- clear - giving explanations which could be easily understood.
- objective - not including your personal opinions.
- accurate - not changing the meaning of the original text.
- balanced - not considering one idea more important than others.
The difference between a summary and a paraphrase are:
- a summary is shorter than the original text, while a paraphrase is about the same length as the original.
- a summary keeps the structure & content of the original text, whereas a paraphrase does not.
To write a good summary, follow these guidelines.
- read the text and understand it well.
- highlight the main points.
- make notes about these main points.
- put away the original text.
- rewrite your own notes.
- begin writing the summary by stating the topic sentence, giving credit to the author of the original text.
- write the key ideas to support the topic sentence.
- re-read your summary and check if it has included all the key ideas.
