Chapter 8: Summary, Paraphrase, and Response in Reading an Essay
Chapter 8: Summary, Paraphrase, and Response in Reading an Essay
Michiko Kakutani, Pulitzer Prize winning book critic for The New York Times – master of the Summary-Response
College students are often asked to summarize what they have read and to respond. This type of essay is called the Summary-Response. Students are also asked to paraphrase sentences, passages, or paragraphs from a text. Since the Summary or Paraphrase, and the Response have a separate place in writing, and are rarely mixed, lets’ take them one at a time.
Section 1. The Summary
In a Summary, the author briefly retells or summarizes an essay or story in her own words. A Summary focuses more on the main events of the story or the main ideas of the essay than on every detail. The main events or ideas provide support for the Thesis Statement of the essay, as is true of all types of essays we cover in this text. Here’s the key point: without understanding the Thesis and Main Support Points of the essay or story, you will have difficulty writing an effective Summary.
Here are the steps to use in reading to prepare to summarize an essay or chapter in a college text:
- Read the essay or chapter in the college text once through carefully. The goal is to get a general idea of what the reading is about.
- Use a marker! Read the essay or chapter a second time while completing the following:
- Underline or highlight key passages in the reading.
- Circle the key terms and put the definitions in the margin.
- Put an exclamation point (!) in the margin next to especially important sentences or terms. Briefly explain your reason for the exclamation point in the margin.
- Write a question mark (?) by any passages you don’t understand or have questions about. Summarize your question in the margin. You’ll want your professor, tutor, or study partner to answer these questions before you write your summary.
- Review the essay or chapter with the goal of identifying the Thesis Statement. Remember, the Thesis Statement has two parts: the Topic (+) the Main Idea. As with other forms of writing, the Topic is not that difficult to identify, but the Main Idea can be tricky. It’s not enough, for example, to announce that you’ll be summarizing the author’s essay on the war in Afghanistan or on the recession; you must also find out what the author is trying to prove about the war in Afghanistan or the recession – what the author is trying to prove about the Topic: that’s the Main Idea.
- In your review of the essay or chapter, identify the main Support Points the author uses to provide evidence for her Thesis Statement. It’s very much like the Informal Outline that we studied in each of the essay chapters in this text and applies to every essay you read.
- Using your notes, especially the Thesis Statement and main Support Points, write the first draft of your Summary. To avoid the temptation to copy the author’s writing (formally called plagiarism*), avoid looking at the original essay while you are writing the summary. Use only your notes to write the Summary.
- Compare your draft to the original essay or chapter to make sure your Summary includes the Thesis Statement and main Support Points of the original essay. Your Summary should also have the right amount of supporting detail for each Support Point. If in comparing your Summary with the original, you find you have left out an important detail, add the detail to your Summary.
- Compare your draft to the original essay one more time to make sure your Summary has not copied the words, phrases, and the sentence structure of the original (see plagiarism, footnote below). When your wording is too much like the original, change the wording or sentence structure, or put the words in quotes so you are no longer accidently plagiarizing instead of summarizing.
- In your final editing, carefully review your Summary for style and grammar revisions.
*Plagiarism Defined: “Using someone else's ideas or phrasing and representing those ideas or phrasing as our own, either on purpose or through carelessness, is a serious offense known as plagiarism.” The consequences of deliberately using an author’s words without quoting and citing her vary from failing the essay assignment to failing the class to the most extreme examples of failing out of college.
Dr. Charles Darling “Guide to Grammar & Writing”
Here’s an example Summary along with the Informal Outline that a student writer put together based on an essay she read about a paintball birthday party. The Summary does a good job of following the organizational principles we’ll be covering in this chapter. Let’s take them one at a time.
Carina Mora
ENG 090
10/08/10
Summary
Informal Outline
Thesis Statement: Paintball birthday parties are bad for kids.
Support Point 1: Release of liability contract
Support Point 2: Injuries to kids while playing
Support Point 3: Cost
Summary: “Trigger-Happy Birthday”
(The footnotes in the Summary Essay given in the column on the left are explained in the column on the right.)
1The essay “Trigger-Happy Birthday,” written by Kiku Adatto, 2is about proving that childhood is changing in modern America, and that paintball birthday parties are bad for kids.3 Adatto describes her experience when she took her twelve year-old son to a paintball birthday party. 4aShe is upset to find that before her son can play the game, she must sign a release of liability contract, stating that the company who owns the paintball facility is not responsible for any injury to her son, or even “permanent disability and death." 4bAs she watches the kids play, she notices that several of the kids were getting hurt, but when she brought it up with other parents, they said it looked like the kids were just having fun. 4cNext when Kiku visited the gift shop, she saw that the weapons were from $250 to $750 each! Kiku was very shocked to know that people were actually letting their kids play like that and even have birthday parties there. She would like to see an age limit put on who can participate in paintball games, and concludes her essay with some satisfaction writing that 5“…as for the contract, I still couldn't sign.” / 1In the first sentence of her Summary, the student writer writes down the title and author of the story she is summarizing (“The essay “Trigger-Happy Birthday,” written by Kiku Adatto”). It’s critical that you begin each Summary you write by giving this information. Without it, the reader has no context for your Summary and is lost from the start.2Also in the first sentence, the student writer gives the Thesis Statement of the essay (“paintball birthday parties are bad for kids”). Bringing the Thesis Statement to the attention of your reader is critical to writing an effective Summary. That’s because the Thesis Statement guides or organizes the supporting detail in the essay, and, similarly, guides which supporting detail you’ll choose to include in your Summary. In other words, the Thesis tells you which detail is important and which detail can be left out. After all, you are not restating the author’s work; you are summarizing it.
3It is common in a short Summary to combine the introduction with the Thesis Statement in one sentence as our student-writer has done. The Introduction has the title and author of the essay. For example: “The essay “Trigger-Happy Birthday,” written by Kiku Adatto…” This Introductory phrase is followed by the Thesis Statement of the essay: “…paintball birthday parties are bad for kids.”
4aThe student writer then summarizes the main Support Points given in the essay, which she identified in her Informal Outline as: 1) The release of liability contract; 2) Injuries to kids while playing, and 3) Cost. She gives enough detail from the essay about each Support Point for the reader to understand the author’s intent to prove that “paintball birthday parties are bad for kids.”
4cThe student writer concludes her Summary with a highly effective technique in which she ties the Conclusion to an earlier point made in the essay. We refer to this method as “closing the circle,” where the writer first brings up a concept early in the essay, then brings closure to the same concept in the Conclusion. In the above Summary, the student writer brings up the “release of liability contract” in her summary of the original author’s first Support Point (“She was upset to find that before her son can play the game, she must sign a release of liability contract.”)
5In her Conclusion, she refers back to the same release of liability contract: “As for the [release of liability] contract, I still couldn't sign.”
Young soldiers in a paintball battle
Practice 1. The key to organizing an effective Summary is knowing the author’s Thesis Statement (the Topic and Main Idea – what he will prove about the Topic in the essay). Read the following Summaries, and underline the sentence that gives the Thesis of each book that is being summarized.
As you read, notice your thoughts, especially the three kinds of thoughts covered in Chapter1:
- Random Thoughts that just pop into your mind. “I wish I had some coffee like the girl has at the table across the aisle. It sure looks good!” “I wonder if it’s going to rain because I need to walk to the bus after class.” “I’ve got to remember to call my mother this afternoon to see if I can borrow the car,” and on and on.
- Judgments about people, events in your life, or the essay. “This essay [or just one idea in the essay] is good or bad, interesting or boring, worthwhile, or worthless,” and so on.
- Negative self-thoughts. “I’m not understanding any of this stuff because I’ve never been any good at reading and never will be! It’s better to give up now and cut my losses.”
Choose one instance as you read the passage when you had one of above types of thoughts and record it here:
Practice letting go of the thought and bringing your attention back to the reading.
Use the following scale to rate how difficult it was for you to let go of the thought and return your attention to the reading._____ Easy _____ Somewhat Easy
_____ Somewhat Hard _____ Hard
1. Deception Point
The first chapters of the book, Deception Point, by Dan Brown begin a complex and fast moving mystery thriller with a torrent of seemingly unrelated events. The first is an election going on between the sitting President and a Senator Sexton. Senator Sexton has a daughter who is working for the president. The President asks her to help out with something NASA has discovered that is going to change America. Another story line in the book is the special force Delta-Air Force who is protecting a secret project that is of incredible importance. The reader gets a hint that the two plots lines have something important in common and that will come together as the plot unfolds.Kirsten Ryder, Front Range Community College
2. Q School
In the book, Q School, John Feinstein writes about players and their stories from a three week, tortuous tournament in which aspiring players try to play their way into the “big leagues, big money, and fame.” John Feinstein covered Q school, or “qualifying school,” back in the 1970s when there were merely hundreds of players, until today when there are thousands. The first two chapters discuss the reason why people attend Q school, how the tournament is organized, and a few players’ experiences. Some of the players have won majors back in the 70s, but their game has gone downhill, and they are trying for one last chance to play in the big leagues. Others are young and not as gifted as Tiger Woods so they can immediately play on the tour, and are trying just to make the tour. The tournament is organized into three stages. If they are able to make it into the final stage and finish in the top 30, then they receive their tour card for a year. Players old and young put their skill on the line in this nerve racking final stage, hoping they can stay calm and make the big shots. One shot hit in the water can end their round and their chances for that year. With no one watching and little prize money, aspiring players go at it, putting their future on the line.Robert Bastion, Front Range Community College
3. The Kite Runner
The opening chapters of the book, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is a story of a boy named Amir who is symbolic of the changing times throughout our lives and how life can seem so simple and turn out to be quite the opposite. Amir who was born into wealth grew up in Pakistan in a wealthy neighborhood. Amir grew up with a servant Ali and his son Hassan, who he did not think of as a friend but was in turn the greatest friend he ever had. Hassan thought very highly of Amir, in fact, “Amir” was the first word out of Hassan’s mouth. They spent many afternoons just playing about in the yard they were raised in. The major difference in the two boys was that one was the master and one the servant. The life that Amir was accustomed to was all to change in the winter of 1975.Jaron Brett, Front Range Community College
Two Common Mistakes in Writing Summaries
- Too much detail
When you do not understand the Main Idea of an essay or chapter, the first draft of your Summary is likely to have either too little or too much detail. Moreover, the detail you choose might not Support the Thesis Statement, giving the Summary a sense of being like a boat adrift. That’s because without the Main Idea in mind, there is no point to the Summary. It’s like having a friend who when she tells a story just goes on and on from detail to detail without rhyme or reason. You feel like saying, “Get to the point!” She’s rambling because she’s lost track of what she’s trying to prove! The famous jazz singer, Mose Allison, put it this way in one of his songs about a frustrating girlfriend: “Your mind’s on vacation, and your mouth is working overtime!”
In the following example, notice how the writer’s use of one detail after another wanders, adrift from the Thesis Statement and quickly loses the reader’s interest. We want to tell him to “get to the point!”
A Thousand Splendid Suns – A Summary
The first chapters of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini take place in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The two main settings are in the cities of Herati and Kabul. One of the main characters goes by the name of Mariam. She and her stepmother live on top of a hill far away from the rest of the townspeople of Herati. Mariam’s mother is a very mean woman, and she always thought Mariam would never have much or even deserve much. Mariam’s father is a rich man in the town of Herati by the name if Jahlil. He goes and sees Mariam every Thursday. Mariam was a cast-off when the father had an affair, and Mariam was really an affair child and was not allowed to be around or seen in public with her father.
One day when Mariam was fifteen, her mother forbid her to go into town, telling her there was nothing there for her. Mariam didn’t listen that day and wanted to find her father and see what her life could or should have been. All she found was disappointment. She approached his palace, but his servants wouldn’t let Mariam in. She had nowhere to go, so she stayed in front of the gate. Finally, Jahlil’s driver took Mariam home and as they were pulling up, the driver came to a screeching halt and made Mariam wait in the car. There, hanging from the tree, was Mariam’s mother. Afterwards, Mariam was cold of heart and felt no guilt because her mother told her not to go and looked at her as nothing.