A common writing assignment in a variety of high school courses is the summary of a particular essay or journal article. The purpose of a summary is to accurately describe the main point and the important details of the piece you are summarizing. A good summary incorporates all of the important aspects of a particular essay so that a reader who has not read the original work can understand what it is about. Thus, the most important element of a good summary is the ability to accurately depict what is in the original article. If your summary is close to the overall length of the work, then chances are you are simply paraphrasing the majority of the work rather than summarizing. Generally, the length of a summary should be about one quarter to one third of the total length of the article that is being summarized (for example, if the essay you are summarizing is 3 pages, the summary should be roughly 3/4 to one full page).

Tips for Summarizing
     •Read the article/essay as many times as necessary to gain a full understanding of it.

     •Do not put your personal opinion into any summary. No first person ("I" statements) are allowed (save these for the response portion, if there is one).

     •Always name the author (full name) and the article or essay title in the introductory paragraph, usually in the first or second sentence.

     •Always use present tense to discuss the essay and facts from the essay.

     •Use direct quotes from the text or paraphrase examples to support your claims. Quoting should only be used with           unique language that is hard to paraphrase.

     •When talking about an essay or article, always capitalize the title and place it in quotation marks.