Effective Summarizing: Guidelines for Writing Summaries - Prof. N. E. Cotter, Exams of Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Download Effective Summarizing: Guidelines for Writing Summaries - Prof. N. E. Cotter and more Exams Electrical and Electronics Engineering in PDF only on Docsity! 3940 SUMMARY SPEECH GUIDELINES F 07 N. Cotter By: Cami Nelson (CLEAR Center) Summary Writing – A General Overview* Summary writing is an essential academic tool for research writing where you present condensed views of others’ arguments either to support your view or to provide alternative views to which you respond. Summary focuses on content AND structure. The following is a process that will lead to effective summarizing: 1. First, read the text quickly. Even if you’re confused, read straight through. 2. Read the text again. This time, add “gist statements” in the margins of each paragraph. There are two types of “gist statements” – what the text does / what the text says. Examples of “what the text does statements:”  Summarizes the opposition  Introduces concept x  Provides a case study as an example  Presents statistics to support claim Examples of “what the text says statements” (specific to text):  Teens’ desire for tattoos may be explained as a need to belong  Another reason teens get tattoos is to build an independent identity If you have difficulty summing up what a paragraph says, come up with a driving question you think the paragraph is attempting to answer. 3. After going through each paragraph as outlined in step two, try to figure out the structure of the article by dividing it into what you see as the major divisions or parts. Sometimes introductions will indicate those parts, though sometimes they won’t. 4. In producing the final summary, the challenge is to convey complex ideas from someone else’s text in as few and as clear words as you can. Think of a summary as a budget of words – you only have so many, so choose wisely.