objective summary with 3 paragraphs

1 KG604 Graduate Research & Critical Analysis Lesson Plan: Week 6 Dr. D. Tennyson, DBA

Writing an Objective Summary

Week 6 Learning Objectives

After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

1. Identify a researchable topic and form a research question.

2. Distinguish a research article from other types of articles.

3. Use the Monroe Database to identify at least three research articles relevant to a

selected topic.

4. Analyze scholarly research, evaluating its validity.

5. Identify the elements of a scholarly research article: who conducted the research (plus credentials or affiliation), when and where it was conducted, why the research was undertaken, how it was conducted (methodology), and what was found (results).

I. READING FICTION/LITERATURE (Hunter College, 2018).

1. General Guidelines

• read fiction/literature more than once.

• read for the total experience of the work.

• read slowly for the words, feelings, emotions, ideas.

• underline key words, phrases, and passages.

• take notes on responses, ideas, and questions that occur to you.

• look up important words in the dictionary.

• be open to new possibilities; do not reject that which can't be understood on the first reading.

2. Ask Silent Questions about the Work

• What is the basic story or plot?

• Who are the characters? If there is a specific character speaking, who is the speaker and who is s/he addressing?

• What is the context or situation?

• Where is the action taking place?

• When is the action taking place? in what historical period, and at what point in the development of the story?

• Do you see a conflict, a matter that must be resolved, a goal that the characters are seeking?

• Do there seem to be themes and ideas which are implied, rather than being explicitly stated?

2 KG604 Graduate Research & Critical Analysis Lesson Plan: Week 6 Dr. D. Tennyson, DBA

Writing an Objective Summary

3. Consider the Major Literary Elements

• consider why the author chose to organize the narrative as s/he did.

• study the characters, their qualities, conflicts, growth or decline.

• consider how the themes are explored through action, description, and dialogue

• take note of any recurrent ideas

• give thought to the specific words that the author has chosen—the images, metaphors, similes, other language devices and patterns.

Retrieved from https://www.google.com/search?q=metaphors+definition

Guidelines for Writing a Summary (Hunter College, 2018).

…for the sake of clarity, a summary should present the author’s points in a straightforward structure.

• To write a good summary, you may have to gather minor points or components of an argument from different places in the text to summarize the text in an organized way.

• A point made in the beginning of an essay and then one made toward the end may need to be grouped together in your summary to concisely convey the argument that the author is making.

• In the end, you will have read, digested, and reconstructed the text in a shorter, more concise form.

QUALITIES OF A SUMMARY (Hunter College, 2018).

3 KG604 Graduate Research & Critical Analysis Lesson Plan: Week 6 Dr. D. Tennyson, DBA

Writing an Objective Summary

A good summary should be comprehensive, concise, coherent, and independent. These qualities are explained below:

1. A summary must be comprehensive: You should isolate all the important points in the original passage and note them down in a list.

• Review all the ideas on your list and include in your summary all the ones that are indispensable to the author's development of her/his thesis or main idea.

2. A summary must be concise: Eliminate repetitions in your list, even if the author restates the same points.

• Your summary should be considerably shorter than the source. You are hoping to create an overview; therefore, you need not include every repetition of a point or every supporting detail.

3. A summary must be coherent: It should make sense as a piece of writing in its own right; it should not merely be taken directly from your list of notes or sound like a disjointed collection of points.

4. A summary must be independent: You are not being asked to imitate the author of the text you are writing about. On the contrary, you are expected to maintain your own voice throughout the summary. Don't simply quote the author; instead, use your own words to express your understanding of what you have read. After all, your summary is based on your interpretation of the writer's points or ideas. However, you should be careful not to create any misrepresentation or distortion by introducing comments or criticisms of your own.

TWO TECHNIQUES FOR WRITING SUMMARIES (Hunter College, 2018).

Summarizing Shorter Texts (ten pages or fewer)

1. Write a one-sentence summary of each paragraph.

2. Formulate a single sentence that summarizes the whole text.

3. Write a paragraph (or more): begin with the overall summary sentence and follow it with the paragraph summary sentences.

4. Rearrange and rewrite the paragraph to make it clear and concise, to eliminate repetition and relatively minor points, and to provide transitions. The final version should be a complete, unified, and coherent.

Summarizing Longer Texts (more than ten pages)

1. Outline the text. Break it down into its major sections—groups of paragraphs focused on a common topic—and list the main supporting points for each section.

2. Write a one or two sentence summary of each section.

4 KG604 Graduate Research & Critical Analysis Lesson Plan: Week 6 Dr. D. Tennyson, DBA

Writing an Objective Summary

3. Formulate a single sentence to summarize the whole text, looking at the author's thesis or topic sentences as a guide.

4. Write a paragraph (or more): begin with the overall summary sentence and follow it with the section summary sentences.

5. Rewrite and rearrange your paragraph(s) as needed to make your writing clear and concise, to eliminate relatively minor or repetitious points, and to provide transitions. Make sure your summary includes all the major supporting points of each idea. The final version should be a complete, unified, and coherent.

6 Elements of an Objective Summary (A. Ramlochan, Dir. Research, KGS)

Who?

(a) Authors last name/s, (Year of publication) [in 1st sentence in objective summary].

What?

(a) Were the author’s findings?

(b) Credentials does the author have that qualifies them to write about the topic of the article or is article peer reviewed?

When?

(c) Was the research conducted (is it current – written within last 10 years or historical - older than 10 years)? – State that article does not include when research was conducted if not included.

Where?

(d) Was study conducted (college, business, medical facility, city, state, country, etc.).

Why?

(e) Was study was conducted (what research question or problem elicited the research study).

How?

(f) Was the study was conducted (empirical research – quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods research) and who participated in study?

(5 “W” questions and 1 “H” question).

5 KG604 Graduate Research & Critical Analysis Lesson Plan: Week 6 Dr. D. Tennyson, DBA

Writing an Objective Summary

The Objective Summary Format for Fiction/Literature (Hunter College, 2018).

1. Introduction

• name of author (Who), (Year of Publication).

− Include year of publication each time author’s name is used in the objective summary.

• focusing sentence indicating what element you plan to examine.

• summary/description of work as a whole (Where, Why, and How research was conducted)

• When research conducted. What were authors findings and authors credentials for writing about topic (or peer-reviewed, which indicates research went through a vetting process before approved for publication).

• general indication of overall significance of work

2. Body

• summary/description of the first major element or portion of the work

• summary/description of second major element or portion of the work

• analysis or explanation about the relationship between the first and second major elements or portions of the work, if needed.

3. Conclusion

• overall interpretation of the elements studied.

• consideration of those elements within the context of the work as a whole

• critical assessment of the value, worth, meaning, or significance of the work, both positive and negative

• Your interpretations and your conclusions must be based on evidence from the text and follow from the ideas you have dealt with in the paper.

6 KG604 Graduate Research & Critical Analysis Lesson Plan: Week 6 Dr. D. Tennyson, DBA

Writing an Objective Summary

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American

Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Hunter College, City University of New York - Dr. Murray and Anna C. Rockowitz

Writing Center (RWC). The writing process [Data file]. Retrieved from

http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc