Summarizing technical communication
- 2. Roadmap What is technical communication? Why summarizing is important? Important criterias for writing summaries.
- 3. Technical Communication Technical communication is a broad field and includes any form of communication that exhibits one or more of the following characteristics: Communicating about technical or specialized topics, such as computer applications, medical procedures, or environmental regulations. Communicating by using technology, such as web pages, help files, or social media sites. Providing instructions about how to do something, regardless of how technical the task is or even if technology is used to create or distribute that communication.
- 4. Why Write Summaries? You might be required to write a summary if, for example, your boss is planning to give a presentation at a civic meeting and needs some up-to-date information for his or her presentation. Bosses often are too busy to perform research or attend a conference at which new information might be presented. Therefore, your boss asks you to research the topic and provide a summary of your findings.
- 5. Then, in condensed form** you’ll report on the author’s main points. Preparing a summary puts to good use your research, analyzing, and writing skills. ** a summary is no more than 5 to 15 percent of the length of the original source.
- 6. Important Criterias A summary is a condensed approach to writing. Although the summary will not cover every fact in the original, after reading the summary you should have a clear overview of the main ideas from the original speech or document. If you are summarizing a meeting or seminar, take notes. If your boss or instructor gives you the source of information, one major obstacle has been overcome. If, however, you need to visit a library or go online to research your topic
- 7. Once you’ve located your research material, immediately write down the author’s name, the article’s title, the name of the periodical or book in which this source was found, the date of publication, and the page numbers. Doing so will save you frustration later. This will ensure that you do not waste time searching for the missing article
- 9. Roadmap Overall summary organization. Development prospective. Length { What to omit? } The writing process at work.
- 10. Overall Organization As in any well-written document, a summary contains an introduction, a discussion, and a conclusion. Introduction: It begin with a topic sentence which will present the primary focus of the original source and list the two or three major points to be discussed. You must also tell your reader what source you are summarizing. You can accomplish this in one of the ways: Preface your summary with a references notation providing the author’s name, title, publication date, and page numbers. Follow your topic sentence with a footnote and give the works cited or reference information at the bottom of the page.
- 11. Discussion : In this section, briefly summarize the main points covered in the original material. To convey the author’s ideas, you can paraphrase, using your own words to restate discussion of how to the author’s point of view. Also use transitional words and phrases to create a coherent and unified summary. Conclusion: To conclude your summary, you can do one of the following: Reiterate the focus statement, reminding the reader of the author’s key ideas. Highlight the author’s conclusions regarding the topic. State the author’s recommendations for future activity.
- 12. Development To develop your summary, focus on the following: Most important points. Because a summary is a shortened version of the original, you should include only the two or three key ideas within the article. Omit irrelevant details, like explanations, or descriptions. Major conclusions reached. Once you’ve summarized the author’s key ideas, state how these points are significant. Show their value or impact. Recommendations. Finally, after summarizing the author’s major points and conclusions, tell your audience if the author recommends a future course of action to solve a problem or to avoid potential problems.
- 13. Length As mentioned earlier, the summary will be approximately 5 to 15 percent the length of the original material. To achieve this desired length, You can omit materials such as… Past histories Definitions (unless needed by the audience for understanding of concepts) Complex technical concepts Statistics Tables and figures Lengthy examples etc.
- 14. The Writing process at work To write a summary, follow the writing process of prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Prewriting: Conduct your research and determine which information is to summarize. Then consider how your summary will be used by audience. To prewrite the summary, the student made marginal notes as he read the article about virtual worlds.
- 15. Writing: Organize your content using modes such as problem/solution, cause/effect, chronology etc. Document your source correctly and abide by rules for correct paraphrasing. Rewriting: Revise your draft by, Adding details, Deleting biased comments, Simplifying words, Proofreading and correcting errors etc.
- 16. So this was a summary of how to summarize your technical communication which is a very important part with respect to future job prospective. Thank you