lecture 4 summary 英语专业写作 教程文件.pptVIP

Summary Writing Instructor: Wang Taohua What is a summary? A summary is a short piece of writing that gives the main facts or ideas of a story or article, etc. It is a condensed or compressed version/a brief restatement of the essential thought of longer writing. It restates all the main points of the longer work in their proper relationship to each other with as few words as possible. A summary should be written in one’s own words, and if wording from the original needs to be repeated, this wording should be put within quotation marks. Writing an effective summary is not easy. In general, summaries are written in the third person even if the original is written in the first person. 2. The qualities of a good summary It should be objective – the writer does not include any ideas of his/her own. It should be complete – the writer does not leave out important facts or ideas. It should be balanced – the writer gives equal attention to each main idea. 3. What we have to do when we are given a piece of writing to summarize 1) Read it carefully to understand it carefully. 2) Master the thought of the writing and express the main ideas in your own words. 3) Leave out unimportant details but omit nothing of real importance. 4) Add nothing that is not in the text. 5) Limit the number of words according to the requirement. Generally, a summary should be no more than one third to one fourth the length of the original. 6) Preserve the mood (the way the text makes you feel) and the tone (the general feeling of attitude expressed). Summary 2: The day my father took me to school, I was not happy. I thought school was a punishment and asked him what I had done wrong. He said that school would make me a useful man. But what he said did not convince me. (44 words) Summary 3: The first day of school, my father took me there. I didn’t want to go. I asked my father why they decided to send me to that