If you are a student of English, be it Literature or Linguistic, you must know how to write a summary. Writing a summary of books, also known as summarising, involves outlining the key points of work in your own words.
If you want to learn about summary writing, here’s a complete guide. However, first, let us know the types so that you would pick which kind of summary you would like to learn.
Types of Summary:
Descriptive and evaluative summaries are the two primary forms. Unlike many other types of writing, not all summaries will ultimately fall into one of these categories.
Descriptive:
The foundation of a descriptive summary is the expression of facts. The essential idea of the subject under consideration is highlighted, together with any crucial supporting information.
Rarely will you find the author’s viewpoint in a detailed synopsis? It is a brief explanation of the work, which implies the writer utilizes the fewest number of words necessary to communicate the key ideas of the thing being described.
Why Do The Writers Use Descriptive Summary?
When a writer wishes to comprehend and communicate what the author said in the original text, they employ a descriptive summary.
Evaluative:
As “evaluative” implies, this kind of summary necessitates the writer’s evaluation of the subject matter.
The summary falls under the category of being heavily biased. A few basic details about the work must be included, such as the author, the title, and the primary idea.
The remaining information comprises the summary writer’s opinions about the work. The individual examining the thing will also consider how it will benefit them and will look at its shortcomings.
Why Do The Writers Use Evaluative Summary?
When a writer wishes to assess the original material for usefulness, validity, argument strength, or other crucial components, they will use the evaluative summary type.
Relating Target Audience and Goal
Descriptive summaries are often utilized with the current self and others, two of the three target audiences listed above. A writer will be able to digest the primary and supporting concepts in the works with the aid of a descriptive summary.
However, depending on your purpose for writing the summary, an evaluative summary could speak to your present self, future self, and others.
An evaluative summary may be ideal if you work on a project requiring source analysis. If you think about your future self and how to write an outline, you may find that writing an evaluative resume early on will help you accomplish a job more quickly.
Additionally, an evaluative overview can be your best option if you advise others to use the source.
Why Do We Write A Summary?
A source’s summary may be required of you to write:
- As a standalone task to demonstrate your understanding of the subject
- Take notes on the reading for your use.
- To present a summary of the findings of other scholars in a literature review.
- To introduce or briefly describe a significant subject in a publication.
When to Write a Summary?
You may need to summarise a piece of writing or another source in various scenarios.
For instance, if you wish to demonstrate your understanding of any topic, you can use the help of a summary.
You can also take notes to aid your memory of the material you’ve read. It is to provide a summary of the findings of other scholars in a literature review.
You will include sources in several methods while writing an academic piece, like an essay, research paper, or dissertation.
You may rephrase a few phrases or paragraphs or utilize a brief quotation to bolster your argument.
However, if an article or chapter is pertinent to your study, it is sometimes helpful to summarise the entire thing. You can also do this before you examine or criticize a source.
In any event, summarising is to convey the source to the reader.
What is the Summary of the book?
What is a book summary? When we write a book summary, we imply that a reader has invested the necessary time to read a book and produce what is now known as a summary.
A summary covers essential themes raised in the book but in the words and phrases of the summarise and is much shorter than the original text.
Don’t bother to think about how to start a book summary. There is a complete description of your start-up is coming up next. Here, you will get the elements of why we write a summary and a few things you must know about it.
- A summary begins with a topic phrase that identifies the text’s title, author, and direct message. You write a summary using your own words. Only the main points of the original text are included in a resume.
- A brief book’s central ideas are known as book summaries. When reading, they’re excellent for scanning a subject and determining whether a book is worthwhile.
- Start with a book summary and a catchy headline outlining your main argument.
- A summary condenses a text’s main points while retaining its meaning.
- It may be tempting to blend numerous passages from the book while writing a summary. But this is not the best course of action.
- You can change the points’ chronological order and exclude unimportant elements to make a practical summary.
- Writing a book summary is intelligent to ensure you understand what you’re reading.
- Additionally, it provides a handy reference that you may use whenever you need to recall the book’s primary ideas.
- Read the text attentively while making notes on crucial concepts, surprising narrative developments, and significant characters to create a robust synopsis.
- After that, you may utilize your notes to compose and then carefully review your excellent summary.
Step and Guide to Writing a Good Summary
To produce a firm summary, adhere to the guidelines provided below.
1. Read The Content First:
To ensure you fully comprehend the material, read it more than time. Three stages of reading are frequently practical:
1. Quickly skim the article to understand its content and general structure.
2. Read the material thoroughly, underlining crucial information, and make notes as you go.
3. Reread any especially significant or challenging portions after skimming the text to ensure you have comprehended the main ideas.
2. Reading Tricks:
You can use the following tips to remember the essential details as you read:
1. Reading the abstract first will help. It already includes an overview of the author’s work that explains what to anticipate from the piece.
2. Watch out for headers and subheadings. These ought to help you understand each section’s main points.
3. Compare what you read in the beginning with the conclusion: What was the author’s goal, and what did it accomplish?
3. Break the Text:
Divide the material into reasonable chunks to do reading and comprehending its sub-points easier.
One will most likely separate an organized scientific paper into parts with clear headers, which generally comprise an introduction, methods, findings, and commentary.
For other types of articles, there might not be a distinct divide into sections. However, you will structure most papers and essays around several supplementary concepts or subjects.
It’s time to look through each section and identify its essential aspects. What information is necessary for your reader to comprehend the article’s main point or conclusion?
Remember that a summary does not have to paraphrase every sentence in the article. One should avoid any background material or additional details to focus on the most critical issues.
You may ask a few simple questions to determine the main ideas in each section of a scientific publication.
4. Compare the article with the Summary:
Finally, reread the article to confirm that:
1. You did an excellent job of portraying the author’s work.
2. There is nothing crucial you’ve overlooked.
3. There aren’t many sentences in the original that sound like this.
4. Use a plagiarism detector to ensure your writing is unique and correctly referenced if you’re summarising several articles for your work. Just be sure you use a trustworthy one.
5. Points to Remember When You Writing a Summary:
1. Reduce the text, but take care not to distort the author’s viewpoints. The absence of specific details can occasionally alter the tone of the writing.
2. How are the specifics related to the overall concept and thesis? Always remember that a summary is a condensed version of the original material. You must concentrate on the information that is essential to know.
3. Find the essential thesis and concepts of the book. You can better grasp the author’s arrangement and flow by segmenting the text.
4. Transitional phrases can indicate emphasis and lead you through the text’s argumentative logic. Pay attention to phrases like “although,” “hence,” and “thus.”
5. You do not need to follow the author’s sequence strictly. Rearrange your ideas to make your conclusion logical.
6. Although your interpretation of the material is significant, a summary should not include it. Remember that an outline is a shortened version of the author’s thoughts and intentions. You should reserve your thoughts on the text for the debate.
Finally!
We have summarised everything you need to learn about writing a summary in this article. Just go through it twice and you’ll ace it!
