What are some techniques or guidelines to a good summary?

1. Complete

A summary should include all the ideas that are essential to the author’s thesis.

2. Concise

A summary should be considerably shorter than the passage. Do not include unessential information

(length depends upon the purpose and your use of the summary. It could be one-half, one-third or

one-eighth the length of the original.)

3. Accurate

A summary should represent the author’s ideas. Do not distort the author’s views.

4. Objective

A summary should recapitulate the author’s points. Do not include your objections or criticisms in the

summary.

5. Coherent

A summary should make sense to someone who has not read the original. It should not sound like a

list of loosely-related sentences that have been strung together in paragraph format.

6. Independent

A summary should be written in your own words. Do not take strings of words from the source; do not

*paraphrase.

Difference between paraphrase and summary

*Paraphrase: contains all the information in the source. No part of the original is left out. Writer

rephrases original in his words.

**Summary: contains only the most important information of the original. It does not have to follow

the organization or order of the original. You do not change the meaning of the original.

citizens are given 25 years of life to prove their worth to society; if they fail to do great things

try to do soaps tone.

s-subject

o-occasion (the reason the author wrote the poem)

a-audience (who is this poem mostly for)

p-purpose (was it to convince, inspire, etc. the audience)

s-speaker (can be the author or another character, like is a child, adult, woman, elderly, animal narrating the poem)

tone- the mood the reader gets from this poem

mood- the mood the author had with their own poem

meaning- what do you think the meaning is?

message- what is the author trying to explain to the audience? like what is the theme?

if you still don't get it try showing everyone the poem so they could unravel it