Summaries and Book Reports

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Summaries and Book Reports
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I. The summary

• A summary is a brief restatement of the essential
  thought of longer composition. It reproduces the
  theme of the original with as few words as
  possible. When we write a summary, we should not
  interpret or comment. All we have to do is to
  give the gist of the authors exact and essential
  meaning.

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1. Uses of summary writing

• (1) Summary writing is a very good exercise for
  improving reading comprehension.
• (2) Summary writing is also helpful to
  composition writing.
• It trains one to express ones thought clearly,
  concisely and effectively.
• (3) Summary writing has practical uses.
• The ability to grasp quickly and accurately what
  is read, or heard, and to reproduce it in a clear
  and concise way is of great value to people of
  many professions.

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2. Procedure

• (1) Reading
• A. first read the passage through carefully to
  get the gist of it.
• B. give a title to your summary
• To find a suitable title will help you to define
  what exactly the subject, or main theme, of the
  passage is.
• C. decide what parts of the passage are essential
  and what parts are comparatively unimportant and
  can be omitted without much loss.
• D. jot down in brief notes the main pointsthe
  subject, the title, and the important details

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(2) Writing Page 264

• A. be about one-third to one-fourth as long as
  the original passage.
• B. be all in our own words.
• C. follow the logical order of the original
  passage, if possible (and desirable).
• D. be self-contained, i.e. it must convey the
  message of the original fully and clearly,

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E. In writing a summary, we may

• -Omit the details.-Reduce the examples.-Simplify
  the descriptions.-Eliminate all
  repetitions.-Compress wordy sentences and change
  phrases to words.e.g. His courage in battle
  might without exaggeration be called
  lion-like.He was very brave in battle.

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• -Use general words instead of specific words.
  She brought home several Chinese and English
  novels, a few copies of Time and Newsweek, and
  some textbooks. she intended to read all them
  during the winter vacation.This may be turned
  intoShe brought home a lot of books and
  magazines to read during the vacation.

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• -Use the shortest possible transitions.-Put the
  main points of a dialogue in indirect speech.

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e.g.

• Kate looked at Paul disapprovingly You use much
  too much salt on your food, Paulits not at all
  good for you! Paul put down his knife and
  frowned Why on earth not! If you didnt have
  salt on your food it would taste awfullike
  eating cardboard or sandjust imagine bread
  without salt in it, or potatoes or pasta cooked
  without salt!Kate was patient. She didnt want
  to quarrel with Paul. She wanted to persuade him.
  She said firmly But too much salt is bad for
  you. It causes high blood pressure and later on,
  heart-attacks. It also disguises the tastes of
  food, the real tastes, which are much more subtle
  than salt, and which we have lost the sensitivity
  to appreciate any more.Kate suggested to Paul
  that he should eat less salt. She thought that
  eating too much salt would do harm to Pauls
  health and that it could reduce the real tastes
  of food. But Paul disagreed. He said that food
  without salt would be tasteless.

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(3) Revision

• Revise your draft. Compare it carefully with the
  original to see that you have included all the
  important points.
• If it is too long, further compress it by
  omitting unnecessary words and phrases or by
  remodeling sentences.
• Correct all mistakes in spelling, grammar and
  idiom, and see that it is properly punctuated.
  Make the language simple and direct.

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For the summary of a novel or a play

• an outline of the plot is sufficient. The
  summary may be only one-hundredth or even
  one-thousandth of the length of the original
  book. Usually, it is written in the present
  tense.

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II. The Book Report

• Writing book reports helps students to improve
  their reading comprehension and their ability to
  analyse and evaluate books.
• Generally speaking, a book report consists of the
  following three main parts
• information about the author and his times,
• a summary of the book, and
• comments on it.

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A brief account of the authors life should be
given together with a description of his times.

• The latter should include the circumstances that
  led to the writing of the book under discussion
  and the historical and social background related
  to the content of the book.
• To make these things clear, the writer perhaps
  needs to read some reference material, such as
  biographies of the author and histories of the
  period described in the book.

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A summary should be self-contained, clear, and
easy to understand.

• Above all, it should be objective.

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Comments on and evaluation of the book form the
third and most important part of a book report.

• In this part we expresses our own views on the
  book, names its merits and demerits, and
  discusses its relevance to the present time.
• The discussion should center on the content of
  the book, but the authors style and techniques
  of presentation, if interesting, can also be
  touched upon.

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Evaluating

• Writing an evaluation involves making and
  justifying judgments.
• Here are some suggestions for writing an
  evaluation-Determine the appropriate criteria
  for the evaluation.-Base our evaluation on clear
  and sufficient evidence.-Let readers see how we
  arrive at our judgment.-Arrange our arguments in
  logical orderperhaps in order of increasing
  importance.

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The Book Report

• Book reports can help learners improve their
  reading comprehension and enhance their ability
  to analyze the story and the characters.
  Generally speaking, a book report is usually
  composed of three major parts. They are

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• 1.information about the writer (his name, the
  books he has published, the years of his birth
  and death, the publisher of the book) 2.a
  summary of the book (the story and main
  characters) 3.some comments on the book
  (personal interpretation of the meaning of the
  book)

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• When giving the information about the writer, the
  learner writer should include some historical and
  social background to which the book is related.
  To make things clear, the learner writer should
  read some reference materials, such as
  biographies of the writer and histories of the
  period in which the book was written.
• A book report should contain a summary of the
  book under discussion. The summary should be
  concise, clear and easy to understand. The
  learner writer should make sure that the summary
  be subjective and center on the major theme of
  the book.

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• As for the tense of the book report, it depends
  on the subject matter of the book. If it is a
  novel or a play or a science fiction, the present
  tense is more appropriate while the past tense is
  required for nonfiction such as history books.

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• The third part and also the most important part
  of a book report is the comment. In this part,
  the learner writer's job is to evaluate the book
  according to his or her own personal
  interpretation and discuss the merits (??) and
  demerits (??) of the book, the social and/or
  historical significance of the book. If the
  learner writer is competent enough to discuss the
  writing style of the author, he or she should
  feel free to do so.

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The Book Report - A Sample

• Sons and Lovers is a novel written by David
  Herbert Lawrence and it was first published in
  1913 in London by Wyman Sons.

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• D. H. Lawrence was born at Eastwood, Notts, on
  September 11, 1885, the fourth child of a miner
  who had been employed at Brinsley Colliery since
  he was 7 years old. In 1911, his first novel The
  White Peacock was published.
• Sons and Lovers is divided into two parts and is
  composed of 15 chapters altogether. the story,
  set in England, can be interpreted as an
  autobiographical novel of Lawrence

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• The hero of the book, Paul Morel, is the second
  son of a miner's family. His mother, Mrs. Morel,
  is a daughter of a mid-class family. Because of
  the differences in family background and
  education, a shadow is soon cast upon the married
  life of Mrs. Morel. And this shadow is darkened
  by Mr. Morel's laziness and alcoholism. By
  misfortune or bad luck, Mr. Morel has an accident
  and becomes a cripple, which changes him into a
  man of bad temper.

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• As a result, the couple shares less and less the
  things in common and is driven farther and
  farther apart from each other. Little by little,
  Mrs. Morel transports her attention and love to
  her children, especially her two sons, William
  and Paul. She encourages them to leave the small
  mining region for a big city to find
  opportunities for a better life.

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• After the death of her first son, William,
  because of hard work and pneumonia, Mrs. Morel's
  divided attention and love is poured completely
  upon Paul. The mother's abnormal love robs Paul
  of his normal love for his girl friend.

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• Sons and Lovers has always been claimed since its
  publication to be another version of Oedipus
  complex. But D. H. Lawrence is in no sense an
  imitator. Sons and Lovers is truly an
  autobiographical novel. It describes an ordinary
  life of a coal miner's family. The abnormal love
  from the mother deprives Paul of his independent
  personality and mental health. It is perhaps
  because of this true picture of life that the
  novel has won Lawrence everlasting reputation.

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Selected Books

• Jack London
• D.H.Lawrence
• Charles Dickens
• Mark Twain