Summarizing

Dr. Sunarsih, M.A.

 What is summarizing?

A summary is a synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of

writing, restated in your own words – i.e.,
paraphrased. You may write a summary as a stand-
alone assignment or as part of a longer
paper. Whenever you summarize, you must be careful
not to copy the exact wording of the original source.
A good summary identifies the writer of the
original text, synthesizes the writer’s key ideas,
and presents the information neutrally
Original Text
America has changed dramatically during recent years. Not only has the number of
graduates in traditional engineering disciplines such as mechanical, civil, electrical,
chemical, and aeronautical engineering declined, but in most of the premier American
universities engineering curricula now concentrate on and encourage largely the study of
engineering science. As a result, there are declining offerings in engineering subjects
dealing with infrastructure, the environment, and related issues, and greater concentration
on high technology subjects, largely supporting increasingly complex scientific
developments. While the latter is important, it should not be at the expense of more
traditional engineering.

Rapidly developing economies such as China and India, as well as other industrial countries
in Europe and Asia, continue to encourage and advance the teaching of engineering. Both
China and India, respectively, graduate six and eight times as many traditional engineers as
does the United States. Other industrial countries at minimum maintain their output, while
America suffers an increasingly serious decline in the number of engineering graduates and
a lack of well-educated engineers. (169 words)

(Source: Excerpted from Frankel, E.G. (2008, May/June) Change in education: The cost of
sacrificing fundamentals. MIT Faculty Newsletter, XX, 5, 13.)
 One-Paragraph Summary

In a 2008 Faculty Newsletter article, “Change in Education: The cost of

sacrificing fundamentals,” MIT Professor Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel
expresses his concerns regarding the current state of American
engineering education. He notes that the number of students focusing on
traditional areas of engineering has decreased while the number
interested in the high-technology end of the field has increased. Frankel
points out that other industrial nations produce far more traditionally-
trained engineers than we do, and believes we have fallen seriously
behind. (81 words)
Why is this a good summary?
The summary identifies the writer, the date of
publication, and the source, and restates the key ideas
using original wording. The summary reports on the
author’s point of view, but reports this neutrally.
 One-Line Summary

MIT Professor Emeritus Ernst G. Frankel (2008) has called

for a return to a course of study that emphasizes the
traditional skills of engineering, noting that the number of
American engineering graduates with these skills has fallen
sharply when compared to the number coming from other
countries. (47 words)
Why is this a good summary?
This one-line summary identifies the writer and
synthesizes the key ideas. A short summary like this
might appear in the literature review of research paper
in which the student gathers together the findings or
opinions of scholars on a given subject.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
PARAPHRASING AND SUMMARIZING?

Summarizing and paraphrasing are

somewhat different. A paraphrase is about the
same length as the original source, while a
summary is much shorter. Nevertheless, when you
summarize, you must be careful not to copy the
exact wording of the original source. Follow the
same rules as you would for paraphrase.
SUMMARY
 A summary is a condensation of the main ideas in
an article. The length of a summary depends on:
 1. The assignment
 2. The length and complexity of the article
 3. The audience
SUMMARY
 The qualities of a summary are
 1. Objectivity: No idea that is not the author’s
should be included in the summary, and no opinion of
the summary writer should be in the summary. No
judgments (i.e., whether the article was “good” or
“interesting”) are permitted in a summary.
 2. Completeness: Depending on the assignment,
the summary should contain every main idea in the
article. Stating only the first main idea, or only one
main idea and details to support it, will not give the
reader a complete idea of what the article was about.
 3. Balance: Giving equal attention to each main
idea, and stressing ideas that the author stressed,
will result in an accurate summary.

SUMMARY
 Questions to judge a valid summary:
 1. Did you include all the important ideas?
2. Did you omit the unnecessary words and
phrases?
3. Does the summary read smoothly?
 A. use of transitions: also, thus, therefore,
however
B. use of sentence combining
 4. Would a reader of your summary who had
not read the article have a clear idea about the
article?
SUMMARY
 Process of summarizing material:
 1. Read the article quickly, looking for main
ideas.
2 Read it again carefully, absorbing the
information.
 3. Look for the thesis and topic sentences; they
will give you the main ideas of the article that
you will need for your summary.
 4. Depending on the assignment, select the
major ideas you will need to use in your
summary.
 5. Arrange these ideas carefully in order to
achieve balance and completeness.
SUMMARY
 6. Begin the summary with a sentence that informs your reader of
the title and author of the article:
Examples:
In the article “The Making of the Dutch Landscape,” Audrey Lambert
states that …
Assignments in Exposition, a book by Louise E. Rorabacher, discusses
…
 7. Punctuation
A. Underline the titles of books.
B. Put the titles of articles in quotation marks.
C. Ellipsis: Three dots indicate that something has been left out of a
direct quotation.
Examples:
“… something has been left out of a direct quotation.”
Three dots indicate that something has been left out (Note that the
sentence ends, so a period is added.)
D. Brackets (enclose information added to a direct quotation (for
example, to replace a pronoun with a noun.)
Examples:
“(Cuomo’s) philosophy is to share the burdens and benefits equally.”
EXAMPLE AND EXERCISE
 A. WRITE ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY (without mentioning the
source, max 25 words)

 B. LABEL EACH PARAGRAPHS WITH ITS MAIN POINT

 1. introduction—description of a cramming session
 2 cramming, more harm than good
 3 temporary mental lapses
 4 ______________________________________________________________
5 _____________________________________________________________
 6 ______________________________________________________________
7 ______________________________________________________________
8 ______________________________________________________________
9 ______________________________________________________________
10 ______________________________________________________________

 C. WRITE ONE-PARAGRAPH SUMMARY

Supriyanto, Bambang. Critical Reading. ITB.
https://integrity.mit.edu/handbook/academic-
writing/summarizing