How to Write a Summary and Synthesis

How to Write a Summary and Synthesis

Knowing how to write a summary is an important part of the reading and writing processes.

There are 4 main steps to writing a summary:

1. Read the work several times to familiarize yourself with the content. If there are any words or ideas that don’t make sense, try to look them up so you can understand the subject before you start writing.
2. Identify the main ideas and either write them on a separate sheet or make notations where they occur. Since summaries are only concerned with the author’s main points, you can leave out descriptions or examples.
3. Craft the first sentence of the summary, which must include the author’s name, the work’s title, and at least one of the following: the author’s purpose, the author’s point of view, and the thesis. It’s important to note that you should use present tense verbs when crafting the summary, since the ideas are those of an author still alive.
4. Draft your summary by writing out the main ideas that you isolated in step two. In order to avoid plagiarizing, make sure that you present the ideas in your own words. If the wording is especially distinctive, you may quote the material as long as you place the phrase in quotation marks. However, don’t overuse quotations, because the main point of a summary is for the reader to express the ideas in his or her own words. Also, use transitions to help the ideas flow and repeat the author’s name throughout the summary. For example, phrases like “According to Adler” and “Adler states” help the summary to flow smoothly.

By incorporating all these strategies in your summary, your reader should have an excellent understanding of the material you are discussing. Writing a synthesis is very different from writing a summary, and a synthesis helps the reader to bring ideas together from two or more sources. Writing the synthesis will give you a basis for writing essays and using research in the formal essays.