, "i thought ai proofreading was useless but..".

I've been using Scribbr for years now and I know it's a service that won't disappoint. It does a good job spotting mistakes”

• Grammar Checker
• Paraphrasing Tool
• Critique Report
• Writing Reports
• Learn Blog Grammar Guide Community Events FAQ
• Grammar Guide

How to Write a Summary (Examples Included)

By Ashley Shaw

Have you ever recommended a book to someone and given them a quick overview? Then you’ve created a summary before!

Summarizing is a common part of everyday communication. It feels easy when you’re recounting what happened on your favorite show, but what do you do when the information gets a little more complex?

Written summaries come with their own set of challenges. You might ask yourself:

• What details are unnecessary?
• How do you put this in your own words without changing the meaning?
• How close can you get to the original without plagiarizing it?
• How long should it be?

The answers to these questions depend on the type of summary you are doing and why you are doing it.

A summary in an academic setting is different to a professional summary—and both of those are very different to summarizing a funny story you want to tell your friends.

One thing they all have in common is that you need to relay information in the clearest way possible to help your reader understand. We’ll look at some different forms of summary, and give you some tips on each.

Let’s get started!

What Is a Summary?

How do you write a summary, how do you write an academic summary, what are the four types of academic summaries, how do i write a professional summary, writing or telling a summary in personal situations, summarizing summaries.

A summary is a shorter version of a larger work. Summaries are used at some level in almost every writing task, from formal documents to personal messages.

When you write a summary, you have an audience that doesn’t know every single thing you know.

When you want them to understand your argument, topic, or stance, you may need to explain some things to catch them up.

Instead of having them read the article or hear every single detail of the story or event, you instead give them a brief overview of what they need to know.

Academic, professional, and personal summaries each require you to consider different things, but there are some key rules they all have in common.

Let’s go over a few general guides to writing a summary first.

1. A summary should always be shorter than the original work, usually considerably.

Even if your summary is the length of a full paper, you are likely summarizing a book or other significantly longer work.

2. A summary should tell the reader the highlights of what they need to know without giving them unnecessary details.

3. It should also include enough details to give a clear and honest picture.

For example, if you summarize an article that says “ The Office is the greatest television show of all time,” but don’t mention that they are specifically referring to sitcoms, then you changed the meaning of the article. That’s a problem! Similarly, if you write a summary of your job history and say you volunteered at a hospital for the last three years, but you don’t add that you only went twice in that time, it becomes a little dishonest.

4. Summaries shouldn’t contain personal opinion.

While in the longer work you are creating you might use opinion, within the summary itself, you should avoid all personal opinion. A summary is different than a review. In this moment, you aren’t saying what you think of the work you are summarizing, you are just giving your audience enough information to know what the work says or did.

Now that we have a good idea of what summaries are in general, let’s talk about some specific types of summary you will likely have to do at some point in your writing life.

An academic summary is one you will create for a class or in other academic writing. The exact elements you will need to include depend on the assignment itself.

However, when you’re asked for an academic summary, this usually this means one of five things, all of which are pretty similar:

• You need to do a presentation in which you talk about an article, book, or report.
• You write a summary paper in which the entire paper is a summary of a specific work.
• You summarize a class discussion, lesson, or reading in the form of personal notes or a discussion board post.
• You do something like an annotated bibliography where you write short summaries of multiple works in preparation of a longer assignment.
• You write quick summaries within the body of another assignment . For example, in an argumentative essay, you will likely need to have short summaries of the sources you use to explain their argument before getting into how the source helps you prove your point.

Regardless of what type of summary you are doing, though, there are a few steps you should always follow:

• Skim the work you are summarizing before you read it. Notice what stands out to you.
• Next, read it in depth . Do the same things stand out?
• Put the full text away and write in a few sentences what the main idea or point was.
• Go back and compare to make sure you didn’t forget anything.
• Expand on this to write and then edit your summary.

Each type of academic summary requires slightly different things. Let’s get down to details.

How Do I Write a Summary Paper?

Sometimes teachers assign something called a summary paper . In this, the entire thing is a summary of one article, book, story, or report.

To understand how to write this paper, let’s talk a little bit about the purpose of such an assignment.

A summary paper is usually given to help a teacher see how well a student understands a reading assignment, but also to help the student digest the reading. Sometimes, it can be difficult to understand things we read right away.

However, a good way to process the information is to put it in our own words. That is the point of a summary paper.

A summary paper is:

• A way to explain in our own words what happened in a paper, book, etc.
• A time to think about what was important in the paper, etc.
• A time to think about the meaning and purpose behind the paper, etc.

Here are some things that a summary paper is not:

• A review. Your thoughts and opinions on the thing you are summarizing don’t need to be here unless otherwise specified.
• A comparison. A comparison paper has a lot of summary in it, but it is different than a summary paper. In this, you are just saying what happened, but you aren’t saying places it could have been done differently.
• A paraphrase (though you might have a little paraphrasing in there). In the section on using summary in longer papers, I talk more about the difference between summaries, paraphrases, and quotes.

Because a summary paper is usually longer than other forms of summary, you will be able to chose more detail. However, it still needs to focus on the important events. Summary papers are usually shorter papers.

Let’s say you are writing a 3–4 page summary. You are likely summarizing a full book or an article or short story, which will be much longer than 3–4 pages.

Imagine that you are the author of the work, and your editor comes to you and says they love what you wrote, but they need it to be 3–4 pages instead.

How would you tell that story (argument, idea, etc.) in that length without losing the heart or intent behind it? That is what belongs in a summary paper.

How Do I Write Useful Academic Notes?

Sometimes, you need to write a summary for yourself in the form of notes or for your classmates in the form of a discussion post.

You might not think you need a specific approach for this. After all, only you are going to see it.

However, summarizing for yourself can sometimes be the most difficult type of summary. If you try to write down everything your teacher says, your hand will cramp and you’ll likely miss a lot.

Yet, transcribing doesn’t work because studies show that writing things down (not typing them) actually helps you remember them better.

So how do you find the balance between summarizing the lessons without leaving out important points?

There are some tips for this:

• If your professor writes it on the board, it is probably important.
• What points do your textbooks include when summarizing information? Use these as a guide.
• Write the highlight of every X amount of time, with X being the time you can go without missing anything or getting tired. This could be one point per minute, or three per five minutes, etc.

How Do I Create an Annotated Biography?

An annotated bibliography requires a very specific style of writing. Often, you will write these before a longer research paper . They will ask you to find a certain amount of articles and write a short annotation for each of them.

While an annotation is more than just a summary, it usually starts with a summary of the work. This will be about 2–3 sentences long. Because you don’t have a lot of room, you really have to think about what the most important thing the work says is.

This will basically ask you to explain the point of the article in these couple of sentences, so you should focus on the main point when expressing it.

Here is an example of a summary section within an annotation about this post:

“In this post, the author explains how to write a summary in different types of settings. She walks through academic, professional, and personal summaries. Ultimately, she claims that summaries should be short explanations that get the audience caught up on the topic without leaving out details that would change the meaning.”

Can I Write a Summary Within an Essay?

Perhaps the most common type of summary you will ever do is a short summary within a longer paper.

For example, if you have to write an argumentative essay, you will likely need to use sources to help support your argument.

However, there is a good chance that your readers won’t have read those same sources.

So, you need to give them enough detail to understand your topic without spending too much time explaining and not enough making your argument.

While this depends on exactly how you are using summary in your paper, often, a good amount of summary is the same amount you would put in an annotation.

Just a few sentences will allow the reader to get an idea of the work before moving on to specific parts of it that might help your argument.

What’s the Difference Between Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Using Quotes?

One important thing to recognize when using summaries in academic settings is that summaries are different than paraphrases or quotes.

A summary is broader and more general. A paraphrase, on the other hand, puts specific parts into your own words. A quote uses the exact words of the original. All of them, however, need to be cited.

Let’s look at an example:

Take these words by Thomas J. Watson:

”Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t as all. You can be discouraged by failure—or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that’s where you will find success.”

Let’s say I was told to write a summary, a paraphrase, and a quote about this statement. This is what it might look like:

Summary: Thomas J. Watson said that the key to success is actually to fail more often. (This is broad and doesn’t go into details about what he says, but it still gives him credit.)

Paraphrase: Thomas J. Watson, on asking if people would like his formula for success, said that the secret was to fail twice as much. He claimed that when you decide to learn from your mistakes instead of being disappointed by them, and when you start making a lot of them, you will actually find more success. (This includes most of the details, but it is in my own words, while still crediting the source.)

Quote: Thomas J. Watson said, ”Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure—or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember, that’s where you will find success.” (This is the exact words of the original with quotation marks and credit given.)

Avoiding Plagiarism

One of the hardest parts about summarizing someone else’s writing is avoiding plagiarism .

That’s why I have a few rules/tips for you when summarizing anything:

1. Always cite.

If you are talking about someone else’s work in any means, cite your source. If you are summarizing the entire work, all you probably need to do (depending on style guidelines) is say the author’s name. However, if you are summarizing a specific chapter or section, you should state that specifically. Finally, you should make sure to include it in your Work Cited or Reference page.

2. Change the wording.

Sometimes when people are summarizing or paraphrasing a work, they get too close to the original, and actually use the exact words. Unless you use quotation marks, this is plagiarism. However, a good way to avoid this is to hide the article while you are summarizing it. If you don’t have it in front of you, you are less likely to accidentally use the exact words. (However, after you are done, double check that you didn’t miss anything important or give wrong details.)

3. Use a plagiarism checker.

Of course, when you are writing any summary, especially academic summaries, it can be easy to cross the line into plagiarism. If this is a place where you struggle, then ProWritingAid can help.

Just use our Plagiarism Report . It’ll highlight any unoriginal text in your document so you can make sure you are citing everything correctly and summarizing in your own words.

Find out more about ProWritingAid plagiarism bundles.

Along with academic summaries, you might sometimes need to write professional summaries. Often, this means writing a summary about yourself that shows why you are qualified for a position or organization.

In this section, let’s talk about two types of professional summaries: a LinkedIn summary and a summary section within a resume.

How Do I Write My LinkedIn Bio?

LinkedIn is all about professional networking. It offers you a chance to share a brief glimpse of your professional qualifications in a paragraph or two.

This can then be sent to professional connections, or even found by them without you having to reach out. This can help you get a job or build your network.

Your summary is one of the first things a future employer might see about you, and how you write yours can make you stand out from the competition.

Here are some tips on writing a LinkedIn summary :

• Before you write it, think about what you want it to do . If you are looking for a job, what kind of job? What have you done in your past that would stand out to someone hiring for that position? That is what you will want to focus on in your summary.
• Be professional . Unlike many social media platforms, LinkedIn has a reputation for being more formal. Your summary should reflect that to some extent.
• Use keywords . Your summary is searchable, so using keywords that a recruiter might be searching for can help them find you.
• Focus on the start . LinkedIn shows the first 300 characters automatically, and then offers the viewer a chance to read more. Make that start so good that everyone wants to keep reading.
• Focus on accomplishments . Think of your life like a series of albums, and this is your speciality “Greatest Hits” album. What “songs” are you putting on it?

How Do I Summarize My Experience on a Resume?

Writing a professional summary for a resume is different than any other type of summary that you may have to do.

Recruiters go through a lot of resumes every day. They don’t have time to spend ages reading yours, which means you have to wow them quickly.

To do that, you might include a section at the top of your resume that acts almost as an elevator pitch: That one thing you might say to a recruiter to get them to want to talk to you if you only had a 30-second elevator ride.

If you don’t have a lot of experience, though, you might want to skip this section entirely and focus on playing up the experience you do have.

Outside of academic and personal summaries, you use summary a lot in your day-to-day life.

Whether it is telling a good piece of trivia you just learned or a funny story that happened to you, or even setting the stage in creative writing, you summarize all the time.

How you use summary can be an important consideration in whether people want to read your work (or listen to you talk).

Here are some things to think about when telling a story:

• Pick interesting details . Too many and your point will be lost. Not enough, and you didn’t paint the scene or give them a complete idea about what happened.
• Play into the emotions . When telling a story, you want more information than the bare minimum. You want your reader to get the emotion of the story. That requires a little bit more work to accomplish.
• Focus. A summary of one story can lead to another can lead to another. Think about storytellers that you know that go off on a tangent. They never seem to finish one story without telling 100 others!

To wrap up (and to demonstrate everything I just talked about), let’s summarize this post into its most essential parts:

A summary is a great way to quickly give your audience the information they need to understand the topic you are discussing without having to know every detail.

How you write a summary is different depending on what type of summary you are doing:

• An academic summary usually gets to the heart of an article, book, or journal, and it should highlight the main points in your own words. How long it should be depends on the type of assignment it is.
• A professional summary highlights you and your professional, academic, and volunteer history. It shows people in your professional network who you are and why they should hire you, work with you, use your talents, etc.

Being able to tell a good story is another form of summary. You want to tell engaging anecdotes and facts without boring your listeners. This is a skill that is developed over time.

Take your writing to the next level:

20 Editing Tips from Professional Writers

Whether you are writing a novel, essay, article, or email, good writing is an essential part of communicating your ideas., this guide contains the 20 most important writing tips and techniques from a wide range of professional writers..

Be confident about grammar

Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Ashley Shaw

Ashley Shaw is a former editor and marketer/current PhD student and teacher. When she isn't studying con artists for her dissertation, she's thinking of new ways to help college students better understand and love the writing process. You can follow her on Twitter, or, if you prefer animal accounts, follow her rabbits, Audrey Hopbun and Fredra StaHare, on Instagram.

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via :

We apologize for any inconvenience as we update our site to a new look.

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Common Assignments: Summary

For each source listed, you will begin with a summary of the information you found in that specific source. The summary section gives your reader an overview of the important information from that source. Remember that you are focusing on a source's method and results, not paraphrasing the article's argument or evidence.

The questions below can help you produce an appropriate, scholarly summary:

• What is the topic of the source?
• What actions did the author perform within the study and why?
• What were the methods of the author?
• What was the theoretical basis for the study?
• What were the conclusions of the study?

Remember, a summary should be similar to an abstract of a source and written in past tense (e.g. "The authors found that…" or "The studies showed…"), but it should not be the source's abstract. Each summary should be written in your own words.

Summarizing Video Playlist

Note that these videos were created while APA 6 was the style guide edition in use. There may be some examples of writing that have not been updated to APA 7 guidelines.

Related Resources

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

• Previous Page: Formatting
• Next Page: Critique/Analysis
• Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

• Academic Residencies
• Academic Skills
• Career Planning and Development
• Customer Care Team
• Field Experience
• Military Services
• Student Success Advising
• Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

• Center for Social Change
• Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
• Office of Degree Acceleration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

• Doctoral Writing Assessment
• Form & Style Review
• Quick Answers
• ScholarWorks
• SKIL Courses and Workshops
• Walden Bookstore
• Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
• Student Safety/Title IX
• Legal & Consumer Information
• Website Terms and Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Accessibility
• Accreditation
• State Authorization
• Net Price Calculator
• Contact Walden

Walden University is a member of Adtalem Global Education, Inc. www.adtalem.com Walden University is certified to operate by SCHEV © 2024 Walden University LLC. All rights reserved.

Instantly enhance your writing in real-time while you type. With LanguageTool

Get started for free

Everything You Need To Know About Writing a Summary

Wondering why summary writing is important? Knowing how to compose one is an essential skill not just for students but for anyone who wants to understand and communicate complex ideas clearly. In this post, we’ll provide five easy steps and more to teach you how to write a summary.

Table of Contents

What is a summary, how to write a summary in five easy steps, example of a summary, tips on writing a good summary.

Mastering the art of summary writing is crucial, but do you know why? Well, you might be surprised to learn that knowing how to craft one can help you become a better learner and communicator. If you have yet to sharpen this skill set, don’t worry. Below, we’ll go through five easy steps to write a good summary , complete with examples and tips.

Let’s begin!

A summary is a concise distillation of a larger body of work that briefly but thoroughly encapsulates its main ideas and essential points. It is designed to give the reader a clear understanding of the original project without needing to read it in full.  

Being able to restate in your own words what you’ve just read is a sign that you’ve truly absorbed and understood the information. In contrast, merely memorizing facts is not a good indication of comprehension. In other words, if you can’t concisely summarize something, you haven’t fully grasped the concept.

The word summary is a noun that refers to the “concise but comprehensive rewriting of an original body of work.”

• I had to write a summary of one of Mark Twain’s stories.

The verb form of this word is to summarize , which means “to provide a summary of something.”

• She missed the presentation, so I summarized it for her.

Now that we’ve reviewed what a summary entails, let’s get to the fun part: writing one!

Keep in mind that summaries can encompass a wide range of subjects, including books, articles, movies, meetings, and more. Also, a summarization isn’t necessarily always confined to writing; you can verbally summarize something, too. However, the steps below are designed to help you compose a written summary.

1. Read and take notes. 

First things first: Read or watch the original work you’ll be summarizing. While you do, take brief pauses and explain to yourself what you just read or watched. As the main ideas start becoming clear to you, take notes. This will make the writing process easier.

2. Start with an introductory sentence.

In academic and formal contexts, summaries typically begin with an introductory sentence that states the work’s title and author. This sets the stage for the reader by immediately identifying what is being discussed. However, if the work has already been identified, it may not be necessary to start with the title and author. For example, if you’re in a class that is currently discussing Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, then you may not need to include that information in the introduction.

3. Explain the main points.

Identify and elaborate on the main arguments or messages, and seek supporting evidence, topic sentences, or thesis statements .

It’s also a good idea to focus on the what, how, and why:

• What are the key ideas or events?
• How do they develop throughout the work?
• Why are they important to the work’s overall message?

Remember, be selective in what you include. Summaries are about the bigger picture, not the small details. 

4. Organize your summary to ensure a smooth flow.

Your summary should be coherent and easy to read. Therefore, you should use transition words to ensure logical progression from one idea to the next. It’s best to structure your summary similarly to the original work. Despite being a condensed version, it should still stand on its own as a cohesive piece of writing. In other words, ensure that there is a clear beginning, middle, and end.

5. Conclude by restating the author’s thesis. 

Finish your summary with a clear statement that effectively captures the author’s main argument or purpose. Keep in mind that the conclusion of a summary should not introduce new information but instead provide a sense of closure. This will leave the reader with a comprehensive understanding of the original text.

Imagine you’re taking a class on Shakespeare, and you’re assigned to write a one-paragraph summary of Romeo and Juliet. It should be similar to the following example:

“Romeo and Juliet” is a tragic play that tells the story of two young, star-crossed lovers. It begins with a street brawl between servants from the wealthy Montague and Capulet families and ends with two shocking deaths that ultimately reconcile a long-time feud. Romeo, a Montague, falls in love with Juliet, a Capulet, at a masquerade ball. Despite their families’ conflict, they marry in secret. After Romeo is banished for avenging the death of his friend, Juliet fakes her death to be with him. The plan goes awry, leading to Romeo and Juliet’s actual deaths. When the families learn of the tragic sequence of events, they decide to end their bitter feud once and for all.

It’s important to note that the length of the summary depends on the assignment’s instructions. It is possible to write a longer summary of Romeo and Juliet, if needed, by providing some more details and elaborating on the play’s themes.

How Long Should a Summary Be?

Some guidelines suggest that summaries should be 10%-30% of the original work, so it often depends on the complexity of the text and the intended purpose. If you’re writing a summary for school and are unsure how long it should be, ask your instructor for clarification.

As you work on your summary, keep the following tips in mind:

Take notes as you read.

We already mentioned this, but it’s worth reiterating. Taking notes as you read the original work is an easy way to simplify the summary writing process. The notes don’t have to be extensive; they just have to help you remember the important points.

Use your own words.

Don’t just copy and paste from the original work. Instead, analyze it and restate it. Imagine you and a friend just read an article. You understand it, but your friend doesn’t. You wouldn’t just reread it, hoping that a second reading would miraculously become clearer, right? No, you’d reword it. That’s precisely what you have to do when writing a summary.

Do not include opinions or interpretations.

A summary’s purpose is to restate the original text concisely. Avoid writing about your opinions or judgments about the work, and do not include elaborate interpretations.

Ensure proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

You can follow all the steps above and even ensure you abide by these tips. But if your summary is riddled with errors, it won’t be as effective. A simple way to ensure flawless spelling, grammar, and punctuation is to use LanguageTool as your personal writing assistant. Not only will it correct any mistakes, but it will also enhance your style. Plus, it supports more than thirty languages and dialects, so whether you’re writing in your native tongue or your second language, your instructors will be utterly impressed with your prose.

Go ahead and give it a try today!

Unleash the Professional Writer in You With LanguageTool

Go well beyond grammar and spell checking. Impress with clear, precise, and stylistically flawless writing instead.

Works on All Your Favorite Services

• Thunderbird
• Google Docs
• Microsoft Word
• Open Office
• Libre Office

We Value Your Feedback

We’ve made a mistake, forgotten about an important detail, or haven’t managed to get the point across? Let’s help each other to perfect our writing.

• How it works

Writing a Summary – Explanation & Examples

Published by Alvin Nicolas at October 17th, 2023 , Revised On October 17, 2023

In a world bombarded with vast amounts of information, condensing and presenting data in a digestible format becomes invaluable. Enter summaries. 

A summary is a brief and concise account of the main points of a larger body of work. It distils complex ideas, narratives, or data into a version that is quicker to read and easier to understand yet still retains the essence of the original content.

Importance of Summaries

The importance of summarising extends far beyond just making reading more manageable. In academic settings, summaries aid students in understanding and retaining complex materials, from textbook chapters to research articles. They also serve as tools to showcase one’s grasp of the subject in essays and reports. 

In professional arenas, summaries are pivotal in business reports, executive briefings, and even emails where key points need to be conveyed quickly to decision-makers. Meanwhile, summarising skills come into play in our personal lives when we relay news stories to friends, recap a movie plot, or even scroll through condensed news or app notifications on our smartphones.

Why Do We Write Summaries?

In our modern information age, the sheer volume of content available can be overwhelming. From detailed research papers to comprehensive news articles, the quest for knowledge is often met with lengthy and complex resources. This is where the power of a well-crafted summary comes into play. But what drives us to create or seek out summaries? Let’s discuss.

Makes Important Things Easy to Remember

At the heart of summarisation is the goal to understand. A well-written summary aids in digesting complex material. By distilling larger works into their core points, we reinforce the primary messages, making them easier to remember. This is especially crucial for students who need to retain knowledge for exams or professionals prepping for a meeting based on a lengthy report.

Simplification of Complex Topics

Not everyone is an expert in every field. Often, topics come laden with jargon, intricate details, and nuanced arguments. Summaries act as a bridge, translating this complexity into accessible and straightforward content. This is especially beneficial for individuals new to a topic or those who need just the highlights without the intricacies.

Aid in Researching and Understanding Diverse Sources

Researchers, writers, and academics often wade through many sources when working on a project. This involves finding sources of different types, such as primary or secondary sources , and then understanding their content. Sifting through each source in its entirety can be time-consuming. Summaries offer a streamlined way to understand each source’s main arguments or findings, making synthesising information from diverse materials more efficient.

Condensing Information for Presentation or Sharing

In professional settings, there is often a need to present findings, updates, or recommendations to stakeholders. An executive might not have the time to go through a 50-page report, but they would certainly appreciate a concise summary highlighting the key points. Similarly, in our personal lives, we often summarise movie plots, book stories, or news events when sharing with friends or family.

Characteristics of a Good Summary

Crafting an effective summary is an art. It’s more than just shortening a piece of content; it is about capturing the essence of the original work in a manner that is both accessible and true to its intent. Let’s explore the primary characteristics that distinguish a good summary from a mediocre one:

Conciseness

At the core of a summary is the concept of brevity. But being concise doesn’t mean leaving out vital information. A good summary will:

• Eliminate superfluous details or repetitive points.
• Focus on the primary arguments, events, or findings.
• Use succinct language without compromising the message.

Objectivity

Summarising is not about infusing personal opinions or interpretations. A quality summary will:

• Stick to the facts as presented in the original content.
• Avoid introducing personal biases or perspectives.
• Represent the original author’s intent faithfully.

A summary is meant to simplify and make content accessible. This is only possible if the summary itself is easy to understand. Ensuring clarity involves:

• Avoiding jargon or technical terms unless they are essential to the content. If they are used, they should be clearly defined.
• Structuring sentences in a straightforward manner.
• Making sure ideas are presented in a way that even someone unfamiliar with the topic can grasp the primary points.

A jumble of ideas, no matter how concise, will not make for a good summary. Coherence ensures that there’s a logical flow to the summarised content. A coherent summary will:

• Maintain a logical sequence, often following the structure of the original content.
• Use transition words or phrases to connect ideas and ensure smooth progression.
• Group related ideas together to provide structure and avoid confusion.

Steps of Writing a Summary

The process of creating a compelling summary is not merely about cutting down content. It involves understanding, discerning, and crafting. Here is a step-by-step guide to writing a summary that encapsulates the essence of the original work:

Reading Actively

Engage deeply with the content to ensure a thorough understanding.

• Read the entire document or work first to grasp its overall intent and structure.
• On the second read, underline or highlight the standout points or pivotal moments.
• Make brief notes in the margins or on a separate sheet, capturing the core ideas in your own words.

Identifying the Main Idea

Determine the backbone of the content, around which all other details revolve.

• Ask yourself: “What is the primary message or theme the author wants to convey?”
• This can often be found in the title, introduction, or conclusion of a piece.
• Frame the main idea in a clear and concise statement to guide your summary.

List Key Supporting Points

Understand the pillars that uphold the main idea, providing evidence or depth to the primary message.

• Refer back to the points you underlined or highlighted during your active reading.
• Note major arguments, evidence, or examples that the author uses to back up the main idea.
• Prioritise these points based on their significance to the main idea.

Draft the Summary

Convert your understanding into a condensed, coherent version of the original.

• Start with a statement of the main idea.
• Follow with the key supporting points, maintaining logical order.
• Avoid including trivial details or examples unless they’re crucial to the primary message.
• Use your own words, ensuring you are not plagiarising the original content.

Fine-tune your draft to ensure clarity, accuracy, and brevity.

• Read your draft aloud to check for flow and coherence.
• Ensure that your summary remains objective, avoiding any personal interpretations or biases.
• Check the length. See if any non-essential details can be removed without sacrificing understanding if it is too lengthy.
• Ensure clarity by ensuring the language is straightforward, and the main ideas are easily grasped.

The research done by our experts have:

• Precision and Clarity
• Zero Plagiarism
• Authentic Sources

Dos and Don’ts of Summarising Key Points

Summarising, while seemingly straightforward, comes with its nuances. Properly condensing content demands a balance between brevity and fidelity to the original work. To aid in crafting exemplary summaries, here is a guide on the essential dos and don’ts:

Use your Own Words

This ensures that you have truly understood the content and are not merely parroting it. It also prevents issues of plagiarism.

Tip: After reading the original content, take a moment to reflect on it. Then, without looking at the source, write down the main points in your own words.

Attribute Sources Properly

Giving credit is both ethical and provides context to readers, helping them trace back to the original work if needed. How to cite sources correctly is a skill every writer should master.

Tip: Use signal phrases like “According to [Author/Source]…” or “As [Author/Source] points out…” to seamlessly incorporate attributions.

Ensure Accuracy of the Summarised Content

A summary should be a reliable reflection of the original content. Distorting or misrepresenting the original ideas compromises the integrity of the summary.

Tip: After drafting your summary, cross-check with the original content to ensure all key points are represented accurately and ensure you are referencing credible sources .

Avoid Copy-Pasting Chunks of Original Content

This not only raises plagiarism concerns but also shows a lack of genuine engagement with the material.

Tip: If a particular phrase or sentence from the original is pivotal and cannot be reworded without losing its essence, use block quotes , quotation marks, and attribute the source.

Do not Inject your Personal Opinion

A summary should be an objective reflection of the source material. Introducing personal biases or interpretations can mislead readers.

Tip: Stick to the facts and arguments presented in the original content. If you find yourself writing “I think” or “In my opinion,” reevaluate the sentence.

Do not Omit Crucial Information

While a summary is meant to be concise, it shouldn’t be at the expense of vital details that are essential to understanding the original content’s core message.

Tip: Prioritise information. Always include the main idea and its primary supports. If you are unsure whether a detail is crucial, consider its impact on the overall message.

Examples of Summaries

Here are a few examples that will help you get a clearer view of how to write a summary. 

Example 1: Summary of a News Article

Original Article: The article reports on the recent discovery of a rare species of frog in the Amazon rainforest. The frog, named the “Emerald Whisperer” due to its unique green hue and the soft chirping sounds it makes, was found by a team of researchers from the University of Texas. The discovery is significant as it offers insights into the biodiversity of the region, and the Emerald Whisperer might also play a pivotal role in understanding the ecosystem balance.

Summary: Researchers from the University of Texas have discovered a unique frog, termed the “Emerald Whisperer,” in the Amazon rainforest. This finding sheds light on the region’s biodiversity and underscores the importance of the frog in ecological studies.

Example 2: Summary of a Research Paper

Original Paper: In a study titled “The Impact of Urbanisation on Bee Populations,” researchers conducted a year-long observation on bee colonies in three urban areas and three rural areas. Using specific metrics like colony health, bee productivity, and population size, the study found that urban environments saw a 30% decline in bee populations compared to rural settings. The research attributes this decline to factors like pollution, reduced green spaces, and increased temperatures in urban areas.

Summary: A study analysing the effects of urbanisation on bee colonies found a significant 30% decrease in bee populations in urban settings compared to rural areas. The decline is linked to urban factors such as pollution, diminished greenery, and elevated temperatures.

Example 3: Summary of a Novel

Original Story: In the novel “Winds of Fate,” protagonist Clara is trapped in a timeless city where memories dictate reality. Throughout her journey, she encounters characters from her past, present, and imagined future. Battling her own perceptions and a menacing shadow figure, Clara seeks an elusive gateway to return to her real world. In the climax, she confronts the shadow, which turns out to be her own fear, and upon overcoming it, she finds her way back, realising that reality is subjective.

Summary: “Winds of Fate” follows Clara’s adventures in a surreal city shaped by memories. Confronting figures from various phases of her life and battling a symbolic shadow of her own fear, Clara eventually discovers that reality’s perception is malleable and subjective.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is a summary.

A summary condenses a larger piece of content, capturing its main points and essence.  It is usually one-fourth of the original content.

What is a summary?

A summary is a concise representation of a larger text or content, highlighting its main ideas and points. It distils complex information into a shorter form, allowing readers to quickly grasp the essence of the original material without delving into extensive details. Summaries prioritise clarity, brevity, and accuracy.

When should I write a summary?

Write a summary when you need to condense lengthy content for easier comprehension and recall. It’s useful in academic settings, professional reports, presentations, and research to highlight key points. Summaries aid in comparing multiple sources, preparing for discussions, and sharing essential details of extensive materials efficiently with others.

How can I summarise a source without plagiarising?

To summarise without plagiarising: Read the source thoroughly, understand its main ideas, and then write the summary in your own words. Avoid copying phrases verbatim. Attribute the source properly. Use paraphrasing techniques and cross-check your summary against the original to ensure distinctiveness while retaining accuracy. Always prioritise understanding over direct replication.

What is the difference between a summary and an abstract?

A summary condenses a text, capturing its main points from various content types like books, articles, or movies. An abstract, typically found in research papers and scientific articles, provides a brief overview of the study’s purpose, methodology, results, and conclusions. Both offer concise versions, but abstracts are more structured and specific.

You May Also Like

The ability to effectively incorporate multiple sources into one’s work is not just a skill, but a necessity. Whether we are talking about research papers, articles, or even simple blog posts, synthesising sources can elevate our content to a more nuanced, comprehensive, and insightful level.

From academic research to personal blogs, the bedrock of trust and credibility is often established by one simple act: source citing. Whether we are constructing a thesis for a graduate program or debunking a myth on a personal blog, providing the origins of our information bolsters our arguments and pays homage to the original creators of that knowledge.

A secondary source refers to any material that interprets, analyses, or reviews information originally presented elsewhere. Unlike primary sources, which offer direct evidence or first-hand testimony, secondary sources work on those original materials, offering commentary, critiques, and perspectives.

USEFUL LINKS

LEARNING RESOURCES

COMPANY DETAILS

• How It Works

Have a thesis expert improve your writing

Check your thesis for plagiarism in 10 minutes, generate your apa citations for free.

• Knowledge Base
• Working with sources
• How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples

How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples

Published on 25 September 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 12 May 2023.

Summarising , or writing a summary, means giving a concise overview of a text’s main points in your own words. A summary is always much shorter than the original text.

There are five key steps that can help you to write a summary:

• Read the text
• Break it down into sections
• Identify the key points in each section
• Write the summary
• Check the summary against the article

Writing a summary does not involve critiquing or analysing the source. You should simply provide an accurate account of the most important information and ideas (without copying any text from the original).

Instantly correct all language mistakes in your text

Be assured that you'll submit flawless writing. Upload your document to correct all your mistakes.

Table of contents

When to write a summary, step 1: read the text, step 2: break the text down into sections, step 3: identify the key points in each section, step 4: write the summary, step 5: check the summary against the article, frequently asked questions.

There are many situations in which you might have to summarise an article or other source:

• As a stand-alone assignment to show you’ve understood the material
• To keep notes that will help you remember what you’ve read
• To give an overview of other researchers’ work in a literature review

When you’re writing an academic text like an essay , research paper , or dissertation , you’ll integrate sources in a variety of ways. You might use a brief quote to support your point, or paraphrase a few sentences or paragraphs.

But it’s often appropriate to summarize a whole article or chapter if it is especially relevant to your own research, or to provide an overview of a source before you analyse or critique it.

In any case, the goal of summarising is to give your reader a clear understanding of the original source. Follow the five steps outlined below to write a good summary.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

Correct my document today

You should read the article more than once to make sure you’ve thoroughly understood it. It’s often effective to read in three stages:

• Scan the article quickly to get a sense of its topic and overall shape.
• Read the article carefully, highlighting important points and taking notes as you read.
• Skim the article again to confirm you’ve understood the key points, and reread any particularly important or difficult passages.

There are some tricks you can use to identify the key points as you read:

• Start by reading the abstract . This already contains the author’s own summary of their work, and it tells you what to expect from the article.
• Pay attention to headings and subheadings . These should give you a good sense of what each part is about.
• Read the introduction and the conclusion together and compare them: What did the author set out to do, and what was the outcome?

To make the text more manageable and understand its sub-points, break it down into smaller sections.

If the text is a scientific paper that follows a standard empirical structure, it is probably already organised into clearly marked sections, usually including an introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

Other types of articles may not be explicitly divided into sections. But most articles and essays will be structured around a series of sub-points or themes.

Now it’s time go through each section and pick out its most important points. What does your reader need to know to understand the overall argument or conclusion of the article?

Keep in mind that a summary does not involve paraphrasing every single paragraph of the article. Your goal is to extract the essential points, leaving out anything that can be considered background information or supplementary detail.

In a scientific article, there are some easy questions you can ask to identify the key points in each part.

If the article takes a different form, you might have to think more carefully about what points are most important for the reader to understand its argument.

In that case, pay particular attention to the thesis statement —the central claim that the author wants us to accept, which usually appears in the introduction—and the topic sentences that signal the main idea of each paragraph.

Now that you know the key points that the article aims to communicate, you need to put them in your own words.

To avoid plagiarism and show you’ve understood the article, it’s essential to properly paraphrase the author’s ideas. Do not copy and paste parts of the article, not even just a sentence or two.

The best way to do this is to put the article aside and write out your own understanding of the author’s key points.

Examples of article summaries

Let’s take a look at an example. Below, we summarise this article , which scientifically investigates the old saying ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’.

An article summary like the above would be appropriate for a stand-alone summary assignment. However, you’ll often want to give an even more concise summary of an article.

For example, in a literature review or research paper, you may want to briefly summarize this study as part of a wider discussion of various sources. In this case, we can boil our summary down even further to include only the most relevant information.

Citing the source you’re summarizing

When including a summary as part of a larger text, it’s essential to properly cite the source you’re summarizing. The exact format depends on your citation style , but it usually includes an in-text citation and a full reference at the end of your paper.

You can easily create your citations and references in APA or MLA using our free citation generators.

APA Citation Generator MLA Citation Generator

Finally, read through the article once more to ensure that:

• You’ve accurately represented the author’s work
• You haven’t missed any essential information
• The phrasing is not too similar to any sentences in the original.

If you’re summarising many articles as part of your own work, it may be a good idea to use a plagiarism checker to double-check that your text is completely original and properly cited. Just be sure to use one that’s safe and reliable.

A summary is a short overview of the main points of an article or other source, written entirely in your own words.

Save yourself some time with the free summariser.

A summary is always much shorter than the original text. The length of a summary can range from just a few sentences to several paragraphs; it depends on the length of the article you’re summarising, and on the purpose of the summary.

With the summariser tool you can easily adjust the length of your summary.

You might have to write a summary of a source:

• As a stand-alone assignment to prove you understand the material
• For your own use, to keep notes on your reading
• To provide an overview of other researchers’ work in a literature review
• In a paper , to summarise or introduce a relevant study

To avoid plagiarism when summarising an article or other source, follow these two rules:

• Write the summary entirely in your own words by   paraphrasing the author’s ideas.
• Reference the source with an in-text citation and a full reference so your reader can easily find the original text.

An abstract concisely explains all the key points of an academic text such as a thesis , dissertation or journal article. It should summarise the whole text, not just introduce it.

An abstract is a type of summary , but summaries are also written elsewhere in academic writing . For example, you might summarise a source in a paper , in a literature review , or as a standalone assignment.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

McCombes, S. (2023, May 12). How to Write a Summary | Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 12 August 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/how-to-write-a-summary/

Is this article helpful?

Shona McCombes

Other students also liked, how to paraphrase | step-by-step guide & examples, how to quote | citing quotes in harvard & apa, apa referencing (7th ed.) quick guide | in-text citations & references.

• Utility Menu

GA4 Tracking Code

Gen ed writes, writing across the disciplines at harvard college, what it is and why it's useful.

Summary asks writers to identify and restate in their own words the most important elements of another writer's text and, in doing do, capture the relative importance of different moments in that text as well as their logical relationship to one another. In many contexts summary is a formative assignment that's a step in a larger essay or project; in other contexts, though, it might be its own standalone assignment. 

For a scholarly article, summary might mean stating the source's central claim and reconstructing the general features of its argument, using key terms and concepts. For a novel or film, it might mean unpacking plot into the linear sequence of events in a "story" and introducing the most important figures, turning points, or literary-critical concepts. The specific approach any summary exercise takes will differ based on what you're trying to do with it in your class, but it can be a really useful point of departure (or reset) at almost any point in a writing assignment. Summary is really useful for a few reasons:

It helps students test—and often improve—their understanding of a text

Being able to clearly and accurately capture a writer’s argument in your own words is always a good, if not necessary, step before engaging in analysis of it

In classes with a research essay component, summary offers good practice for generating annotated bibliographies. 

Typical learning objectives for summary: identify central claims and key terms, demonstrate understanding of argument, demonstrate understanding of narrative sequences, identifying roles of evidence, paraphrase, concision, use of strong verbs

Common types of summary and related types: synopsis, argument reconstruction, abstracts, annotated bibliography

How to Teach It: Framing + Practice

While it's often a point of departure for other kinds of writing, summary itself needs framing and practice in order to make it the reliable foundation those other kinds of writing are going to build off of.

When asking students to summarize a text they've read, make it clear what the goals of the exercise will be. Is the goal to make sure everyone is on the same page about the basic outlines of a reading before discussing it in class? Is the goal to highlight the complexities of a seemingly straightforward argument? Will students be using elements of the summary in an upcoming essay or project? (See "Why It's Useful" above for ideas on framing the possible roles of summary as an exercise).

Summary can be something writers practice with or without a lot of "teaching" on the front end. Allowing students to try their hand at a summary before introducing principles can be a low-stakes way to find out where their intuitions are at with the skill. Or you can introduce the principles at the start—it's productive in both directions. Once students have drafted summaries, it can be a simple in-class exercise to have them compare their drafts with one another in groups: What were elements everyone included, or only one person, etc.? What are probably the elements any summary would include, versus the elements certain kinds of summary might focus more on? Does everyone agree on what the central claim or most important examples/evidence are? Or the order of logical development or events? Or maybe substantive differences will emerge about the nature of the source's main ideas. Getting all of these questions (and where reasonable areas of convergence and divergence lie) sorted out early in the process can bake in a lot of success to any subsequent steps of a writing assignment.

Sample Exercises and Links to Other Resources

• The in-class workshop on summary that's also posted under "Formative Writing Assignments" 
• A summary and paraphrase exercise with sample text (aimed more at Humanities audiences)
• A summary prompt (that's also pointing beyond summary to the beginning of more analytical kinds of writing)
• Common Pitfalls
• Advice on Timing
• In addition to giving students the chance to work through complex sources, summary exercises can also be a great, low-stakes way to practice citation norms and styles.
• Summaries tend not to include much direct quote, but they do offer a place to practice using quick moments of quotation, e.g., with key terms, where it's important to make it clear what terms or ideas are being drawn from the source (and perhaps, in an analytical paper, directly analyzed).
• Having students summarize a source at different scales (150 words, then 50, then 1 or 2 sentences) is a great way to get them thinking about what the central ideas and most important elements of a source actually are.
• When summary is "the assignment" (and not just a step in a larger process), it's important to make that sure students know they're NOT supposed to be making an argument. Otherwise, many students might reasonably think that adding some argument is either a) fine or b) implicitly what the "best" student would move ahead with.
• Summary in general lends itself to shorter timeframes, ranging from "read source x and try summarizing it for next class" to "after we talk about source x in class you'll work on summarizing it for next week" to "now that we've talked about source x, let's take 20 minutes in small groups to sketch out what would be in a summary of it."
• These approaches can work separately or together, so timing things can work with different timelines and be adapted based on what students need.

What It Can Build Up To

• DIY Guides for Analytical Writing Assignments

• Types of Assignments
• Unpacking the Elements of Writing Prompts
• Formative Writing Assignments
• Single-Source Analysis
• Comparative Analysis
• Research Essays
• Multi-Modal or Creative Projects
• Giving Feedback to Students

Assignment Decoder

Academic Integrity at MIT

A handbook for students, search form, summarizing.

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.

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)

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.

Quickly Teach How to Write a Summary With Clear Examples and Stems

How to write a summary with clear examples, a template, and a formula to help you teach summary writing to your elementary students.  

It’s the first day of school. You’ve given your students the classic summary writing assignment : “What I Did Over Summer Break.”

One student dives in and begins writing a personal narrative to rival War and Peace.

Another (maybe more than one) groans and lays their head down in despair.

You’ve seen this, right?

This summer vacation prompt might be one of the most difficult assignments we can give some of your elementary students. For others students, it might be the easiest.

You can listen to this post on the TeacherWriter Talks podcast.

Table of Contents

The Summary Writing Assignment From Days of Yore

This year, instead of giving the typical summary writing assignment, perhaps you could read an interesting article or story together, and have your students write a summary about that.

Now, in all honesty, and with full disclosure, I have to admit this assignment isn’t always the best choice either. Why? It’s because at the beginning of the year, students are out of practice with writing, and some may not have learned how to write a summary yet.

This blog will help you with a simple system to teach summary writing with ease, using templates, graphic organizers and a step-by-step plan.

How to Start Teaching How to Write a Summary at the Beginning of the School Year

First of all, define what a summary is for your students. Next, define what it isn’t. Last, don’t let them start writing until you’ve modeled the process and done a think aloud with them.

Teaching how to write a summary isn’t a one and done lesson. You’ll be revisiting pieces and parts of the summary time after time. You’ll know when your students finally have it, because they’ll be able to write a summary in just a few minutes.

How Fast Can a Student Write a One Page Summary?

It was the beginning of the year. My student cried and laid his head in his hands. He struggled with writing, didn’t like it, and gave some push back with every assignment.

Gradually, with accommodations, scaffolding, and several meetings in small group writer’s workshops, his writing began to emerge. His eyes sparkled every time he showed me how much his writing had improved.

One day, I gave an assignment, and this student turned it in inside of Google Classroom in about ten minutes.

I said, “Hey, I don’t think you could have done a stellar job so quickly.”

The student assured me, “Yes, I did my best, I edited and revised it, and I think it’s perfect.”

Not wanting to seem curmudgeonly, I pulled up the document and read it out loud with the student. I was so surprised and pleased because it was absolutely the best summary they had turned in that year. Wow!

At that moment, I knew the student understood how to write a summary that sparkled!

Things to Include in a Summary

• Main idea of the article in one sentence. 
• One or two important details.
• Transition words.

The students must read the article, once, twice, possibly three times before writing the summary. It all depends on the text complexity and the reading level of the student. You can read it with students, too. 

If you choose to read it with them, read it once to get the overall ideas. Read it a second time to annotate important points. Read it a third time to clarify any doubts and to really get to the understanding of the text.

What NOT to Include in a Summary

• Thoughts or reflections about the content.
• Conclusion statements are optional.

It’s important to make sure your students understand that summary writing and opinion writing are two different things. I use the acronym, JTFF.

Just the Facts, Friend!

If a student starts writing includes opinions, reminiscences, comparisons with their own experiences, etc., all you need to say is,

Grading tip: If a student adds opinions or personal thoughts to a summary, simply write the letters JTFF over that part of their writing. They’ll know what you mean.

Using a Template or Formula to Teach Summary Writing

• Graphic organizer to use while reading.
• Sentence stems for the introduction.
• Format to follow like a step-by-step guide
• Use scaffolds

This is where we get to the meaty part of the lesson. I’m going to lay out the parts of my simple system for teaching summary writing. You want to simplify writing a summary as much as possible, and this is how you can do it. It’s not a bad thing to use a template or formula.

In addition, have an entire blog post dedicated to some of the most effect Scaffolds for Teaching Writing  to help you differentiate the writing lessons for your students. You don’t need anything special to use them. You can incorporate them into your teaching today.

• Read the article to get the overall ideas.
• Read the article again using a graphic organizer. My suggestion is that you use the same graphic organizer for summaries every time. This prevents students from having to learn how to navigate a graphic organizer while they’re trying to learn to write a summary.
• Students annotate the text and make notes of important ideas in the graphic organizer.
• Use a sentence stem for the introduction. Include the article title, the author’s name, a verb such as “tells”, “reports,” “defines,” etc., and the main idea.
• Write the important points about the main idea in the summary, usually in the present tense.

Examples of Writing a Summary Sentence Introduction

The summary sentence template looks like this:

The article (or story) —Title of Article— by —Author’s Name— tells —Main Idea—.

For example:

The story The First Day Jitters, by Julie Danneberg tells about what happens when Sarah Jane Hartwell is afraid to go to her new school.

Another example: 

The blog article “Preventing Summer Slide”, by Suzanne Pitner gives several ideas to keep children entertained and learning during the summer break.

Yet another example:

According to the blog post “Santa Claus Tracking”, by Suzanne Pitner, NORAD has been tracking Santa since 1955 as he makes his annual trip around the world.

A great way to practice this is to have your students write a one sentence summary starter about their favorite books, or books they read over the summer. Practice this all the time in every context of summary writing.

The Body of the Summary

For young learners, and for English learners, having a format or a template to follow is similar to having a recipe on hand. In the same way you follow a recipe step by step, students can follow a template step by step.

• First, write the opening summary sentence. (See the template above.)
• Next, add one or two important facts or details about the article or book.
• Finally, include transition words, or linking words.

Did you notice the simple yet obvious transition words I used in this template? That’s perfect for teaching elementary students how to write. Let them master the obvious transition words first. Later they can learn how to write more subtle, nuanced transitions.

Transition Words for Writing Summaries in Elementary School

These are a few ideas of transitions appropriate for younger grades. Your textbook, if you have one, may have more transitions and examples of linking words. I found these to be the simplest to implement in classes of 8 to 11 year-old learners.

• First, next, last
• First, second, third
• One thing, another thing, finally
• In the beginning, in the middle, in the end
• To begin, to continue, in the end

These summaries help them organize their thoughts in a sequential order that makes sense for the writing task at hand.

Summary Tool in Google Docs (TM)

Google Docs (™) has a tool to use to help teach summaries. Depending on the article, it may or may not provide a simple, one or two sentence summary. 

You can use this to identify key points to include while summary writing. It’s also a great way to get a classroom conversation going about the following questions:

• Is this an adequate summary?
• Did it give enough information to make the reader want to read the article?
• Is anything missing from this summary?

Please note that my impression of this tool is that it’s designed for web writing and short articles. It’s not a replacement for the actual summary you’ll be teaching your students to write.

Here’s how to access the Summary Tool in Google Docs (™).

• In your top bar, click on “View.”
• Click on “Show Outline.”
• Click on the “plus” sign next to the word Summary.

If you found this article helpful in teaching summary writing in your classroom, please consider signing up to receive my free handbook, Building Strong Writers With Simple Systems. You’ll be added to my email list so you won’t ever miss a post about teaching writing. Thanks, friend!

HP Instant Ink – get $10 credit

Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that when you click on one and purchase something, I receive a small payment at no extra cost to you.

Related posts:.

Copyright 2020-2023 |TeacherWriter LLC | All Rights Reserved.

Privacy Overview

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Researching

48 Writing Summaries

A summary is a short overview of the main points of a text. The purpose of a summary is to quickly give the reader or listener an idea of what this material is saying. You may create summaries of material by other authors, such as articles, plays, films, lectures, stories, or presentations.

Why Summarize?

At some point in your classes, you will likely be given an assignment to summarize a specific text, an assignment in which summary is the sole intent. You will also use summaries in more holistic ways, though, incorporating them along with paraphrase, quotation, and your own opinions into more complex pieces of writing. You might summarize for several reasons, both in your time as a student and in your life outside of education.

Here are some common uses:

• A summary can show your understanding of the main points of an assigned reading or viewing, so your instructor might ask you to summarize in order to know that you’ve understood the material.
• You might summarize a section from a source, or even the whole source, when the ideas in that source are critical to an assignment you are working on and you feel they need to be included, but they would take up too much space in their original form.
• You might also summarize when the general ideas from a source are important to include in your work, but the details included in the same section as those main ideas aren’t needed for you to make your point. For example, technical documents or in-depth studies might go into much, much more detail than you are likely to need to support a point you are making for a general audience. These are situations in which a summary might be a good option.
• Summarizing is also an excellent way to double-check that you understand a text—if you can summarize the ideas in it, you likely have a good grasp on the information it is presenting. This can be helpful for school-related work, such as studying for an exam or researching a topic for a paper, but is also useful in daily life when you encounter texts on topics that are personally or professionally interesting to you.

What Makes Something a Summary?

When you ask yourself, after reading an article (and maybe even reading it two or three times), “What was that article about?” and you end up jotting down—from memory, without returning to the original article to use its language or phrases—three things that stood out as the author’s main points, you are summarizing. Summaries have several key characteristics.

You’re summarizing well when you

• Use your own words.
• Significantly condense the original text.
• Provide accurate representations of the main points of the text they summarize.
• Avoid personal opinion.

Summaries are much shorter than the original material—a general rule is that they should be no more than 10% to 15% the length of the original, and they are often even shorter than this.

It can be easy and feel natural, when summarizing an article, to include our own opinions. We may agree or disagree strongly with what this author is saying, or we may want to compare their information with the information presented in another source, or we may want to share our own opinion on the topic. Often, our opinions slip into summaries even when we work diligently to keep them separate. These opinions are not the job of a summary, though. A summary should only highlight the main points of the article.

Focusing on just the ideas that best support a point we want to make or ignoring ideas that don’t support that point can be tempting. This approach has two significant problems, though:

First , it no longer correctly represents the original text, so it misleads your reader about the ideas presented in that text. A summary should give your reader an accurate idea of what they can expect if we pick up the original article to read.

Second , it undermines your own credibility as an author to not represent this information accurately. If readers cannot trust an author to accurately represent source information, they may not be as likely to trust that author to thoroughly and accurately present a reasonable point.

How Should I Organize a Summary?

Like traditional essays, summaries have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. What these components look like will vary some based on the purpose of the summary you’re writing. The introduction, body, and conclusion of work focused specifically around summarizing something is going to be a little different than in work where summary is not the primary goal.

Introducing a Summary

One of the trickier parts of creating a summary is making it clear that this is a summary of someone else’s work; these ideas are not your original ideas. You will almost always begin a summary with the author, title, and thesis of the piece. This information will appear again in your Works Cited, but is also useful here so the reader can follow the conversation happening in your paper. You will want to provide it in both places.

In summary-focused work, this introduction should accomplish a few things:

• Introduce the name of the author whose work you are summarizing.
• Introduce the title of the text being summarized.
• Introduce where this text was presented (if it’s an art installation, where is it being shown? If it’s an article, where was that article published? Not all texts will have this component—for example, when summarizing a book written by one author, the title of the book and name of that author are sufficient information for your readers to easily locate the work you are summarizing).
• State the thesis.

Summary within Your Essay

You will probably find yourself more frequently using summary as just one component of work with a wide range of goals (not just a goal to “summarize X”).

Summary introductions in these situations still generally need to:

• Name the author.
• Name the text being summarized.
• State just the relevant context, if there is any (maybe the author has a specific credential that makes their work on this topic carry more weight than it would otherwise, or maybe the study they generated is now being used as a benchmark for additional research).
• Introduce the author’s full name (first and last names) the first time you summarize part of their text. If you summarize pieces of the same text more than once in a work you are writing, each time you use their text after that initial introduction of the source, you will only use the author’s last name as you introduce that next summary component.

Presenting the Body of a Summary

Again, this will look a little different depending on the purpose of the summary work you are doing. Regardless of how you are using summary, you will introduce the main ideas throughout your text with transitional phrasing, such as “One of [Author’s] biggest points is…,” or “[Author’s] primary concern about this solution is…”

If you are responding to a “write a summary of X” assignment, the body of that summary will expand on the main ideas you stated in the introduction of the summary, although this will all still be very condensed compared to the original. What are the key points the author makes about each of those big-picture main ideas? Depending on the kind of text you are summarizing, you may want to note how the main ideas are supported (although, again, be careful to avoid making your own opinion about those supporting sources known).

When you are summarizing with an end goal that is broader than just summary, the body of your summary will still present the idea from the original text that is relevant to the point you are making (condensed and in your own words).

Since it is much more common to summarize just a single idea or point from a text in this type of summarizing (rather than all of its main points), it is important to make sure you understand the larger points of the original text. For example, you might find that an article provides an example that opposes its main point in order to demonstrate the range of conversations happening on the topic it covers. This opposing point, though, isn’t the main point of the article, so just summarizing this one opposing example would not be an accurate representation of the ideas and points in that text.

Concluding a Summary

If the author has a clear conclusion, use that. Otherwise, this is also a good place to state (or restate) the things that are most important for your readers to remember after reading your summary.

When your writing has a primary goal other than summary—such as response, analysis, or compare/contrast sources—your conclusion should

• Include an in-text citation, if appropriate. (To learn how to do this correctly, see the discussion of in-text citation in “ Crediting and Citing Your Sources ,” part of the “Using Sources Correctly” section of this text.)
• Discuss the summary you’ve just presented. How does it support, illustrate, or give new information about the point you are making in your writing? Connect it to your own main point for that paragraph so readers understand clearly why it deserves the space it takes up in your work. (Note that this is still not giving your opinion on the material you’ve summarized, just making connections between it and your own main points.)

Write a summary paragraph for a reading you are assigned. A summary is an effective restatement focusing on the main idea of a writing passage.

Requirements

• Your topic sentence should provide the author and title along with the thesis of the work.
• Only mention key points that support the thesis.
• Keep the same order or sequence of information.
• Mention only information from the original writing. Do not include new information, personal opinions, or interpretations.
• Include a fair distribution of summary statement, paraphrase, and quote.
• Your assignment must be formatted in correct MLA formatting.

Step-by Step Instructions

Follow these steps carefully.

• Read through once, not taking notes or highlighting, but simply noting the overall main idea of the text.
• Divide the text into sections that focus on one key idea in each section.
• Note a key term for each section.
• Plan which sections best suit summary statement, paraphrase, and quote.
• Write an outline: your topic sentence and a list of the points that support the main idea.
• Write a sentence for each point. Conclude with a sentence showing the significance of the writing from the author’s point of view, not yours. (If the author makes a clear conclusion, skip writing a conclusion of your own.)
• Make sure to use correct MLA formatting. Run the spelling and grammar check and follow the revision process before submitting your final assignment.

Don’t forget to ask for help if you need it!

Text Attributions

• This chapter was adapted from “ Writing Summaries ” in The Word on College Reading and Writing by Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear, which is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 Licence . Adapted by Allison Kilgannon.

Advanced English Copyright © 2021 by Allison Kilgannon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Common Writing Assignments

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

These OWL resources will help you understand and complete specific types of writing assignments, such as annotated bibliographies, book reports, and research papers. This section also includes resources on writing academic proposals for conference presentations, journal articles, and books.

Understanding Writing Assignments

This resource describes some steps you can take to better understand the requirements of your writing assignments. This resource works for either in-class, teacher-led discussion or for personal use.

Argument Papers

This resource outlines the generally accepted structure for introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions in an academic argument paper. Keep in mind that this resource contains guidelines and not strict rules about organization. Your structure needs to be flexible enough to meet the requirements of your purpose and audience.

Research Papers

This handout provides detailed information about how to write research papers including discussing research papers as a genre, choosing topics, and finding sources.

Exploratory Papers

This resource will help you with exploratory/inquiry essay assignments.

Annotated Bibliographies

This handout provides information about annotated bibliographies in MLA, APA, and CMS.

Book Report

This resource discusses book reports and how to write them.

Definitions

This handout provides suggestions and examples for writing definitions.

Essays for Exams

While most OWL resources recommend a longer writing process (start early, revise often, conduct thorough research, etc.), sometimes you just have to write quickly in test situations. However, these exam essays can be no less important pieces of writing than research papers because they can influence final grades for courses, and/or they can mean the difference between getting into an academic program (GED, SAT, GRE). To that end, this resource will help you prepare and write essays for exams.

Book Review

This resource discusses book reviews and how to write them.

Academic Proposals

This resource will help undergraduate, graduate, and professional scholars write proposals for academic conferences, articles, and books.

In this section

Subsections.

Module 4: Writing in College

Writing assignments, learning objectives.

• Describe common types and expectations of writing tasks given in a college class

Figure 1 . All college classes require some form of writing. Investing some time in refining your writing skills so that you are a more confident, skilled, and efficient writer will pay dividends in the long run.

What to Do With Writing Assignments

Writing assignments can be as varied as the instructors who assign them. Some assignments are explicit about what exactly you’ll need to do, in what order, and how it will be graded. Others are more open-ended, leaving you to determine the best path toward completing the project. Most fall somewhere in the middle, containing details about some aspects but leaving other assumptions unstated. It’s important to remember that your first resource for getting clarification about an assignment is your instructor—they will be very willing to talk out ideas with you, to be sure you’re prepared at each step to do well with the writing.

Writing in college is usually a response to class materials—an assigned reading, a discussion in class, an experiment in a lab. Generally speaking, these writing tasks can be divided into three broad categories: summary assignments, defined-topic assignments, and undefined-topic assignments.

Link to Learning

Empire State College offers an  Assignment Calculator  to help you plan ahead for your writing assignment. Just plug in the date you plan to get started and the date it is due, and the calculator will help break it down into manageable chunks.

Summary Assignments

Being asked to summarize a source is a common task in many types of writing. It can also seem like a straightforward task: simply restate, in shorter form, what the source says. A lot of advanced skills are hidden in this seemingly simple assignment, however.

An effective summary does the following:

• reflects your accurate understanding of a source’s thesis or purpose
• differentiates between major and minor ideas in a source
• demonstrates your ability to identify key phrases to quote
• shows your ability to effectively paraphrase most of the source’s ideas
• captures the tone, style, and distinguishing features of a source
• does not reflect your personal opinion about the source

That last point is often the most challenging: we are opinionated creatures, by nature, and it can be very difficult to keep our opinions from creeping into a summary. A summary is meant to be completely neutral.

In college-level writing, assignments that are only summary are rare. That said, many types of writing tasks contain at least some element of summary, from a biology report that explains what happened during a chemical process, to an analysis essay that requires you to explain what several prominent positions about gun control are, as a component of comparing them against one another.

Writing Effective Summaries

Start with a clear identification of the work.

This automatically lets your readers know your intentions and that you’re covering the work of another author.

• In the featured article “Five Kinds of Learning,” the author, Holland Oates, justifies his opinion on the hot topic of learning styles — and adds a few himself.

Summarize the Piece as a Whole

Omit nothing important and strive for overall coherence through appropriate transitions. Write using “summarizing language.” Your reader needs to be reminded that this is not your own work. Use phrases like the article claims, the author suggests, etc.

• Present the material in a neutral fashion. Your opinions, ideas, and interpretations should be left in your brain — don’t put them into your summary. Be conscious of choosing your words. Only include what was in the original work.
• Be concise. This is a summary — it should be much shorter than the original piece. If you’re working on an article, give yourself a target length of 1/4 the original article.

Conclude with a Final Statement

This is not a statement of your own point of view, however; it should reflect the significance of the book or article from the author’s standpoint.

• Without rewriting the article, summarize what the author wanted to get across. Be careful not to evaluate in the conclusion or insert any of your own assumptions or opinions.

Understanding the Assignment and Getting Started

Figure 2 . Many writing assignments will have a specific prompt that sends you first to your textbook, and then to outside resources to gather information.

Often, the handout or other written text explaining the assignment—what professors call the assignment prompt —will explain the purpose of the assignment and the required parameters (length, number and type of sources, referencing style, etc.).

Also, don’t forget to check the rubric, if there is one, to understand how your writing will be assessed. After analyzing the prompt and the rubric, you should have a better sense of what kind of writing you are expected to produce.

Sometimes, though—especially when you are new to a field—you will encounter the baffling situation in which you comprehend every single sentence in the prompt but still have absolutely no idea how to approach the assignment! In a situation like that, consider the following tips:

• Focus on the verbs . Look for verbs like compare, explain, justify, reflect , or the all-purpose analyze . You’re not just producing a paper as an artifact; you’re conveying, in written communication, some intellectual work you have done. So the question is, what kind of thinking are you supposed to do to deepen your learning?
• Put the assignment in context . Many professors think in terms of assignment sequences. For example, a social science professor may ask you to write about a controversial issue three times: first, arguing for one side of the debate; second, arguing for another; and finally, from a more comprehensive and nuanced perspective, incorporating text produced in the first two assignments. A sequence like that is designed to help you think through a complex issue. If the assignment isn’t part of a sequence, think about where it falls in the span of the course (early, midterm, or toward the end), and how it relates to readings and other assignments. For example, if you see that a paper comes at the end of a three-week unit on the role of the Internet in organizational behavior, then your professor likely wants you to synthesize that material.
• Try a free-write . A free-write is when you just write, without stopping, for a set period of time. That doesn’t sound very “free”; it actually sounds kind of coerced, right? The “free” part is what you write—it can be whatever comes to mind.  Professional writers use free-writing to get started on a challenging (or distasteful) writing task or to overcome writer’s block or a powerful urge to procrastinate. The idea is that if you just make yourself write, you can’t help but produce some kind of useful nugget. Thus, even if the first eight sentences of your free write are all variations on “I don’t understand this” or “I’d really rather be doing something else,” eventually you’ll write something like “I guess the main point of this is…,” and—booyah!—you’re off and running.
• Ask for clarification . Even the most carefully crafted assignments may need some verbal clarification, especially if you’re new to a course or field. Professors generally love questions, so don’t be afraid to ask. Try to convey to your instructor that you want to learn and you’re ready to work, and not just looking for advice on how to get an A.

Defined-Topic Assignments

Many writing tasks will ask you to address a particular topic or a narrow set of topic options. Defined-topic writing assignments are used primarily to identify your familiarity with the subject matter. (Discuss the use of dialect in  Their Eyes Were Watching God , for example.)

Remember, even when you’re asked to “show how” or “illustrate,” you’re still being asked to make an argument. You must shape and focus your discussion or analysis so that it supports a claim that you discovered and formulated and that all of your discussion and explanation develops and supports. 

Undefined-Topic Assignments

Another writing assignment you’ll potentially encounter is one in which the topic may be only broadly identified (“water conservation” in an ecology course, for instance, or “the Dust Bowl” in a U.S. History course), or even completely open (“compose an argumentative research essay on a subject of your choice”).

Figure 3 . For open-ended assignments, it’s best to pick something that interests you personally.

Where defined-topic essays demonstrate your knowledge of the content , undefined-topic assignments are used to demonstrate your skills— your ability to perform academic research, to synthesize ideas, and to apply the various stages of the writing process.

The first hurdle with this type of task is to find a focus that interests you. Don’t just pick something you feel will be “easy to write about” or that you think you already know a lot about —those almost always turn out to be false assumptions. Instead, you’ll get the most value out of, and find it easier to work on, a topic that intrigues you personally or a topic about which you have a genuine curiosity.

The same getting-started ideas described for defined-topic assignments will help with these kinds of projects, too. You can also try talking with your instructor or a writing tutor (at your college’s writing center) to help brainstorm ideas and make sure you’re on track.

Getting Started in the Writing Process

Writing is not a linear process, so writing your essay, researching, rewriting, and adjusting are all part of the process. Below are some tips to keep in mind as you approach and manage your assignment.

Figure 4 . Writing is a recursive process that begins with examining the topic and prewriting.

Write down topic ideas. If you have been assigned a particular topic or focus, it still might be possible to narrow it down or personalize it to your own interests. 

If you have been given an open-ended essay assignment,  the topic should be something that allows you to enjoy working with the writing process. Select a topic that you’ll want to think about, read about, and write about for several weeks, without getting bored. 

Figure 5 . Just getting started is sometimes the most difficult part of writing. Freewriting and planning to write multiple drafts can help you dive in.

If you’re writing about a subject you’re not an expert on and want to make sure you are presenting the topic or information realistically, look up the information or seek out an expert to ask questions.

• Note: Be cautious about information you retrieve online, especially if you are writing a research paper or an article that relies on factual information. A quick Google search may turn up unreliable, misleading sources. Be sure you consider the credibility of the sources you consult (we’ll talk more about that later in the course). And keep in mind that published books and works found in scholarly journals have to undergo a thorough vetting process before they reach publication and are therefore safer to use as sources.
• Check out a library. Yes, believe it or not, there is still information to be found in a library that hasn’t made its way to the Web. For an even greater breadth of resources, try a college or university library. Even better, research librarians can often be consulted in person, by phone, or even by email. And they love helping students. Don’t be afraid to reach out with questions!

Write a Rough Draft

It doesn’t matter how many spelling errors or weak adjectives you have in it. Your draft can be very rough! Jot down those random uncategorized thoughts. Write down anything you think of that you want included in your writing and worry about organizing and polishing everything later.

If You’re Having Trouble, Try F reewriting

Set a timer and write continuously until that time is up. Don’t worry about what you write, just keeping moving your pencil on the page or typing something (anything!) into the computer.

• Outcome: Writing in College. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence. Authored by : Amy Guptill. Provided by : SUNY Open Textbooks. Located at : http://textbooks.opensuny.org/writing-in-college-from-competence-to-excellence/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of man writing. Authored by : Matt Zhang. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/pAg6t9 . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
• Writing Strategies. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/lumencollegesuccess/chapter/writing-strategies/ . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of woman reading. Authored by : Aaron Osborne. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/dPLmVV . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image of sketches of magnifying glass. Authored by : Matt Cornock. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/eBSLmg . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial
• How to Write a Summary. Authored by : WikiHow. Located at : http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Summary . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• How to Write. Provided by : WikiHow. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Image of typing. Authored by : Kiran Foster. Located at : https://flic.kr/p/9M2WW4 . License : CC BY: Attribution

Writing a Summary or Rhetorical Précis to Analyze Nonfiction Texts

Download this Handout PDF

Academic writers across all disciplines analyze texts. They summarize and critique published articles, evaluate papers’ arguments, and reflect on essays. In order to do these things, they have to read complex texts carefully and understand them clearly.

This page is about how you can read and analyze nonfiction texts. When you’ve read a text well, you can then discuss it in class, think critically about it, incorporate it into your writing, consider it in light of other texts, and advance or push against its ideas. We believe two productive strategies for approaching this kind of reading and analysis are active reading and rhetorical précis writing. This page provides a guide to these strategies and practical ways to help you evaluate, compare, and reflect upon nonfiction texts.

Active Reading

Introduction to the rhetorical précis, parts of a rhetorical précis, using a rhetorical précis to guide analysis.

Active reading requires you to slow your reading down, engage more intentionally with the text, think about it, and focus your attention on its ideas. When you read actively, you can’t just flip pages and daydream about tomorrow’s plans. Much has been written about active reading, but generally we recommend that when you read you:

• Skim over the text before reading it. Look to see how long it is, where it’s published, how it may be divided into sections, what kind of works cited list it has, whether there are appendices, etc. Use the title to help you predict what the text is about and what it argues. This overview will help you to understand the context, genre, and purpose of this piece as well as help you gauge how long it will take you to read it and how it might be relevant to your class, paper, or project.
• Take notes about the text’s key ideas and your responses to those ideas. Depending on the text and your preferences, these notes could be made on your copy of the text or article or in a separate place. Notes will help you remember and process what the text is about and what you think about it.

In addition to these strategies, we firmly believe that one of the best ways to understand a book, article, essay, blog post, etc. is to write a summary of it. Specifically, we recommend that you use your reading to generate a rhetorical précis.

“Précis” is French for “specific” or “precise.” It’s also a particular kind of writing. When you write a précis you have to exactly and succinctly account for the most important parts of a text. If you write a successful précis, it is a good indication that you’ve read that text closely and that you understand its major moves and arguments. Writing a précis is an excellent way to show that you’ve closely read a text.

Disclaimer: There are different kinds of précis for different contexts. A legal précis is different from what we’re talking about here. Some précis are longer or shorter than others. If you are writing a précis as a course assignment, be sure to follow your instructor’s guidance on what this should consist of and how it should be formatted.

Sometimes rhetorical précis writing is a course requirement. However, even if you aren’t required to write a précis for a class, writing one can help you in a number of ways. Writing a précis guides your reading and directs your attention to the key aspects of a text. Précis writing prepares you to discuss a text and sets you up for that important next step: analysis. A rhetorical précis can even help you structure your annotated bibliography annotations or provide you with summary sentences to include in a paper as you account for your sources.

A rhetorical précis, as developed by Margaret K. Woodworth and described in her 1988 article “The Rhetorical Précis” (published by Rhetoric Review), consists of four dense but direct sentences.

• The first sentence identifies who wrote the text, where and when it was published, and what its topic and claim are.
• The second sentence explores how the text is developed and organized.
• The third sentence explains why the author wrote this, her purpose or intended effect.
• The fourth and final sentence describes the “for whom” of the text by clarifying who the intended or assumed audience of this text is.

Let’s look more closely at those four parts.

First Sentence: Who, Where, When, and What?

Start by identifying the author and offering any information that might help clarify who this person is in relation to this text. Is this a scholar? If so, what is her field? Is she a public official or a prominent blogger? Is he a public intellectual? A reporter? A spokesperson? Has he written other stuff? Locate a bio in the journal or the book cover. Do a quick internet search. Figuring out who the writer is will help you understand some of the texts’ context.

Next up, the publication. What is its title? Is it a book in a series or an article in a special collection? Does it appear in the leisure section of a local newspaper? Sometimes the title of the journal is self-explanatory, but at other times it’s unfamiliar or not clearly connected to a specific discipline. Explain it as necessary. Add the date in parentheses after the title of the text. Unless it’s a newspaper, magazine, or time-sensitive online article, usually just the year will suffice.

The rest of the sentence should be about the article’s topic—what it is about. In order to make this part particularly precise, use a rhetorically strong verb to describe the author’s claim. For example, the author may suggest, argue, analyze, imply, urge, contrast, or claim something.

Second Sentence: How?

In this sentence, provide a very condensed outline of how the author develops, structures, and supports the argument. What kind of evidence does the article draw upon? How is the case built? Perhaps by comparing and contrasting, illustrating, defining, or providing context? Perhaps the text starts out with a narrative and then moves into a description of several research studies? This sentence should account for all the most important moves made across this piece.

Third Sentence: Why?

What does the writer want the reader to do, believe, feel, or think about all this? What was the purpose of this text? In the first sentence, you told us what that author is arguing; now it is time to consider why the author has done all of this. Use an “in order to” phrase in this sentence to very clearly indicate the purpose.

Fourth Sentence: For Whom?

In the final sentence, identify the author’s intended audience and offer some rationale for how you know that to be the audience. Look back at the publication and think about who is likely to read this kind of magazine, journal, or book. Pay attention to the language used in this piece and how much background the writer provides. What does the writer assume readers believe, know, or value? Identifying the audience helps you consider how rhetorically effective this text is.

An Annotated Sample of a Rhetorical Précis

Take a look at this annotated précis of William Cronon’s 1995 article “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” It closely follows the précis structure outlined above.

In “The Trouble With Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (1995), the opening essay of the edited collection Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, renowned environmental historian William Cronon [Comment: The information about who Cronon is was very easily located at the end of the article and through a quick internet search.] critiques the romantic idolization of supposedly untouched, vast wilderness and argues that such a perspective of wilderness negatively affects humankind’s relationship with nature. Cronon builds a historical case for wilderness as a human construct, explores the cultural and literary foundations for the belief that wilderness is a sublime frontier, identifies the problematic paradoxes inherent in this belief, and outlines the detriments of and possible paradigm–shifting solutions to this environmental problem. [Comment: One of the challenges of the second sentence is to decide what not to include. In this case, more could be said about what those paradoxes and detriments are, but since the focus here is on the “how” instead of the “what,” they have been left out. If those kinds of unidentified details are important enough, there is room to mention them more thoroughly in the third sentence.] Cronon opposes the perspective of wilderness as an idealized, non–human space in order to persuade his readers to live rightly in relationship to nature and embrace the reality that “home” as a welcoming, responsibility–requiring place encompasses both “wilderness” and “civilization.” [Comment: Often there is more than one “why,” so be on the look out for this as you actively read.] According to his specific identification, scholarly presentation, and publication venue, Cronon’s primary audience includes American environmentalist academics. [Comment: In the later third of this essay, Cronon uses the pronoun “we” to identify himself and his assumed readership. Often authors aren’t this useful in helping to identify an audience.]

Writing a good précis is a lot of work. It takes dedicated time and consideration. But, it can be useful in and of itself and productive in the development of additional academic writing. Of course, the most obvious application of a précis is connected to its function as a summary. In academic writing, we summarize sources all the time. Once you have written a précis, you can incorporate some of its sentences or ideas into your writing when you need to quickly account for a text’s argument, content, or purpose.

But a rhetorical précis is even more powerfully useful for writing analysis.

Etymologically, “analysis” comes from the Ancient Greek terms for “throughout” and “loosening.” When you analyze something, you deconstruct it, extract its parts, peer inside to see how everything fits together. You thoroughly loosen it in order to understand it better. When you’ve used a précis to lay out the primary elements of this text (the author; the argument’s what, how, and why; and the audience) in front of you, you’re ready to move on with your analysis. Analysis of nonfiction texts can take several forms, but three common ones are: evaluation and critique, comparison, and reflection.

Evaluation and Critique

Evaluating a text requires you to use your analysis to consider and critique the strengths and weaknesses of that piece of writing. Look back at the argument and audience and ask yourself some of these questions:

• Is this a persuasive argument for this group of readers?
• How well is the author’s argument developed and clarified through the structure of the text?
• Where does the logic of the argument and its supporting evidence cohere or fall apart?
• Do the author’s background, tone, evidence, and assumptions foster credibility?
• Does the piece achieve what the author intended?

Detailed answers—with examples—to any of these or similar questions could generate enough material for a close, analytical evaluation. Make sure that you are connecting your assertions about what works and doesn’t work in this text to the author, the argument’s development and purpose, and the audience. Make sure that you are looking deeply at how and why various elements of the text and its argument succeed or falter.

Through comparison, you bring together an analysis of more than one text. Start by writing a précis for each piece you have to compare. Then look at each précis side–by–side and ask yourself about how a sentence in one précis relates to the corresponding sentence in the other précis. Here are some questions to guide your thinking:

• Are all texts addressing a parallel idea?
• Are they making similar or different arguments?
• Have they employed similar methods to arrive at their arguments?
• Are they using the same kind of structure to develop those arguments?
• What is different about their intended audiences?
• Is one more or less successful or persuasive than the other?

Let what you identify as being similar and different about these texts guide your comparative analysis.

Reflection provides you with space to analyze a text in light of your experiences, perspectives, and ideas. In this kind of writing, you get to talk about yourself. In a way, a reflective analysis is kind of like a comparative analysis where the second text is you. Look back at that rhetorical précis and ask yourself questions like these, or other questions that connect what you know and have experienced with the text you have read:

• What else have you read or experienced that furthers or complicates the argument made by this text?
• How do you see that these ideas fit into the larger context of what you’ve been studying in this course?
• Why do you have a particular opinion or response towards this piece of writing?
• Moving forward, how can this text, its argument, or its presentation be influential in shaping your thinking or research?

In order to analyze a text, you need to understand key elements of it. Closely reading that text and summarizing it through a rhetorical précis can help you understand it better. In large part, the quality of your analysis will be dependent on the quality of your comprehension. So, give yourself the time you need to read carefully, think deeply, and analyze effectively.

Works Cited

Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Environmental History , vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 7–28.

Woodworth, Margaret K. “The Rhetorical Précis.” Rhetoric Review , vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 156–64.

Academic and Professional Writing

This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.

Analysis Papers

Reading Poetry

A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis

Using Literary Quotations

Play Reviews

Writing a Rhetorical Précis to Analyze Nonfiction Texts

Incorporating Interview Data

Grant Proposals

Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

Additional Resources for Grants and Proposal Writing

Job Materials and Application Essays

Writing Personal Statements for Ph.D. Programs

• Before you begin: useful tips for writing your essay
• Guided brainstorming exercises
• Get more help with your essay
• Frequently Asked Questions

Resume Writing Tips

CV Writing Tips

Cover Letters

Business Letters

Proposals and Dissertations

Resources for Proposal Writers

Resources for Dissertators

Research Papers

Planning and Writing Research Papers

Quoting and Paraphrasing

Writing Annotated Bibliographies

Creating Poster Presentations

Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper

Thank-You Notes

Advice for Students Writing Thank-You Notes to Donors

Reading for a Review

Critical Reviews

Writing a Review of Literature

Scientific Reports

Scientific Report Format

Sample Lab Assignment

Writing for the Web

Writing an Effective Blog Post

Writing for Social Media: A Guide for Academics

Graduate Student Resource Center

Supporting Graduate Students' Academic and Professional Success

Summarizing Strategies

Summarizing a great deal of books and articles is a task many of us in graduate school learn how to do. There are several ways to start summarizing. In the long run, our notes can store some important ideas for us to draw from later, especially when we need to write new essays or take writing exams. As I went on in graduate school, I realized that I needed to upgrade my summarizing strategies more and more. Again, there are different ways to summarize and store information, or code information in general (there are also tons of programs to help with coding and organizing your information (please check out this blog ). I want to focus on the notation and writing process in this short blog. In an old-fashioned way, this involves using a pen and paper and writing notes on your textbooks. Of course, you can still use your laptop to jot down notes. These few short tips will add to your writing tool belt.

[ Image Description: A frog using a pencil and paper to take notes]

Noting Key Words: Sometimes, you read a few pages, and you do not necessarily want to stop and jot down a great deal of notes because you want to maintain a good level of comprehension. An old friend once advised a group of students and me that after you read one paragraph, write one word (or a two-word phrase) next to the paragraph. These words can serve two functions: highlight the paragraphs’ focus and jog your memory about some of the larger ideas and connections you made. 

Paragraph Summaries: Another way to summarize book or article chapters is to write 4-5 sentences on the last page of the chapter right after you finish reading it. You can also draw on the “keywords” you wrote next to each paragraph to help guide your writing process. Think of these short paragraphs as crystals. In this 4 to 5-sentence summary, you want to crystallize the argument and summarize the key points of the text you've just read: its central thesis, prominent examples, and concluding remarks. Additionally, summarizing specific content directly related to your research is a big plus, so you should also focus your summaries on such areas. (For timesake, sometimes we cannot read an entire chapter – but only its introduction, conclusion, and key examples or findings. Nonetheless, with strategic reading and proper summarizing skills, we can still walk away with some key ideas and store them for future use).

Summarize Ideas that Interest You: At one point, one of my graduate advisors suggested that if I read a book in my field and really liked it, I email the author and share with them the key ideas I appreciated from their book. This is a great exercise because no writing goes to waste. As you are writing to this professor, you will be actively engaging with some of their ideas; this can prompt you to make connections and ask further questions. Also, these short writings (and even conversations if they respond and some do ) can be stored for your future use.

Book Summaries: A whole other blog can be written on book summaries for this point. Writing book summaries is a very important practice to develop – especially for those in the humanities and social sciences. Some recommend that you write a book summary for every book that will be in your dissertation bibliography. Writing a 2-3 page summary of a book will help you understand a book’s breadth and depth to a higher degree. Often, these book summaries need to include the author's main thesis, the birds-eye-view of the book, a brief synopsis of all or key chapters of the book, and further elaboration on chapters of interest (especially if these chapters make direct connections to your work). As you take time to write these book summaries, if some of the books you wrote about were recently published, you can also polish these summaries further and try submitting them as book reviews for publication.

Placing Ideas in Conversation: As a final point, one way to summarize information is to note various authors discussing the same topic and place them in conversation. You can create different “living” documents (using Word, Google Docs, Pages, etc.) and constantly update them. Every time you see an author addressing a topic you are focusing on, note it – and make sure to add a few sentences to your living document to show how this specific author contributes to the conversation. Making these bigger connections between writers may lead you to some brilliant ideas!

[ Image Description: A light bulb shining because it has a great idea.]

That is all the tips I have for now. Hopefully, these few points will help! Happy writing!

• Services & Software

Back to School: Using AI to Create Writing Assignments Students Actually Want to Do

You may even have fun grading them.

Getting students excited about the work you have to grade later can be one of the more frustrating things about teaching , but when an assignment hits the right chord, it has the potential to inspire and impact not just the classroom, but the whole school and beyond.

Reconciling the curriculum and assignments with standards and learning objectives sometimes established out of a teacher's control can really sap the creative side of your brain. 

Here's how artificial intelligence can help broaden your horizons when trying to create assignments that make a lasting impression and keep your classroom excited about learning. (And for more AI tips for the back-to-school season, check out CNET's guides on  how to use AI to keep up with important dates and  how to use Microsoft Copilot to create notes on pretty much anything.)

Since there will need to be a fair bit of refinement to create an assignment that is both fun to complete for students and fun to review and grade for educators, I've used ChatGPT , the AI chatbot that uses machine learning and large language models to generate conversational style answers to search queries, so that I could go back and forth brainstorming ideas.

Maintaining teacher and student sanity

My area of study is media and communications, so for this example I'm putting together an assignment on media literacy , or the ability to think and interact critically with everything from TikTok content to front-page news. 

The goal is to create an assignment that's fun, collaborative and impactful for college students who interact heavily with digital media but might not be questioning what they're consuming.

The secondary goal was to create an assignment I won't hate myself for creating when it comes time to grade it.

On my first attempt, ChatGPT gave me a fully built-out assignment according to specific learning objectives around media literacy for college-level students, but it was about as fun as you'd think writing a 500-word essay on media literacy might be -- not fun at all.

Refine for fun, collaboration and focus

Since this assignment is in part about getting students to actually interact with media online in a way that's more impactful than just lurking or liking from the digital shadows, I refined the prompt to include using the student body in the assignment somehow and requested less emphasis on written analysis that will ultimately only be seen and evaluated by the teacher.

Here's what it came back with:

I was actually impressed -- not only did ChatGPT have students interacting with and analyzing media, but it also created a multi-layered assignment that gave students the opportunity to see firsthand the impact media literacy can make on a community as well as an individual.

This assignment would also be a darn sight more enjoyable to grade than 30 to 50 500-word analytical essays about whether the source of a Brat summer post on TikTok can be trusted.

Finally, ChatGPT offered submission requirements (like linking to the social media content used in completing the assignment and screenshots of the online interactions) and grading criteria for the assignment and even some examples of how the assignment might be executed.

Its example in particular about analyzing the role of political memes was timely and felt like a fresh take on an evolving reality of campaign media.

I personally would love to see videos from students collaborating on a discussion with their peers about their perception of Kamala HQ 's content and the presence of former President Donald Trump across social media. 

And who knows -- maybe the students might actually enjoy it too.

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

More From Forbes

Navigating the new gauntlet of professional interviews.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

19 November 2022, Hamburg: A Deutsche Bahn employee holds a pen during a job interview. Deutsche ... [+] Bahn held dozens of job interviews for trainees and career changers at and in an ICE train at Altona station. Photo: Jonas Walzberg/dpa (Photo by Jonas Walzberg/picture alliance via Getty Images)

In today's competitive job market, professionals are increasingly subjected to an arduous interview process, resembling more a reality TV show than a pathway to employment.

Simplilearn’s Job Interview Statistics and Trends for 2024 report highlights this trend, noting that companies now prioritize long-term hires, significantly lengthening the recruitment process. TeamStage.IO emphasizes the intensity of this trend, reporting an average of 10 to 20 interviews per candidate, depending on experience and the job’s nature. However, InsightGlobal offers a slightly less daunting figure, suggesting two to four interviews are more typical, and Jobera estimates up to five rounds of interviews as the new norm, influenced by industry and hiring specifics.

A Seemingly Endless Cycle of Interviews

The current interview process often involves multiple rounds, each testing different candidate capabilities but frequently resulting in repetitive questioning. This can make candidates feel trapped in a loop, having to reiterate their qualifications to various interviewers who often do not coordinate their inquiries. This disjointed approach not only frustrates candidates but also leads to inconsistent assessments.

Cassie Manning, a New York-based program manager, reflects on the ordeal: “The process of landing an interview is intense, but that’s just the beginning of a marathon where I need to be ‘on’ constantly. While I understand the need for thorough vetting, the human connection often gets lost.”

The Dreaded Assignment

Many companies now include practical assignments in their interview processes, aiming to gauge hard skills. LinkedIn research found that 89% of hirers view skill assessments as crucial, with 83% expecting them to shape future hiring. Yet, concerns linger about their effectiveness and potential biases, as highlighted by Next Interview .

These assessments are meant to provide realistic previews of job performance but require meticulous design to ensure fairness and relevance to actual job duties. Despite best intentions, these assignments often miss their mark, as Manning critiques, “Most assignments create ‘gotcha’ moments, designed to eliminate candidates, rather than showcasing the best fit for the role.”

It’s ‘Over’—Leak Sparks Serious U.S. Crypto Crackdown Fears As The Bitcoin Price Bounces Back

New samsung galaxy s24 ultra price lands as pixel 9 releases, trump vs. harris 2024 polls: harris up 5 in latest survey.

Still, as noted in Psychology Today and HireEZ there is an increase in the use of skills assessments and practical evaluations during the hiring process, and these assessments involving assignments ideally allow candidates to showcase their skills and provide a clear assessment of their capabilities in certain areas.

Intellectual Property Concerns

For creative professionals, these assignments can be particularly perilous as they attempt to find a balance between showing their creative side and not giving away precious ideas ahead of being hired.

Stories abound of companies using rejected candidates' ideas without credit. Mita Milak and Dee C Marshall of Brown Table Talk devoted an episode to how people can prevent their ideas from being stolen during the interview process. Vice talks about how job seekers, especially those involved in creative fields as well as early-stage careers may be particularly likely to have ideas appropriated by potential employers without receiving a job offer or credit for their efforts.

Wendy Serafin, fractional communications leader & consultant for Nifares Group, articulates the dilemma: “There is a fine line with interview assignments as they should be a showcase of one’s ideas or where one can add immediate value to a company; however, they also run the risk of, in essence, being free intellectual expert consulting like strategic ideation, action plans, creative concepts or leadership guidance. It puts a candidate in a tough position to determine how much detail to present in order to showcase one’s expertise as a top candidate that could be also used whether they hire the candidate or not.”

Setting Boundaries

The intense competition for jobs compels candidates to endure these exhaustive processes, which can sometimes be demoralizing and overwhelming. To mitigate these issues, candidates should set clear boundaries and manage expectations effectively:

• Clarify Assignment Expectations: Before starting an assignment, seek clarity on its scope and the expected time commitment to avoid misunderstandings.
• Limit Your Time Investment: Adhere to the suggested duration for assignments to protect your time and well-being.
• Maintain Mental and Emotional Health: Schedule breaks between interview rounds and engage in activities that promote relaxation and balance.

In conclusion, the interview process has become an excessively challenging and often inequitable ordeal for candidates. It is imperative for companies to reevaluate their methods to ensure they are not only realistic but also respectful of candidates' time and abilities.

Ultimately, companies that adopt more considerate as well as realistic practices will be better positioned to not only attract but also retain top talent, fostering a more equitable and positive hiring experience for all parties involved.

For job seekers, it's important to remember that these processes should be a fair assessment of your abilities, not an endurance test. By setting clear boundaries, managing your personal time effectively, and prioritizing your mental and emotional well-being, you can navigate the interview process with confidence and poise. Keep in mind that hiring is a two way street; you’re evaluating and deciding on a prospective new employer as much as they are deciding who best to hire.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

• Environment
• Science & Technology
• Business & Industry
• Health & Public Welfare
• Topics (CFR Indexing Terms)
• Public Inspection
• Presidential Documents
• Document Search
• Advanced Document Search
• Public Inspection Search
• Reader Aids Home
• Office of the Federal Register Announcements
• Using FederalRegister.Gov
• Understanding the Federal Register
• Recent Site Updates
• Federal Register & CFR Statistics
• Videos & Tutorials
• Developer Resources
• Government Policy and OFR Procedures
• Congressional Review
• My Clipboard
• My Comments
• My Subscriptions
• Sign In / Sign Up
• Site Feedback
• Search the Federal Register

This site displays a prototype of a “Web 2.0” version of the daily Federal Register. It is not an official legal edition of the Federal Register, and does not replace the official print version or the official electronic version on GPO’s govinfo.gov.

The documents posted on this site are XML renditions of published Federal Register documents. Each document posted on the site includes a link to the corresponding official PDF file on govinfo.gov. This prototype edition of the daily Federal Register on FederalRegister.gov will remain an unofficial informational resource until the Administrative Committee of the Federal Register (ACFR) issues a regulation granting it official legal status. For complete information about, and access to, our official publications and services, go to About the Federal Register on NARA's archives.gov.

The OFR/GPO partnership is committed to presenting accurate and reliable regulatory information on FederalRegister.gov with the objective of establishing the XML-based Federal Register as an ACFR-sanctioned publication in the future. While every effort has been made to ensure that the material on FederalRegister.gov is accurately displayed, consistent with the official SGML-based PDF version on govinfo.gov, those relying on it for legal research should verify their results against an official edition of the Federal Register. Until the ACFR grants it official status, the XML rendition of the daily Federal Register on FederalRegister.gov does not provide legal notice to the public or judicial notice to the courts.

Design Updates: As part of our ongoing effort to make FederalRegister.gov more accessible and easier to use we've enlarged the space available to the document content and moved all document related data into the utility bar on the left of the document. Read more in our feature announcement .

Proposed Collection of Information: Special Form of Assignment for U.S. Registered Securities

A Notice by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service on 08/15/2024

This document has a comment period that ends in 61 days. (10/15/2024) Submit a formal comment

Thank you for taking the time to create a comment. Your input is important.

Once you have filled in the required fields below you can preview and/or submit your comment to the Treasury Department for review. All comments are considered public and will be posted online once the Treasury Department has reviewed them.

You can view alternative ways to comment or you may also comment via Regulations.gov at https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FISCAL_FRDOC_0001-0217 .

• What is your comment about?

Note: You can attach your comment as a file and/or attach supporting documents to your comment. Attachment Requirements .

this will NOT be posted on regulations.gov

• Opt to receive email confirmation of submission and tracking number?
• Tell us about yourself! I am... *
• First Name *
• Last Name *
• State Alabama Alaska American Samoa Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Guam Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Puerto Rico Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virgin Islands Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming
• Country Afghanistan Åland Islands Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Anguilla Antarctica Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Bouvet Island Brazil British Indian Ocean Territory Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia Comoros Congo Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Cook Islands Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guadeloupe Guam Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Heard Island and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania Mauritius Mayotte Mexico Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Niue Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine, State of Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Pitcairn Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Réunion Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Saint Barthélemy Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Martin (French part) Saint Pierre and Miquelon Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten (Dutch part) Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Svalbard and Jan Mayen Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tokelau Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States United States Minor Outlying Islands Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Wallis and Futuna Western Sahara Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe
• Organization Type * Company Organization Federal State Local Tribal Regional Foreign U.S. House of Representatives U.S. Senate
• Organization Name *
• You are filing a document into an official docket. Any personal information included in your comment text and/or uploaded attachment(s) may be publicly viewable on the web.
• I read and understand the statement above.
• Preview Comment

This document has been published in the Federal Register . Use the PDF linked in the document sidebar for the official electronic format.

• Document Details Published Content - Document Details Agencies Department of the Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service Document Citation 89 FR 66494 Document Number 2024-18210 Document Type Notice Page 66494 (1 page) Publication Date 08/15/2024 Published Content - Document Details
• View printed version (PDF)
• Document Dates Published Content - Document Dates Comments Close 10/15/2024 Dates Text Written comments should be received on or before October 15, 2024 to be assured of consideration. Published Content - Document Dates

This table of contents is a navigational tool, processed from the headings within the legal text of Federal Register documents. This repetition of headings to form internal navigation links has no substantive legal effect.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Comments are being accepted - Submit a public comment on this document .

Additional information is not currently available for this document.

• Sharing Enhanced Content - Sharing Shorter Document URL https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2024-18210 Email Email this document to a friend Enhanced Content - Sharing
• Print this document

This document is also available in the following formats:

More information and documentation can be found in our developer tools pages .

This PDF is the current document as it appeared on Public Inspection on 08/14/2024 at 8:45 am.

It was viewed 2 times while on Public Inspection.

If you are using public inspection listings for legal research, you should verify the contents of the documents against a final, official edition of the Federal Register. Only official editions of the Federal Register provide legal notice of publication to the public and judicial notice to the courts under 44 U.S.C. 1503 & 1507 . Learn more here .

Document headings vary by document type but may contain the following:

• the agency or agencies that issued and signed a document
• the number of the CFR title and the number of each part the document amends, proposes to amend, or is directly related to
• the agency docket number / agency internal file number
• the RIN which identifies each regulatory action listed in the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions

See the Document Drafting Handbook for more details.

Department of the Treasury

Bureau of the fiscal service.

Notice and request for comments.

The Department of the Treasury, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Currently the Bureau of the Fiscal Service within the Department of the Treasury is soliciting comments concerning the Special Form of Assignment for U.S. Registered Securities.

Written comments should be received on or before October 15, 2024 to be assured of consideration.

Direct all written comments and requests for additional information to Bureau of the Fiscal Service, Bruce A. Sharp, Room #4006-A, P.O. Box 1328, Parkersburg, WV 26106-1328, or [email protected] .

Title: Special Form of Assignment for U.S. Registered Securities.

OMB Number: 1530-0058.

Form Number: FS Form 1832.

Abstract: The information is requested to complete transactions involving the assignment of U.S. Registered and Bearer Securities.

Current Actions: Extension of a currently approved collection.

Type of Review: Regular.

Affected Public: Individuals or households.

Estimated Number of Respondents: 10.

Estimated Time per Respondent: 15 minutes.

Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 3.

Request for Comments: Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized and/or included in the request for OMB approval. All comments will become a matter of public record. Comments are invited on: 1. Whether the collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; 2. the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the collection of information; 3. ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; 4. ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and 5. estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information.

Dated: August 9, 2024.

Bruce A. Sharp,

Bureau PRA Clearance Officer.

[ FR Doc. 2024-18210 Filed 8-14-24; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4810-AS-P

• Executive Orders

Reader Aids

Information.

• About This Site
• Legal Status
• Accessibility
• No Fear Act
• Continuity Information

Filing an appeal

If you disagree with a coverage or payment decision by Original Medicare , your Medicare Advantage or other Medicare health plan , or your Medicare drug plan you can file an appeal.

Before you start an appeal, ask your provider or supplier for any information that may help your case. If you’re in a Medicare Advantage plan, other health plan, or a drug plan, check your plan materials, or contact your plan, for details about your appeal rights. The plan must tell you, in writing, how to appeal. Generally, you can find your plan's contact information on your plan membership card.

You can file an appeal if Medicare or your plan refuses to:

• Cover a health care service, supply, item, or drug you think Medicare should cover.
• Pay for a health care service, supply, item, or drug you already got.
• Change the amount you must pay for a health care service, supply, item, or drug.

You can also file an appeal if:

• Medicare or your plan stops providing or paying for all or part of a health care service, supply, item, or drug you think you still need.
• Your plan’s drug management program labels you as “at-risk” because you meet the Overutilization Monitoring System criteria. This means your plan limits your access to coverage for drugs like opioids and benzodiazepines.

What if I want to challenge a Local Coverage Determination?

How do appeals work?

The appeals process varies based on the kind of coverage you have. Generally, there are 5 levels of appeals. If you disagree with the decision made at any level of the process, you can usually go to the next level. At each level you'll get a decision letter with instructions on how to move to the next level of appeal. 

Get specific information on how to file an appeal based on the kind of coverage you have:

Original Medicare                 Medicare health plans                     Medicare drug plans

Can someone help me file an appeal?

State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP): Visit shiphelp.org to get the phone number for your local SHIP and get free, personalized health insurance counseling. SHIPs are state programs that get money from the federal government to give free local health insurance counseling to people with Medicare. 

Representative: If you have a trusted family member or friend helping you with a complaint, you can appoint them as a representative.   How do I appoint a representative?

Your right to a fast appeal

You also have the right to a fast appeal if you think your Medicare-covered services are ending too soon. This includes services you get from a hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health agency, comprehensive outpatient rehabilitation facility or hospice.

Your provider will give you a written notice before your services end that tells you how to ask for a fast appeal. If they don’t give you this notice, ask for it. Learn more about how fast appeals work.