geology

Dr. Erik Melchiorre GEOL 3040 ENERGY

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

An executive summary is an abbreviated, accurate representation of a document. The

following recommendations are made for the guidance of authors and editors, so that executive

summaries in primary documents may be both helpful to their readers and reproducible with little

or no change in secondary publications and services.

An executive summary should be as informative as is permitted by the type and style of

the document; that is, it should present as much as possible of the quantitative and/or qualitative

information contained in the document. Informative executive summaries are especially

desirable for texts describing experimental work and documents devoted to a single theme.

However, some discursive or lengthy texts, such a broad overviews, review papers, and entire

monographs, may permit the preparation of an executive summary that is only an indicative or

descriptive guide to the type of document and what it is about. A combined informative-

indicative executive summary must often be prepared when limitations on the length of the

abstract or the type and style of the document make it necessary to confine informative

statements to the primary elements of the document and to relegate other aspects to indicative

statements.

A well-prepared executive summary enables readers to identify the basic content of a

document quickly and accurately, to determine its relevance to their interests, and thus to

decide whether they need to read the document in its entirety. Readers for whom the document

is of fringe interest often obtain enough information from the executive summary to make their

reading of the whole document unnecessary. Therefore, every primary document should include

a good executive summary. Secondary publications and services that provide bibliographic

citations of pertinent documents should also include good executive summaries if at all possible.

For most papers and portions of monographs, an executive summary of fewer than 250

words will be adequate. For notes and short communications, fewer than 100 words should

suffice. Editorials and letters to the editor often will require only a single-sentence executive

summary. For long documents such as reports and theses, an executive summary generally

should not exceed 500 words and preferable should appear on a single page.

Begin an executive summary with a topic sentence that is a central statement of the

document’s major thesis, but avoid repeating the words of the document’s title if that is nearby.

Use verbs in the active voice whenever possible; they contribute to clear, brief, forceful

writing. The passive voice, however, may be used for indicative statements and even for

informative statements in which the receiver of the action should be stressed.

Avoid unfamiliar terms, acronyms, abbreviations, or symbols; or define them the first

time they occur in the executive summary. Include short tables, equations, structural formulas,

and diagrams only when necessary for brevity and clarity.

Dr. Erik Melchiorre GEOL 3040 ENERGY