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Guidelines for Summarizing Sources

Summarizing

Another good skill to help you incorporate research into your writing is summarizing. Summarizing is to take larger selections of text and reduce them to their basic essentials: the gist, the key ideas, the main points that are worth noting and remembering. Think of a summary as the “general idea in brief form”; it's the distillation, condensation, or reduction of a larger work into its primary notions and main ideas.

As with directly quoting and paraphrasing, summarizing requires you to cite your sources properly to avoid "accidental" plagiarism. moreover, a summary should not change the meaning of the original source. a good summary should be a shortened version that conveys the purpose and main points of the original source.

Components of a Good Summary:

• Write in the present tense.

• Make sure to include the author, the year, and title of the work.

  • For Example:

    • In Pixar’s 2003 movie, Finding Nemo…

    • In Stephen King’s horror book The Shining (1977),…

    • In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death (1890),”

• Be concise: a summary should not be equal in length to the original text; it should be about 1/10 as long.

• Include 2–3 main points of the text or work.

• Include the conclusion or the final findings of the work.

• Avoid using quotations. A summary is not a paraphrase or a direct quote. If you must use the author's key words or phrases, always enclose them in quotation marks and cite.

• Don't put your own opinions, ideas, or interpretations into the summary. The purpose of writing a summary is to accurately represent what the author wanted to say, not to provide a critique.

When Is a Summary Useful?

You should summarize when…

• you want to give an overview of a source's main ideas/points;

• you can express a source's ideas or points in fewer words than the original text;

• you need to give a brief synopsis of more than one source; or

• Read through your notes from the third reading, look up the words/phrases that you do not know, and make any appropriate changes to the information you jotted down.

• you want an authority on the topic to support your ideas.

Examples of Good and Bad Summaries

Be careful when you summarize that you avoid stating your opinion or putting a particular bias on what you write. This point is important because the goal of a summary is to be as factual as possible.
For example, here is an example of an inaccurate, opinion-laden summary about Pixar’s popular movie Finding Nemo:

So there's a film where a man's wife is brutally murdered by a serial killer and his son is left physically disabled. In a twist of events, the son is kidnaped and kept in a tank while his father chases the kidnapper thousands of miles with the help of a mentally challenged woman. Finding Nemo is quite the thriller.

This example is a bad summary because it is very vague, and it contains the writer’s opinion as well as twists the events of the story into something it is not. Pixar’s Finding Nemo is not a thriller or a horror story like described above—it is an animated children’s movie about fish.

Here is a better summary of Finding Nemo:

Pixar’s Finding Nemo (2003) is a story about Marlin, a clownfish, who is overly cautious with his son, Nemo, who has a damaged fin. When Nemo swims too close to the surface to prove himself, he is caught by a diver, and horrified Marlin must set out to find him. A blue reef fish named Dory, who has a really short memory, joins Marlin and together they encounter sharks, jellyfish, and a host of ocean dangers. Meanwhile, Nemo plots his escape from a dentist's fish tank where he is being held. In the end, Marlin and his son Nemo are reunited, and they both learn about trust and what it means to be a family. (Finding Nemo, 2003)

This paragraph is a better summary than the original one because:

• it is accurate and factual;

• it states the main characters and events of the story;

• it gives the reader the crucial details without giving too many details; and

• it tells the moral of the story/the conclusion without twisting the meaning.

This summary is good because…

• it states the author/director, the year, and the title of the work;

• it is about 1/10 the length of the original passage;

• it is clear and understandable to the reader;

• it is void of any quotations or paraphrases, and it includes a parenthetical citation in correct APA format.

APA Checklist

APA Key Elements

Sample APA Title Page

APA Made Easy

Formatting Headings In APA Style

In-Text Citation Guide

Common APA Reference & Citation Models

APA References List

Guidelines for Incorporating Quotes

Guidelines for Summarizing Sources

Guidelines for Paraphrasing Sources

APA Formatting Instructions for Microsoft Word

MLA Works Cited

MLA Works Cited Sample (with annotations)

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Guidelines for Incorporating Quotes

Incorporating Outside Sources

Quoting from outside sources is an important part of academic writing because it puts you into the scholarly conversation and makes your own ideas and your paper more credible. Using quotes is a great way for readers to “hear” the expert voices talking about your writing topic.

When quoting, focus on (a) introducing the quote, (b) explaining its relevance, and (c) citing the sources—both in your writing and in formal citations. This form is known as the ICE method.

The ICE Method

When including outside sources in your writing, follow the ICE method:

• I: Introduce

• C: Cite

• E: Explain

Use this method when inserting direct quotations as well as when you’re paraphrasing or summarizing the ideas of another.

   Introduce the Source

Introduce the source by giving your reader any information that would be useful to know: Who said it? Where did this idea come from? When was it said? Here are some examples of how to introduce a source:

• In her essay, “The Crummy First Draft,” Lekkerkerk (2014) argues that…

• Michandra Claire Jones (2015), celebrated poet and author, wrote that…

• In the textbook, Information Literacy, Mossler (2015) states…

After introducing the quote, be sure that you use a signal verb to indicate that the source’s words are next. In the third example above, you can see that "states" has been used to signal the source’s words. Other signal verbs include:

• acknowledges

• advises

• agrees

• argue

• analyzes

• answers

• asserts

• assumes

• believes

• charges

• claims

• considers

• criticizes

• declares

• describes

• disagrees

• discusses

• explains

• emphasizes

• expresses

• holds

• implies

• interprets

• leaves us with

• lists

• objects

• observes

• offers

• opposes

• points to

• presents

• proposes

• recognizes

• regards

• remarks

• replies

• reports

• reports

• reveals

• says

• states

• suggests

• supports

• tells us

• thinks

• wants to

• wishes

• wonders

   Cite the Source

When citing outside sources, you are required to include: the author(s)' last name(s); the date of publication; and, for direct quotations, the page number on which the quoted passage appears. If there is no page number, use the paragraph number to indicate the location of the quotation.

Precisely how do you insert this required information into your writing? You have two options. The first is to include the full or last name(s) of the author(s) directly in a sentence, and the year of publication in parentheses just following the name(s). If directly quoting, include at the end of your sentence the page number where the quotation can be found. Here are some examples:

• Johansson (2009) says he believes that scholars...

OR

• Norman Johansson (2009) says, “Scholars should pursue PhDs” (p. 167).

Your second option is to include all of the required information in parenthesis at the end of the sentence. Here are some examples:

• Research suggests that graphic warnings on cigarette packages promote smoking cessation (Smith, 2015).

OR

• According to one research study, “In the year following the introduction of graphic warnings…” (Smith, 2015, p. 16).

OR

• Marcus explains that smoking can be deterred by “carefully placed warnings with disturbing imagery included” (Tomlinson, 2008, p. 16).

Notice in the above examples that quotation marks always have a beginning and end, occurring immediately before the first word of the quotation and immediately after the last word. Periods are always placed after the end-of-sentence parentheses, as in (p. 132).

   Explain the Relevance

After introducing and citing the passage, you will need to explain the significance: How might this author’s idea relate to my thesis? How does this data add to what I am trying to prove in this paragraph? Why am I putting this quotation in my paper? What am I trying to show here? Never leave any room for interpretation. It is your responsibility as the writer to interpret the information for your reader and identify its significance. Remember, a quote does not speak for itself or prove anything on its own. That is your job!

Here is an example of an explanation that would be appropriate to accompany the Mack quotation above: Judge Mack viewed juveniles as children first. He envisioned a system that would protect and give treatment to these young offenders so that they could become productive adults, and saw no place for criminal responsibility and punishment within this system.

Now, here is an example of the ICE method at work in a paragraph:

In the beginning stages of the juvenile justice system, it operated in accordance to a paternalistic philosophy. This can be understood through the published words of Judge Julian Mack, who had a hand in the establishment of the juvenile justice system. In 1909, he stated that this system should treat juveniles “as a wise and merciful father handles his own child” (as cited in Scott & Steinberg, 2008, p.16). Judge Mack viewed juveniles as children first. He envisioned a system that would protect and give treatment to these young offenders so that they could become productive adults, and saw no place for criminal responsibility and punishment within this system.

• I: Introduce speaker and why he is an authority on this topic.

• C: Quote material along with citation.

• E: Explain who this quote is coming from as well as his relationship or authority on the topic.

Five Tips for Effective Quoting

While quoting from reliable sources is an important part of writing a research-based paper, some students can become too reliant on quotes to do the work for them, over-running their papers with other peoples’ words. The purpose of quoting is to include an expert’s voice that is unique and different from your own in order to support your ideas.

Here are five key tips for effectively incorporating quotes into your writing:

1. Make Quotes Count. You should quote sparingly, so make sure the quotes you include are impactful and approach the subject in a way that you might not. Part of quoting is “capturing” someone else’s voice and unique expression of an idea. If you could summarize the information and lose none of its meaning, then do that. But if you feel like the expert says it best, then quote the expert.

2. Copy Quotes Correctly. It is important to be accurate when you are quoting – the whole point of quoting is to exactly represent another person’s words. Be careful to copy the quote correctly, and if you need to change anything, do so by indicating that you are changing something. If you need to insert a word, for instance, use brackets, like this: “In this quote [the author] states that people always rise to the occasion.” If you need to delete a word or phrase, use ellipses to represent this deletion, like this: “In this quote…people always rise to the occasion.”

3. Your Words First. Because you are writing the paper, your words should begin and end it – this goes for the paragraphs as well as the whole paper. Avoid beginning paragraphs with a quote – start with your idea and create a topic sentence. Additionally, avoid ending paragraphs with a quote – you may analyze a quote prior to the end of the sentence, and conclude that its meaning informs your point. Use your words first – quotes should be working for you, not the other way around.

4. Keep Quotes Short. Quoting sources should not be a tactic to fill space on the page. Not only should your paper be written in your own words, but the amount of space given to others’ words should be brief. As a general rule of thumb, no more than 15% of your entire paper should be quoted material. Achieve this general goal by using only a few quotes, and keeping those few quotes as brief as 1–2 sentences.

5. “Block” Long Quotes. When your paper necessitates it, you may use a longer quote. In this case, “longer” quotes consist of four or more lines, or approximately 40+ words. When you have a quote of this length, you format it differently in your paper than just incorporating it into the normal sentence structure. Long quotes must be made into “blocks” – a visual indicator that this is a long quote. In order to create this block, indent all the lines twice, but keep the double-spacing.

Here’s an example of creating a block quotation:

Sometimes peoples’ viewpoints can be surprising. According to Robert Coles in his 1989 book, The Call of Stories,

On the way home Daddy became an amateur philosopher; he said God chooses some people to be rich, and that’s how it is, and you have to settle for your luck, and ours isn’t all that good, so that’s too bad, but if you just smile and keep going, then you’ll be fine; it’s when you eat your heart out that you can get in trouble. (41)

NOTE: When you create a block quotation, you do two things differently than if you’re incorporating shorter quotes into your sentence regularly.

• First, you do not encase the quote in quotation marks – the indentation replaces the quotation marks.

• Second, you punctuate the quoted material with a period before the parenthetical citation – with no ending punctuation after the parentheses.