How to Write a Summary of an Article

When you’re writing your own article, an essay, or even a school paper, you will probably be faced with writing a summary of an article. Creating a summary of an article means quickly telling the reader what the article is about. This summarization can be a few words or it can be an entire paragraph dedicated to the article.

How you summarize an article is dependent on a few factors. If the article is important to what you’re writing, you may want to summarize it with a bit more detail. If the article has a small connection to your work though, you can get away with summarizing a small piece of it.

Knowing how to summarize an article is an important aspect of writing. For many writers, there’s always the possibility that they will need to use other sources in their work. A summary is a great alternative to a simple paraphrase or quote when referencing a piece of work.

Being able to summarize an article is important, especially when you’re in college. It’s a part of college writing that practically every student will have to learn. If you want to learn how to summarize articles and use references for your work, check out the course in Udemy College Writing Essentials.

Reading the Article

When you want to summarize an article, of course you will have to read it. Before you actually read the article entire though, you should scan through it. Highlight some of the important points of the article. Make sure that you identify the thesis statement and the supporting points throughout. Try to get a good understanding of what the article is discussing.

After you’ve scanned through it and made your marks, read the article and look for the more specific details. If you find a particular section that looks important or is more difficult than the others, then you should read it over a few more times and note of there is anything there that you should put in your summary.

Ask yourself a few questions about the article. Make sure that you believe the article makes sense and that it seems credible. Even if you write a great summary about an article, it does no good as a reference if it isn’t written properly.

Writing in Your Own Words 

As you read through the article and write down certain facts and pieces of information, try to put it in your own words. Don’t just change a few words around or rearrange them either. Use entirely new text to write what you’re reading. It’s important to keep things in your own words in order to prevent yourself from plagiarizing. In the world of writing, plagiarizing unacceptable. Plagiarism is defined as directly copying the work of another without giving them credit.

If you have trouble putting things into your own words, don’t worry. You can use dictionaries to help you come up with synonymous terms. You can also try to write a small phrase or two instead of a complete sentence.

Writing things in your own words is a key tool. Try the Advanced Writing Strategies for Immediate Improvement course in Udemy. This course will help you improve upon your writing so that you can better summarize articles and put things into your own words with much more ease.

Properly Summarize Each Section of the Article

As you go through the article, you may notice it is broken up into different sections. Take the time to summarize each of these sections before moving on to summarize the next. Also keep in mind as you are summarizing that you should try to include as much information as possible about the content through paraphrasing without actively copying the work. This will ensure that you are giving credit to the original author while still actively avoiding plagiarizing the article.

Techniques to Remember as You Write

When summarizing an article or creating your own work, it is important to remember the writing process. As you write your summary, you should keep in mind certain techniques that will make your writing process smoother, and allow the reader to quickly understand where your article is going and what it is about.

For example, if you’re writing a summary of an article for your own personal notes, then you should write more. This way you can refer back to a wealth of information. On the other hand, if you’re writing a summary for an essay then you should focus on only including the important details. Most importantly, summarize the article so that it coincides with your essay and avoid writing information that isn’t necessary.

Even though you are writing a summary, you should still provide some sort of bibliographic information. The bibliography you write will depend on the style of writing that you’re using, but to be on the safe side you should always mention the full title of the article, the author’s name, and the date of publication. If you can’t find a way to bring up this information in the article itself, you can still at least mention it in your references page.

Writing a summary of an article is a part of paragraph and essay writing that can take a bit of time to learn. It can seem simple at first, but doing it yourself may not be as easy as you may think. There’re tools out there to help you though.

The Udemy course Quality Paragraph and Essay Writing is focused on teaching you how to write in a concise and easy to read manner that isn’t just good for school, but great in the professional world as well.

Breaking Down Your Summary

The first thing you want to do in your summary is make the connection between your essay and the article that you’re summarizing. You can do this by including the thesis of the article and explaining how it helps support your essay or the similarities that it has with your essay.

After you’ve done this, you can add the details from the article that supports the claim. Try to mention all of the crucial points in the article, but only the ones that are relevant to your essay as well.

The final thing that you should do is provide the conclusions of the article in your summary. After you’ve completed the summary, you can move on in your essay and explain how this conclusion has an effect on your own work.

Important Things to Remember

As you continue to write the summary of your work, you should try to remind the reader that what you’re writing comes from a different source. One way to do this is to refer to the author and say certain phrases, such as “the author believed this” or “The author concluded…” to emphasize the fact that this isn’t your own words.

Another thing to avoid is making direct quotes. A summary should be in your own words. You should never use quotes in a summary unless you are unable to rephrase the work in any other way.

Becoming a Great Writer

Knowing how to summarize an article is just one aspect of writing, but you will use it a lot either academically or professionally. If you become really skilled at summarizing articles, then you may be able to write your own for a career.

The Udemy course, Break into Freelance Writing with No Experience will help you become a professional writer in no time.