GENERAL TIPS FOR THE WORD "SUMMARY" IN THE DIRECTIVE ESSAY
THE WORD "SUMMARY" IN THE ESSAY PROMPT
When you were asked to summarise the content of a book, an article, or some part of an article, you may have asked the following questions. For instance, what ought to be in this essay? What can you leave out of it? What is extremely important about it? How do you get rid of plagiarism without mentioning every sentence? Sometimes, summaries are hard to understand for the students for various reasons/causes. Here, we'll talk about some of the biggest problems that can come up when writing a comprehensive summary and how to avoid them.
Let's now look at the summary from a more detailed point of view. It is not proper to summarise an entire article in a paragraph. When you are asked to summarise a whole book or an article, first of all, you must come to know two things: what content is essential to add or choose, and how you should present this chosen content or information.
We see many students who take the main topic from each paragraph, define it from their perspective, and then combine it into a paragraph that consists of other rewritten main topics. It is not good practice. This makes the paragraph long and difficult to understand. It also doesn't show the reader that the student understands the paper's content. Our first tip for summarising is to fully understand what you are reading.
READING SKILLS ARE THE KEYS TO WRITING A SUMMARY
The first thing is to read the complete article before starting to summarise it. It would even be best practice to read twice or more. After reading the article attentively, put it aside and try to understand all the points you can recall from the article. These particular qualities may be valuable to you as you start writing. After collecting all the information that you need, you should go back and look for details about the author's introductory statement.
If you are summarising a research article, this will include the methodology; what was the goal? How many participants? What is the context, etc.? You can start writing your summary now after you have all the details and important points.
THE REQUIRED ELEMENTS FOR SUMMARY WRITING INCLUDE
You will always need to mention certain elements when summarising an entire book or article in a journal. You must, for instance, include the work's title, the author's name, the date of work, and a suitably referenced citation.
The majority of the points mentioned must be included in the first paragraph; as a writer, you want the reader to have enough background knowledge so that when you begin to explain the key points, the reader can follow them.
A common error frequently found in these kinds of summaries is the statement of claims without giving any background information. If a student writes, for example, "Smith (2017) determined that an arranged daily study schedule resulted in increased preservation of textbook information by university students," then we, as readers, would want to know how Smith reached this result.
What was the participation rate of the participants in this study? Which evaluation was Smith using to decide retention? What was the time between the daily study plan and the assessment? (i.e., if Smith asks them to study on day one and complete the retention test on day 2, the result might be different from if they took the test on day 32.
Look at the author's conclusion. If you still believe that everything in the article has the same importance, Here the writer's intelligence is used; this section is where the author will thoroughly explain to you what they believe is important or not. These points can support these ideas with evidence from the main article. It will put you in a good academic position.
No matter what method you choose, ensure that your paragraphs are arranged logically and contain only one main idea per paragraph. Your essay should be concise and fluent instead of confusing and scattered.
There will be times during your academic career when you will not only need to write the summary of an article but also attach a summary to a larger piece of essay writing.
At this point, the essay question may ask you to "support your argument with evidence." A summary can be a beneficial tool for providing this kind of support. The two most common mistakes students make here are losing track of the topic or being too detailed/long. Or, to the contrary, being too brief or vague. There are some helpful methods for avoiding these kinds of mistakes.
Think about what the reader wants. As the writer, you have made an initial point, which, if all goes well, will be the main point of the paragraph. The summary lets the reader see that your argument is supported or based on past claims or research by someone else.
While you should still include information such as author name and sample size, it is possible to skip some aspects, like the title of your article. Keep in mind that a paragraph can only contain 6–10 sentences, so be careful when choosing your words.
It is not easy to summarise information because there is a big difference between finding the right balance between what is too much information and what is necessary.
Once again, understanding what you have read is the key to writing a concise and helpful summary. To understand what the author believes is essential, look for clues at the end of the original work. As you read through the summary, try to imagine yourself in the reader's place. Once you feel the reader is able to make an informed decision on your claim without any difficulty, you will have done an excellent job of summarising, and you are well on your way to success.
