Engels samenvatting h4

How to write a summary, a few tips and practical steps

Introduction
Throughout your college and professional career you will have to do a great deal of
reading and writing. Good writing and reading is an important tool to increase your
know-how and to give meaning to reality.

The goal of writing is usually not to repeat what others have written before you. On the
contrary, it usually entails expressing things you feel are worthwhile. Your research and
analysis of data will result in a certain view on the world. Through writing you are able to
communicate your reconstruction of reality based on your investigation. Writing enables
you, in short, to show others your ideas.

Clearly, summary writing is an important skill, yet many students struggle with it.
Summarizing in English seems even a bigger challenge.

This handout on summary writing aims to be a handy guide manufactured to improve
your summary writing proficiency. First, basic general reading strategies will be
discussed, subsequently some information about text structure is given followed by a
number of practical steps to improve your summary writing.

1. Reading techniques

A. Reading for gist: skimming
Reading quickly for the overall meaning or 'message', without attention to detail.
Compare this strategy with what you do when you quickly leaf through a magazine in
order to find out whether a particular article interests you enough to read it in detail.

When skimming, be selective. Use all the extra-textual information available and look for
keywords or read only the first and last lines of the paragraphs, where you will find the
theme of the article, the topic sentences or concluding statements.

B. Locating specific information: scanning
Scanning means quickly searching for information in a text (e.g. a name, a price, a date
or specific word). You scan a dictionary, when you search for a certain meaning of a
particular word. You scan the table of contents of a book trying to locate quickly which
chapter will give you the information on the subject you are interested in.

When scanning, it is essential to concentrate on the relevant parts only and to ignore and
skip the irrelevant parts. Make extensive use of all the clues in the text such as
illustrations, subheadings, letter type (bold or italics), capitalization, paragraphing.

C. Close reading
When you read a text from A-Z you read every single detail of the text. This is called
close reading. You read with the intention to digest all information and make a clear
distinction between major and minor details. Although this reading technique is more
time-consuming it enables the reader to really understand the text in order to be able to
write a complete and well-structured summary.

2. Text structure, identifying the functions of different parts of a text
Every text has some sort of organization. Most articles are divided into paragraphs. For
instance, a short article may have a first paragraph in which the subject is introduced,
the thesis statement is given, and which indicates what happened, who is involved, and
where and when something happened. Successive paragraphs normally explain or
expand on the subject or argument of the article and then a final paragraph generally
states a conclusion (see table of a text structure on page 6).

A paragraph is therefore a section in an article which is easy to recognize. It describes
one aspect of the main subject. The sentence in which this aspect is introduced is called
'topic sentence'. This is the key sentence of the paragraph and therefore it often
appears at the beginning of a paragraph, but sometimes at the end in order to conclude
and summarise the paragraph. The other sentences in the paragraph further explain or
describe the topic.

Paragraphs are related to one another. They can form a sort of hierarchy if certain
paragraphs follow from or are dependent on other main paragraphs. It is therefore
possible to rate paragraphs in terms of their importance. And that is an important notion
when it comes to summarizing a text. A flowchart can be used to visualize the hierarchy
or relationships of paragraphs. Flow charts and text structure will be discussed in class.

Connectives/linkers
The relationship between paragraphs is expressed by means of certain words. For
instance, when reading the word 'but' you know what follows will be in contrast with
what went before. Or when you read 'in addition to' you know that something will be
added to what you read before. These words are called 'connectives' or 'linkers' as they
link sentences, paragraphs and ideas. They are signals for the reader so that he/she sees
the relationship between the various parts of the text and they will help your readers
move from one point to the next. See appendix I for more details.

So, what has all this got to do with summary writing?
When making a summary of a text you only make a brief statement of the main points. A
summary does not include details or examples from the original text which do not move
the argument forward. A summary usually reflects the general structure of the original
text, but may also have its own organization of ideas as long as there is a clear structure.
A text should ideally be summarised to approximately one third of its original length,
depending on the nature of the text. In some cases, however, just a few lines suffice to
summarise a lengthy text riddled with examples and with little content. (see summarizing
steps and elements of a summary in chapter 3)

Paraphrasing
Writing a summary requires using your own words and sentence constructions.
Sometimes this will entail the skill of paraphrasing words or ideas of the original text. If
you make a paraphrase of a piece of text you reword it in such a way that it contains
exactly the same information as the original but in different words. (see chapter 3 for
more details)

The following chapter offers a practical approach to reading texts and writing summaries.

3. SUMMARY WRITING - Working in steps

3.1 Summary writing in short
Writing a summary is representing the content of a text in short, using your own words
and in such way that someone who has not read the text can attain a good view of what
the text is about.

A summary has quite a few characteristics. On the next page you see an overview of
some strict rules of summing-up.
Summaries
name the author and the source of the original text, preferably in one sentence;
reveal your comprehension of a text's subject matter;
are shorter (at least 60% shorter!) than the original text--they leave out for
instance examples, details and repetitions;
focus exclusively on the presentation of the writer's main ideas--they do not
include your interpretations or opinions;
normally are written in your own words--they do not contain extended quotes;
rely on the use of standard signal phrases ("According to the author..."; "The
author believes... etc.).
In order to write a good summary which has all these features, you will have to take
quite a few steps and you might wonder where to get started. The following paragraphs
give you an account of all the stages for writing an excellent summary. Try and do all the
steps in English whether the article is written in Dutch or in English, since the end result
in both cases is an English summary!
3.2 Prewriting Stage: Text Analysis
Before you can start writing a summary you need to analyze the original text to find the
essence of it. The steps below will help you on the way!
Step 1 Skim
Read the title, the first and last paragraph (in longer texts the first two and last two
paragraphs) quickly and decide at the outset the subject of the text (what the text is
about) and what the author is saying (main thought). You write the subject and the main
thought on paper in a complete sentences rather than merely keywords. Do this in
English (even though the article is written in Dutch!).

Step 2 Look Back
You read the text quickly from beginning to end. Make sure you understand the text by
looking up words you do not know in a dictionary. Check if the subject and the main
thought you noted down earlier are correct. This step might include scanning, looking at
special passages of the text in order to make clear that youve got all the key ideas of the
text.

Step 3 Mark and make notes
Next to each paragraph jot down a few words which state what the paragraph is about.
Read the text again and decide whether you can reduce the number of paragraphs, which
is possible in the case of a summed-up connection (i.e. the parts can be reduced to the
same denominator or put under the same heading). Reread the text again and underline
or highlight the topic statements in your paragraphs. Information about the thesis
statement and topic sentences will be provided in class.

Step 4 Rethink
Revisit a paragraph of the text. Try to say the main idea of that paragraph to yourself. Is
the main thought a topic sentence? Did you highlight it? Is the topic sentence missing? If
it is missing, did you make one, in the margin?

Step 5 Identify the functions of different parts of a text and visualize structure
Paragraphs are related to one another. They can form a sort of hierarchy if certain
paragraphs follow from or are dependent on other main paragraphs. It is therefore
possible to rate paragraphs in terms of their importance. A flowchart visualizes the
hierarchy or relationships of paragraphs. How to make a flowchart will be discussed in
class. Markers or signal words can give you a useful insight in these links. Create a
flowchart for the article.

Step 6 Check and Double Check
Look at your notes and flowcharts and check if you did not repeat yourself or if you left
something important out. Is it complete yet concise?

3.3 Writing and Rewriting Stage
Now it is time for the real writing. Important to remember is that good writing involves
drafting, editing and rewriting. Read more about it in the following paragraphs.

Step 1 Draft: Summing up in simple form
Make a draft summary of the topic statements and key-words using your own words and
your own sentence structure. State the articles thesis statement simply and in your own
words. Do the same for each paragraphs topic. Use simple sentences. Paraphrasing
helps you to avoid plagiarism. Make sure to create a clear structure using an
introduction, a body and concluding paragraph.

In the next paragraphs useful information about text structure and paraphrasing is given.
Read this before you get started working on step 1 of the writing and rewriting stage.

Text structure
A golden rule for good writing is: Dont make your reader work too hard. By all means
prevent reader frustration. It helps for that matter to assume that your reader is tired,
not too sympathetic and not too willing to understand what you want to say. It also
means giving a good structure to your text and using a clear framework. In the following
paragraphs a short overview is given regarding text structure.

The overall structure
Every text has some sort of organization, usually an introduction, body and conclusion.
The Tell em formula in the table below gives a simple design of texts, but also of for
instance presentations: