Uses various techniques in summarizing a variety of academic texts

TECHNIQUES

1. a way of carrying out a particular task,

especially the execution or performance
of an artistic work or a scientific
procedure.
2. skill or ability in a particular field
3. a skillful or efficient way of doing or
achieving something.

VARIOUS TECHNIQUES IN SUMMARIZING ACADEMIC TEXT

1.READ the work first to understand the author's intent.

2. PRESENT information through facts, skills and concept in visual formats.
3. Know the main points and the supporting details. (Exclude any illustrations, examples, or
explanations)
4. ANALYZE the text to save time
5. Think what information you will put in your summary.
6. RESTATE the words into different one. Use your own vocabulary but be sure to retain the
information.
7. ORGANIZE all ideas.
8. WRITE down all information in a coherent and precise form. AVOID making it long.

Summarizing is useful in many types of writing and at different points in the writing process.
Summarizing is used to support an argument, provide context for a paper's thesis, write literature
reviews, and annotate a bibliography. The benefit of summarizing lies in showing the "big picture,"
which allows the reader to contextualize what you are saying. In addition to the advantages of
summarizing for the reader, as a writer you gain a better sense of where you are going with your writing, which
parts need elaboration, and whether you have comprehended the information you have collected.

What is Summarizing?

According to Buckley (2002), in her popular writing text “ Fit to Print”, summarizing is reducing text to one-third
its original size, clearly articulating the author’s meaning, and relating ideas.
According to Dianne Hacker (2008), in a Canadian Writer’s Reference, explains that summarizing involves stating
a work’s theses and main idea “simply, briefly, and accurately.

From dictionaries, it is defined as taking a lot of information and creating a condensed version that covers the
main points; and to express the most important facts or ideas about something or someone in a short and clear
form.

From the given definitions, take a look on the pool of words and phrases
 Thesis – a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written by a candidate for a college degree.

Summarizing, or writing a summary, means giving a concise overview of a text’s main points in your own words. A
summary is always much shorter than the original text.

There are five key steps that can help you to write a summary:

1. Read the text

2. Break it down into sections
3. Identify the key points in each section
4. Write the summary
5. Check the summary against the article

Writing a summary does not involve critiquing or evaluating the source. You should simply provide an accurate account
of the most important information and ideas (without copying any text from the original).

When to write a summary

There are many situations in which you might have to summarize an article or other source:

 As a stand-alone assignment to show you’ve understood the material

 To keep notes that will help you remember what you’ve read
 To give an overview of other researchers’ work in a literature review

When you’re writing an academic text like an essay, research paper, or dissertation, you’ll integrate sources in a variety
of ways. You might use a brief quote to support your point, or paraphrase a few sentences or paragraphs.

But it’s often appropriate to summarize a whole article or chapter if it is especially relevant to your own research, or to
provide an overview of a source before you analyze or critique it.

In any case, the goal of summarizing is to give your reader a clear understanding of the original source. Follow the five
steps outlined below to write a good summary.

Step 1: Read the text

You should read the article more than once to make sure you’ve thoroughly understood it. It’s often effective to read
in three stages:

1. Scan the article quickly to get a sense of its topic and overall shape.
2. Read the article carefully, highlighting important points and taking notes as you read.
3. Skim the article again to confirm you’ve understood the key points, and reread any particularly important or
difficult passages.

There are some tricks you can use to identify the key points as you read:

 Start by reading the abstract. This already contains the author’s own summary of their work, and it tells you
what to expect from the article.
 Pay attention to headings and subheadings. These should give you a good sense of what each part is about.
 Read the introduction and the conclusion together and compare them: What did the author set out to do, and
what was the outcome?

Step 2: Break the text down into sections

To make the text more manageable and understand its sub-points, break it down into smaller sections.

If the text is a scientific paper that follows a standard empirical structure, it is probably already organized into clearly
marked sections, usually including an introduction, methods, results, and discussion.

Other types of articles may not be explicitly divided into sections. But most articles and essays will be structured around
a series of sub-points or themes.

Tip: To see at a glance what each part of the text focuses on, try writing a word or phrase in the margin next to each
paragraph that describes the paragraph’s content. If several paragraphs cover similar topics, you may group them
together.

Step 3: Identify the key points in each section

Now it’s time go through each section and pick out its most important points. What does your reader need to know to
understand the overall argument or conclusion of the article?

Keep in mind that a summary does not involve paraphrasing every single paragraph of the article. Your goal is to extract
the essential points, leaving out anything that can be considered background information or supplementary detail.

In a scientific article, there are some easy questions you can ask to identify the key points in each part.

Key points of a scientific article

Introduction  What research question or problem was addressed?

 Are any hypotheses formulated?

Methods  What type of research was done?

 How were data collected and analyzed?

Results  What were the most important findings?

 Were the hypotheses supported?

Discussion/conclusion  What is the overall answer to the research question?

  How does the author explain these results?
 What are the implications of the results?
 Are there any important limitations?
 Are there any key recommendations?

If the article takes a different form, you might have to think more carefully about what points are most important for the
reader to understand its argument.

In that case, pay particular attention to the thesis statement—the central claim that the author wants us to accept,
which usually appears in the introduction—and the topic sentences that signal the main idea of each paragraph.

Step 4: Write the summary

Now that you know the key points that the article aims to communicate, you need to put them in your own words.

To avoid plagiarism and show you’ve understood the article, it’s essential to properly paraphrase the author’s ideas. Do
not copy and paste parts of the article, not even just a sentence or two.

The best way to do this is to put the article aside and write out your own understanding of the author’s key points.

An article summary like the above would be appropriate for a stand-alone summary assignment. However, you’ll often
want to give an even more concise summary of an article.

For example, in a literature review or meta analysis you may want to briefly summarize this study as part of a wider
discussion of various sources. In this case, we can boil our summary down even further to include only the most relevant
information.

Citing the source you’re summarizing

When including a summary as part of a larger text, it’s essential to properly cite the source you’re summarizing. The
exact format depends on your citation style, but it usually includes an in-text citation and a full reference at the end of
your paper.

Step 5: Check the summary against the article

Finally, read through the article once more to ensure that:

 You’ve accurately represented the author’s work

 You haven’t missed any essential information
 The phrasing is not too similar to any sentences in the original.

If you’re summarizing many articles as part of your own work, it may be a good idea to use a plagiarism checker to
double-check that your text is completely original and properly cited. Just be sure to use one that’s safe and reliable.