The process of summarizing

Summaries are an important part of learning, and as such they are not a simple and mechanical task. Indeed, summaries should contain effective introductions, bodies and conclusions. In order to engage post-graduate students in the writing of accurate academic summaries, Pintos (2008) provided a model summary, which will be analyzed and judged in the present paper, and also some explanations to write academic summaries respecting standards.
The introductions of summaries should have introductory phrases which serve to outline the major ideas and specify the source. For instance, in the summary offered by Pintos (2008), the first sentence is as follows “In her book ‘The Process of Paragraph Writing’, Reid (1994) describes the main characteristics of a summary” (p. 20). On the other hand, the second sentence helps direct the reader since it expresses the most important characteristic of a summary, its purpose.
As regards the body of the summary provided by Pintos (2008), the use of connectors such as “however”, “not only…but also”, “moreover”, “that is to say” help the readers find the connections between the ideas in the text. However, some important points of the introduction such as the specific audience are not explained in the body and the characteristic of “balanced” seems confusing to the reader since it is not briefly explained. Besides, the last sentence does not seem a conclusion since it lacks objectivity and does not convey the main points of the summary.
By offering simple explanations, Pintos (2008) helps post-graduate students identify the academic writing requirements for summaries. Indeed, summaries involve reporting the most important ideas and parts of a text for diverse purposes and audiences (Reid, 1994; cited in Pintos, 2008). Pintos (2008) has noted that academic summaries should deal with topics connected to the academia and have an introduction, a body and a conclusion. Besides, in order to write an effective summary, the ideas need to be paraphrased or cited using quotation marks; connectors have to relate the main points in the body and conclusions should be objective (Pintos, 2008).
In brief, writing an academic summary is not an easy task since it requires the analysis and organization of the most important ideas of a text. By analyzing the model summary provided by Pintos (2008) and reading her explanations, I was given the opportunity of being in the readers’ shoes and understanding the importance of using appropriate connectors when writing and respecting the introduction, body and conclusion parts of a text in order to organize the main ideas effectively.



References

Reid, J. (1994). The process of paragraph writing. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Regents.

Pintos, V. (2008). Unit 3: Academic Writing. Universidad CAECE: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved October 2009, from
http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=2725