Summarizing a (topic/thesis) Sentence:
When summarizing an source article, essay, or book chapter, you can start by locating and summarizing thethesisand the topic sentences of body paragraphs.
The sample exercise below shows how a student used the following summarizing strategies to paraphrase a source article’s thesis statement about grade inflation.
a)Delete unimportant details, examples, and redundancy.
b)Combine ideas in sentences.
c)Compress words in the original text into fewer words
d)Provide general terms to cover several specific items.
Original Sentence:
Schools in large cities, such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, have been criticized for passing students from grade to grade for demonstrated effort, regular attendance, and good citizenship rather than for adequate academic performance.
Resulting Summary Statement:
Urban schools have been criticized for promoting students for unjustified reasons.
Original Sentence:
Schools in large cities¹, such as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, have been criticized for passing students from grade to grade² for demonstrated effort, regular attendance, and good citizenship rather than for adequate academic performance³.
¹ The word urban was used instead of “in large cities” because it is a single, more precise word that replaced a three-word phrase.
² The word promoting replaced the long phrase “passing students from grade to grade” because it also condensed a long, awkward phrase. The meaning is the same, but using one word is much better as long as the meaning is unaltered.
³ The words unjustified reasons replaced the more detailed series of words “effort, regular attendance, and good citizenship rather than for adequate academic performance.”
Summarizing a Paragraph (into one sentence)
To condense a paragraph into one sentence, use the same strategies you used to summarize a topic sentence. When condensing an entire paragraph, include in your sentence the main idea along with a key fact, example, or statistic (or two) that you feel is crucial to the understanding of the paragraph.
EXAMPLE ONE:
Complete Paragraph:
Childcare workers may work in publicly supported or privately operated children's homes, schools, dormitories, youth camps, mental hospitals, halfway houses, detention centers, receiving homes, business establishments or child day care centers. Working conditions vary with the organization. Some facilities are modern with adequate furnishings and staff, while others may be old and overcrowded. Sometimes the nature of childcare work will allow for flexibility in the work schedule, although many childcare workers work 40 hour weeks. Others work afternoons, nights or split shifts, as well as some weekends. Still, other childcare workers live full-time at the facility where they are employed and may be on call for day or night duty in case of emergency.
Resulting Summary Statement:
The childcare industry encompasses a broad spectrum of work facilities; including public, private, modern or old, along with varying work schedules and amenities.
EXAMPLE TWO
Usually the paragraph contains a topic sentence which contains the main point, and often this is the first sentence. Sometimes the paragraph has no explicit topic sentence; instead, the main idea is implied through an accumulation of details, facts, or examples. In these cases, you will have to “invent” a topic sentence by combining the ideas.
Buddha is said to have achieved spiritual enlightenment through meditation and fasting. Similar procedures, however, are used to prepare for divine inspiration in religions the world over. This fact has implications for how one might view the development of religion in various cultures. Indeed, this aspect of the religious experience may be a direct response to human physiological characteristics. People the world over share common experiences as a consequence of being members of the same species. It seems reasonable that they might interpret these experiences the same way.
Invented (Compressed) Topic Sentence:
Human beings everywhere share certain experiences that they interpret as having religious significance.
B. Creating a Sentence Summary from “Suspect Policy” in Expectations. In groups, compress the main idea and key points of each paragraph in “Suspect Policy” into a single sentence. For each paragraph you are assigned to summarize, brainstorm on a separate piece of paper for ways to report the author’s key information or core argument into a single sentence.
When you decide upon the best sentence construction, write it below next to the number of its corresponding paragraph.
Be sure to avoid the pitfalls in the bulleted section on page 257 of SF Writer.
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6. Keep source author’s original words (quote).
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