A brief insight into summary writing
In her book Summary Writing, Reid (1994) provides a definition and description of the most important characteristics to be taken into consideration when writing a summary. According to the author, a summary is a concise account of the most important ideas of the text. For her, clarity, neutrality, balance, economy of details and adjectives are some of the most important features which define the genre. She also states that in order to obtain an effective summary, the understanding of the original source is of vital importance. Therefore, it is advisable to read the text repeatedly to be able to gain precise knowledge ¨ of the main ideas or actions¨ (as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 19).
Other significant aspects of the genre to take into account are the length and the amount of information that will be included in the summary. Reid (1994) states that the length as well as the amount of information provided in the summary will depend on the audience. She focuses special attention on this element because depending on the reader’s knowledge on the topic being summarized, the length and amount of information to be presented will vary. Consequently, an expert audience will allow the information to be reduced while a novice one will demand further information.
Reid (1994) classifies different types of summaries which find their existence in the target audiences and the purposes of the text. Abstracts, comparative summaries, academic/ public summaries, précis and private material summaries are some of the classes mentioned by the author ( as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 19). As regards the structure and organization of a summary, the genre has a fixed and abstract underlying structure realized by concrete and superficial modifications achieved by the use of language. The structure in summaries is given by introduction, body and conclusion. At a lower structural and content
level, information such as author, title, type of text and main point will be placed in some parts but not in others, for example,
Academic summaries are, according to Reid (1994), brief descriptions of academic-related topics. These summaries respect certain structural rules such as text organization. Every academic summary should have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Some elements that generally appear in introductions are: type of text, title of text being summarized, author of the original text, and main points of the original text; all of them neatly presented in introductory phrases. Bodies are made up of the main ideas of the original in the same order they appeared
( as cited in Pintos & Crimi, 2010, p. 19)
It is finally the conclusion of the summary that must be considered as relevant to the balance of the text as the introduction and the body. The conclusion in this genre should present the reader with a brief account of the information previously provided in the text plus a final conclusive comment. For this final part of the structure it is important to highlight the fact that no subjective opinion should be included by the writer as it is expected to be an objective account of information.
References
Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 3: Academic writing. Retrieved December 2010, from http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=7392
Reid, J. (1994). The process of paragraph writing. Englewood
