Summary Skills DLA

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Summary Skills DLA
Chaffey College Writing Center presents
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Why summarize?
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Reading Comprehension
The best way to understand any text is to
condense it into its main points. Before you can
summarize, you must understand the information
that you are condensing.
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Research Paper
Summarizing is important when you need to
condense ideas from sources (e.g., books,
articles, websites) for a research paper.
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Summary Analysis
Summary and analysis assignments require you to
express and analyze the main ideas of a text.
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Summary

• A condensed version of text that only includes
  the main ideas.

It may consist of
a single word
a single phrase
several sentences
and/or
several paragraphs
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Summaries

• Should be written in your own words

• Should match the tone of the original text

• Should make specific reference to the author
  and/or title and the page(s) of the text

• Should not include any of your opinions

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Original Text
Weak Summary
Excerpt from lnlandia
One of the first problems I had to confront in
junior high school was my ethnic background.
Redlands is in southern California and had a
large Mexican population, consisting mainly of
immigrants and illegal aliens who came up from
Mexico to pick fruit. At school they banded
together, speaking Spanish the girls with
mountains of black hair, fizzed from sleeping all
night long on masses of pin curls, wearing gobs
of violet lipstick, tight skirts and nylons, and
blouses with the collars turned up in back. The
boys were pachucos, tough guys, who slicked back
their gorgeous hair with Three Roses Vaseline
tonic and wore their pegged pants so low on the
hip that walking without losing them had become
an art. Few Mexicans were interested in school
and they were ostracized by the whites. So there
I was, with a Mexican name, skin, and hair the
Anglos couldnt accept me because of all three,
and Mexicans couldnt accept me because I didnt
speak Spanish. -Joan Baez, And a Voice to Sing
With
Explanation
The details in this summary are too specific and
do not relate to the authors main idea.
Weak Summary
In Redlands, CA, Joan Baez attended a junior high
with Spanish speaking girls, who wore violet
lipstick, and Spanish speaking boys, who were
pachucos, neither of whom accepted her (201).
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Original Text
Strong Summary
Excerpt from lnlandia
One of the first problems I had to confront in
junior high school was my ethnic background.
Redlands is in southern California and had a
large Mexican population, consisting mainly of
immigrants and illegal aliens who came up from
Mexico to pick fruit. At school they banded
together, speaking Spanish the girls with
mountains of black hair, fizzed from sleeping all
night long on masses of pin curls, wearing gobs
of violet lipstick, tight skirts and nylons, and
blouses with the collars turned up in back. The
boys were pachucos, tough guys, who slicked back
their gorgeous hair with Three Roses Vaseline
tonic and wore their pegged pants so low on the
hip that walking without losing them had become
an art. Few Mexicans were interested in school
and they were ostracized by the whites. So there
I was, with a Mexican name, skin, and hair the
Anglos couldnt accept me because of all three,
and Mexicans couldnt accept me because I didnt
speak Spanish. -Joan Baez, And a
Voice to Sing With
Explanation
This summary states the authors main idea
without including any specific details.
Strong Summary
In junior high school, Joan Baez felt unaccepted
by her Mexican classmates because she did not
speak Spanish and unaccepted by her Caucasian
classmates because she was Mexican (201).
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Steps to Summarizing
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Preview
Before you read the text

• Title

A title usually condenses the main idea of the
article.

• Subtitle

The subtitle, caption, or any other words in
large print under or next to the title may
highlight important ideas .

• Headings and Subheadings

Headings and subheadings break down the article
into sections that relate to the authors main
idea.

• First and last several paragraphs

The first and last several paragraphs often
introduce and conclude the authors argument or
main point

• Other Items

Bold-faced words, pictures, charts, or diagrams
can illustrate main ideas.
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Read
Read once through without stopping. Do not focus
on the details during your first reading. Just
try to understand the main idea.
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Evaluate

• Carefully read the text a second time.
• Use the surrounding context to understand words
  that are unfamiliar. Or use a dictionary!
• Look for definitions, examples, lists, tables,
  and graphs, which indicate key terms.
• Underline important ideas.
• Circle key terms.
• Note the main idea of each paragraph.
• Find the authors main point or argument of the
  whole entire text.

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Organize

• Start the summary with the title and author of
  the work.
• Write the authors main point or argument in your
  own words.
• Write the remaining important ideas in your own
  words.
• Do not include examples, statistics, specific
  details, and quotations, if possible.
• Write the articles conclusion in your own words.
• Organize the summary similar to the original
  texts organization.

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Check List

• Make sure that the summary is no more than 20
  of the original.
• Do not use technical words from the original
  use your own words as much as possible.
• Do not include too many details from the
  original.
• Do not plagiarize.
• Cite author and page numbers
• Proofread.
• Meet with a tutor at the Writing Center to
  receive feedback on your summary.

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Credits
This PowerPoint Presentation is adapted from the
following Baez, Joan. Excerpt from And a Voice
to Sing With. Inlandia. Ed. Gayle Wattawa.
Berkely Heyday, 2006. 201-04. Drucker, Phil.
How to Summarize. Advanced Technical Writing.
2006. University of Idaho. 4 Mar. 2008
lthttp//www.class.uidaho.edu/adv_tech_wrt/resource
s/ general/how_to_summarize.htmgt. Folwer, H.
Ramsey and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown
Handbook. 10th ed. New York Pearson
Longman, 2007. Langan, John. College Writing
Skills. 7th ed. New York McGraw Hill,
2008. Wehmeyer, David. Summary Writing.
Wisconsin Online Resource Center. 2007. 4
Mar. 2008 lthttp//www.wisc-online.com/objects/inde
x_tj.asp?objIDTRG2603gt.
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