Tips That Will Help You with Summary Writing

Understanding the text

Writing a good summary shows that you have good comprehension of a text. The linguistic skills of the writer of a summary are also evident in a good summary. Following are a few points that can help you write a good summary of any text. If you are really interested in writing a good summary, then make sure to follow all the steps mentioned below.

The first thing you need to do when you are given a summary writing task is to understand the text. Read and re-read it. The first reading should be just to do skim reading to get the gist of the text and the topics it is covering. The second reading should be more thorough. After this, see if the text can be divided into any subtopics or subheadings. Highlight the topic sentences of the paragraphs and any important points. Also, mark the parts which consist of details that are not to be included in the summary. At this point, you will have an idea of the main and sub topics of the text, the idea that the author wants to convey, after knowing which you can start writing.

Writing – how to go about it?

Firstly, for each subheading, write a well-structured sentence that clearly communicates the idea of that section of the text. Make sure that the sentence is able to clearly convey the main idea without any loophole. Then, write a thesis statement that imparts the overall idea of the text. You now have a sort of draft, which will help you write the actual summary. The summary can start with the thesis statement, and the sentences that conveyed the ideas of the subtopics can follow it to form the rest of the summary. To create a logical flow, you may include some additional sentences between these.

Points to take care of when writing

There are some things you need to take care of when writing a summary. The summary should be brief and concise. That means that it should be shorter than the original text, but conveys the idea of the text clearly at the same time. It is usually one third of the whole text and should remain within the mentioned word count, if any. The summary cannot include any of your own ideas or opinions. It is a representation of the text that you are summarizing, and nothing more. Also, write in the present tense, and if you quote the author in the summary, cite the author’s words.

After writing

After you have written the summary, check whether it is an accurate representation of the author’s ideas that were present in the actual text. Check whether you have cited any words of the actual text that you included. Check your summary for grammar, punctuation, and the correct tense. A summary must consist of all the gist of the ideas spread throughout the composition. Make sure to recheck if any point is missed out and include the ones that are missed out.