7 TIPS in Writing a SUMMARY
- 1. 7 TIPS in Writing A Summary 1. Once you read a text, identify and include the title and author of the text. 2. Include the author’s thesis statement in the first two sentences. 3. Write one or two sentences per main concept or idea in a text. 4. If needed, divide the text into parts or by main ideas before summarizing the whole. 5. Remember to omit the details that are not important, there is no need to go into the minor and supporting details of the text. 6. Avoid writing additional opinions about the text. 7. Avoid plagiarism of the author’s work. Include quotations if you are directly quoting the writer.
- 2. Sample Summary On January 11, 1920, Dorothy Parker was fired from her job as a theater critic, a position she had held for two years. She had been writing critiques about several performances in the months leading to her dismissal, the most notable ones about David Belasco’s East is West and Billie Burke’s performance in Somerset Maugham’s Caesar’s Wife. Because of her reviews, which others felt had exceeded critique and had become personal attacks, Belasco and Florenz Ziegfield, husband of Billie Burke, went to the publisher of Vanity Fair with formal complaints about Parker. Her publisher passed the case to the editor, who then fired her.