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In academic writing you often have to summarise part of a book or journal article. It is one of three ways of using another writer's work in your own (the other two being quotation and paraphrase). Your summary may be just one or two sentences, to explain the main idea of the article or compare it with another text, or it might be much longer, up to 50% of the original. This section explains the steps in writing a summary, as well as giving some useful language for summary writing. There is also a checklist to help you check your summary.

For another look at the same content, check out the summary writing infographic ».

Steps in writing a summary

You cannot just read a text and produce a summary. If you do so, you will likely miss many of the main points, and include unnecessary detail. You may also fail to paraphrase appropriately, leading to a charge of plagiarism. In order to write an effective summary, you need to follow certain steps. This begins with skimming the text to get an overall idea. After this, you should read more carefully and highlight the main points and supporting points (but ignore supporting examples and details). After this you will take notes, in your own words. You are then ready to write the summary itself. When this is done your task is not, as you should check the summary to make sure you have included all the main points and have a reference to the source.

The following flowchart outlines the steps in writing a summary.

Language for summary writing

Although most of the language in the summary will depend on the content, there are some formulaic phrases which can be used in a summary to help to make it clearer. These can be divided into three types: the frame, which begins the summary; reminder phrases, which are used throughout the summary; and transition signals, which are used in certain parts of the summary.

The frame

The frame is the main idea of the article. This is usually included in the first sentence, with a reference to the author and the main idea or argument of the text. You will also need to use a reporting verb. Some examples of frames are shown below, for an article titled "The Global Warming Crisis" by F. Brown, published in 2014. These use the Harvard style of referencing, but can be adapted to other styles.

• According to Brown (2014), ...
• Brown's (2014) article on global warming discusses...
• Brown (2014), in his article "The Global Warming Crisis", argues that...

Reminder phrases

It is useful to remind the reader, especially in a longer summary, that you are summarising another text. This is done by using reminder phrases such as the ones shown below. Using these also helps to avoid plagiarism, as these phrases include a reference to the source, thus making clear that the ideas are not your own (a mistake many beginning academic writers make is to just include a reference at the beginning, but if the summary is long, this is not enough).

• The author goes on to say that...
• The article further states that...
• The author further states that...
• (Author's last name) also states/ maintains/ argues/ believes that...
• (Author's last name) concludes that...

Note: In the last two examples, it is enough to include the author's name without the year (if using the Harvard or APA style of referencing, which require a year) as you have already given the year earlier in the summary, in the frame, and you do not need to repeat the year throughout the summary.

Transition signals

Pay attention to the organisation of the original text, and use appropriate transition signals when organising the ideas in your summary. For example, you may need comparison and contrast signals, cause and effect signals, classification signals, and so on.

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Checklist

Below is a checklist for summarising. Use it to check your own summary, or get a peer (another student) to help you.

References

Bailey, S. (2000) Academic Writing. Abingdon: RoutledgeFalmer