--Suggestion: Read text with the purpose to understand.

--Highlight and underline key portions of the text if possible

--Write in the margins or take notes

Goal: Restate, Condense, Distill, "Summarize" the text in your words

(see paraphrase)

Clearly State:

--Author’s Purpose in Writing

--Author’s Thesis

--Author’s Main Supporting Points or Evidence

To Inform? To Understand something? To Justify something?

To Defend an opinion? To illustrate a point?

To Compare or Contrast one or more ideas?

Thesis—in your statement of the author’s thesis, refer to the title and the author by name and his purpose for writing.

--by each paragraph or each section of the text

--How do the paragraphs work together to support the thesis?

--Emphasize the parts that work well to support the thesis.

--use quotations effectively, but sparingly—if at all—in a summary

(As a general guideline for this course, a Summary should be not less than 3 well-constructed sentences and not more that 3 short paragraphs—about a half-page double-spaced)