Summarizing: Less is more

Summaries generally appear in one of two forms: Spoken or written, and most will tell you that the written summary is a great deal more difficult. A written summary is exactly what it sounds like: It is a short version of an often longer and original work that will explain the principal idea and arguments of its original. Writing summaries is about testing your ability to take any given document and rewrite a shorter version of it in your own words that must be (for academic purposes) 10% the length of the original.

Just like essay writing, writing summaries can be a time consuming process when you start but as you get better, you will also get faster and you will also find it easier to meet what will first seem like an impossible word count (that 10%). However, summarizing is akin to essay writing. Think of it as the writing of a very short essay, written using a single source article. However, before you can build speed, you must first understand the process:

Start by reading the original once, fast. You just need to understand the main subject and purpose. Keep a pencil or highlighter hand to underline the main point of the article. Now read it again, slower this time and try to catch the major details and relevant information. Normally, you will find one issue, fact or argument in each paragraph in the topic sentence of each one.

Your research and planning is already complete, because you have highlighted all the key points that need to go in to a summary, you now have to write the summary, which will normally be one paragraph that summarizes the source article both accurately and concisely. Above all else, remember that the summary you write be a piece of original work that uses your own words in its entirety, unless of course, there is something of profound importance that you feel must be quoted.

Now, try summarizing this article.