研究生英语summary writing课堂笔记.docVIP

Summary(precis) One form of expository writing is the summary, which requires putting into shortened form the major ideas from someone else’s writing. Writing a good summary depends first of all on your ability to read the original material and understand it thoroughly. While reading, you must identify the main point or thesis, understand the difference between the major points and supporting details, and restate these points in your own words. How you summarize will partly depend on whether you are dealing with a narrative or an essay. The summary of a narrative is usually called a sequential plot summary and a comprehensive summary. The sequential summary follows the order in which the main events of a narrative are presented in the original work. A sequential summary of “One Good Turn Deserves Another”, for instance would begin as follows: With ￡50 drawn from the bank, Green was driving home along a lonely country road. At the loneliest part of the road, he gave a lift to a stranger. From the talk with the stranger, he got to know the stranger had been broken out of prison for robbery two days before. He was worried and drove over the speed limit, hoping he would be caught by the policeman. The policeman caught him up, wanted just his name and address and left instead of taking him to the police station where he could tell the policemen about the escaped robber. When they reached the outskirts of London, the robber handed him the policeman’s notebook with Mr. Green’s name and address which he had stolen and “Thank you for the lift. You’ve been good to me.? Like all summaries, this one reduces each event to its bare essentials in the order of the essential events. While sequential summary simply recounts one event after another without saying which is the most important, a comprehensive summary immediatel y identifies the central action to which all other actions must be referred. “One Good Turn Deserves Another” is the story of Mr. Green’s experience with