What Is All in a Summary for an Article Review

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Summarizing a journal article is the process of presenting a focused overview of a completed research study that is published in a peer-reviewed, scholarly source. A journal commodity summary provides potential readers with a short descriptive commentary, giving them some insight into the article'due south focus. Writing and summarizing a periodical article is a common task for college students and enquiry assistants alike. With a little practice, you tin can larn to read the commodity finer with an center for summary, programme a successful summary, and write it to completion.

1. 1

   Read the abstract. Abstracts are short paragraphs written past the author to summarize research articles. Abstracts are usually included in nigh academic journals and are mostly no more than than 100-200 words. The abstract provides a curt summary of the content of the journal commodity, providing yous with important highlights of the research study.

   • The purpose of an abstract is to allow researchers to speedily scan a periodical and see if specific research articles are applicative to the work they are doing. If you're collecting research on immune arrangement responses in rodents, you'll exist able to know in 100 words not merely whether or not the research is in your field, but whether the conclusions support your own findings, or differ from it.
   • Remember that an abstruse and an commodity summary are ii different things, and so an commodity summary that looks just like the abstruse is a poor summary.^[1] An abstruse is highly condensed and cannot provide the same level of detail regarding the inquiry and its conclusions that a summary can.^[two]

2. 2

   Understand the context of the research. Make sure yous know what specifically the authors will be discussing or analyzing, why the inquiry or the topic matters, whether or not the article is written in response to another article on the topic, etc. By doing this, y'all'll larn what arguments, quotes, and data to option out and analyze in your summary.

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3. three

   Skip to the determination. Skip ahead to the conclusion and detect out where the proposed research ends up to larn more well-nigh the topic and to understand where the complicated outlines and arguments will be leading. It's much easier to comprehend the information if yous read the researchers' conclusions first.

   • You still need to get back and actually read the article after coming to the conclusion, just merely if the research is still applicative. If you're collecting enquiry, you may not demand to digest another source that backs upwardly your ain if you're looking for some dissenting opinions.

4. 4

   Identify the main argument or position of the article. To avoid having to read through the whole affair twice to remind yourself of the principal thought, make sure you lot get information technology right the kickoff time. Accept notes as yous read and highlight or underline main ideas.

   • Pay special attention to the starting time paragraph or two of the article. This is where the writer will most likely lay out their thesis for the entire article. Effigy out what the thesis is and determine the principal argument or idea that the author or authors are trying to prove with the enquiry.
     • Look for words like hypothesis, results, typically, by and large, or clearly to requite you hints about which sentence is the thesis.
   • Underline, highlight, or rewrite the master argument of the inquiry in the margins. Keep yourself focused on this chief bespeak, so you'll exist able to connect the residuum of the commodity back to that thought and see how it works together.
   • In the humanities, it's sometimes more difficult to get a clear and concise thesis for an commodity considering they are often about circuitous, abstruse ideas (like grade in mail-modern poetics, or feminist film, for example). If it's unclear, attempt to articulate it for yourself, as best as yous can understand the writer's ideas and what they're attempting to prove with their analysis.

5. 5

   Browse the argument. Continue reading through the various segments of the periodical commodity, highlighting primary points discussed past the authors. Focus on key concepts and ideas that have been proposed, trying to connect them back to that main idea the authors accept put frontwards in the showtime of the commodity.

   • Different areas of focus within a journal article volition ordinarily be marked with sub-section titles that target a specific step or development during the course of the inquiry study. The titles for these sub-sections are unremarkably bold and in a larger font than the remaining text.
   • Keep in listen that academic journals are ofttimes dry reading. Is it absolutely necessary to read through the author'due south 500 word proof of the formulas used in the glycerine solution fed to the frogs in the inquiry study? Maybe, but probably not. It's commonly not essential to read research manufactures word-for-give-and-take, as long every bit you're picking out the chief thought, and why the content is there in the outset place.

6. 6

   Take notes while you read. Efficiency is key when you're doing research and collecting data from academic journals. Read actively as you lot rummage through the cloth. Circle or highlight each individual portion of the journal article, focusing on the sub-department titles.^[3]

   • These segments volition normally include an introduction, methodology, research results, and a conclusion in addition to a listing of references.

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1. 1

   Write down a brief description of the enquiry. In a quick free write, describe the bookish journey of the article, listing the steps taken from starting indicate to terminal results, describing methodology and the form of the study undertaken.There is no need to exist besides specific; that'south what the actual summary will exist for.

   • When you lot're first getting started, it'due south helpful to turn your filter off and only rapidly write out what you call up from the article. These will help you discover the chief points necessary to summarize.

2. 2

   Decide what aspects of the article are most important. You might refer to these equally the primary supporting ideas, or sections, of the article. While these may be marked clearly with subheadings, they may require more work to uncover. Anything that'southward a major betoken used to support the master argument of the writer needs to be nowadays in the summary.

   • Depending on the enquiry, you may desire to describe the theoretical background of the research, or the assumptions of the researchers. In scientific writing, it's important to clearly summarize the hypotheses the researchers outlined before undertaking the research, also as the procedures used in following through with the project. Summarize briefly whatever statistical results and include a rudimentary estimation of the data for your summary.
   • In humanities articles, it's usually good to summarize the fundamental assumptions and the school of thought from which the writer comes, as well as the examples and the ideas presented throughout the commodity.

3. 3

   Place key vocabulary to use in the summary. Make sure all the major keywords that are used in the commodity arrive into your summary. Information technology's important that you fully examine the meanings of these more complicated terms so that your summary reader can grasp the content as you move forward with the summary.

   • Whatever words or terms that the author coins need to be included and discussed in your summary.

4. 4

   Aim to keep it brief. Periodical summaries don't demand to exist anywhere shut to the length of the articles themselves. The purpose of the summary is to provide a condensed merely split up clarification of the research, either for apply for the primary research collector, or to help you redigest the information at a later engagement in the research procedure.

   • Every bit a general dominion of pollex, you can probably make one paragraph per main bespeak, catastrophe up with no more than than 500-1000 words, for nearly academic articles. For about periodical summaries, you'll exist writing several brusque paragraphs that summarize each carve up portion of the periodical commodity.

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1. one

   Do not use personal pronouns (I, you, u.s.a., nosotros, our, your, my).

2. two

   Keep the tone as objective equally possible. Yous're not critiquing the article, y'all're giving an overview of information technology.

3. 3

   Starting time past defining the research question. Toward the beginning of the article, possibly in the introduction, the authors should discuss the focus of the research study and what the targeted objectives were for conducting the enquiry. This is where your summary should begin. Draw, in your ain words, the main argument the authors hope to prove with their research.

   • In scientific articles, usually at that place is an introduction which establishes the groundwork for the experiment or study, and won't provide you lot with much to summarize. Information technology volition exist followed past the evolution of a research question and testing procedures, though, which are central in dictating the content for the rest of the commodity.

4. 4

   Talk over the methodology used by the authors. This portion discusses the research tools and methods used during the study.^[iv] In other words, you need to summarize how the authors or researchers came to the conclusions they came to with first-mitt research or data collection.

   • The specifics of the testing procedures don't ordinarily need to exist included in your summary in their entirety; they should be reduced to a simple thought of how the research question was addressed. The results of the study volition commonly be candy data, sometimes accompanied by raw, pre-procedure data. Merely the processed information needs to exist included in the summary.

5. 5

   Describe the results. One of the most important parts of the summary needs to be describing what the authors accomplished as a result of their piece of work.^[v] Were the authors successful and did they meet their objectives for conducting the enquiry? What conclusions have the authors drawn from this research? What are the implications of this research, as described in the article?

   • Make sure your summary covers the inquiry question, the conclusions/results, and how those results were achieved. These are crucial parts of the commodity and cannot be left out.

6. 6

   Connect the main ideas presented in the article. For some summaries, it's important to show how the relationships amid the ideas presented past the authors develop over the course of the article. The primary objective of the summary is to present a brief overview of the authors' essential points to the reader, making it important that yous unpack those arguments and explicate them in your own words. Make full in the blanks and assumptions, helping to clarify the enquiry and summarize it briefly.

   • This is sometimes more important in summaries dealing with articles in the humanities. For instance, it might be helpful to unpack dumbo arguments about poet George Herbert's relationship to the divine with more pedestrian summaries: "The writer seeks to humanize Herbert past discussing his daily routines, as opposed to his philosophies."

7. seven

   Don't draw your own conclusions. A summary of an article shouldn't editorialize, or offering your own interpretations of the data, unless explicitly stated as part of the assignment. In general, the signal of a summary is to summarize the authors' points, not to offer your own additions and editorials.

   • This tin be hard for some inexperienced research writers to get the hang of at get-go, but call back to go along the "I" out of information technology.

8. viii

   Refrain from using direct quotations of text from the journal article. Quotations are more oft used when writing a higher paper or essay, and are less important for a journal article summary. Focus more on paraphrasing the ideas when writing a journal article summary without losing focus of their meaning and intended content.

9. nine

   Use present tense. Always use the present tense when you are discussing the contents of a scholarly article. This will help you maintain a parallel grammatical structure throughout.

10. 10

    Revise your draft . Skilful writing happens in revision. Get back and compare the focus and content of what you take written to see that it matches and supports the context of the periodical article. A journal article that has been properly summarized provides potential readers with a short review, which is of import when they are browsing and searching for specific information about a particular topic.

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Sample Summaries

Add New Question

• Question

  How do I summarize a referee journal article?

  

  A "refereed" periodical article is the aforementioned as a peer-reviewed journal article. This just means that all of the content has been fact-checked past a panel of experts earlier being approved for publication. All of the above steps use.

• Question

  Pace 6 says to accept notes while I read. Is it a adept idea to take notes while scanning or should I just take notes afterwards?

  

  Daniela Alvarez

  Customs Answer

  Take notes while scanning to remember what interested yous the about. Afterwards, get back, if the article volition exist used, to understand those topics better and then that if y'all had to explain it to someone, you could without a problem.

• Question

  How tin can I write a summary of multiple articles?

  

  Taqi Anwar

  Community Answer

  Read all manufactures and write separate summaries. Then summarize the similar summaries once again; hence you volition go two to three similar drafts. At present finally write the chief points of these narrowed down drafts in one article.

• Question

  When summarizing, should I be objective, or follow what the author says?

  

  Davit639

  Community Answer

  It is preferable to exist subjective during summarizing, as yous need to draw conclusion from the data provided only by the author(south) of the commodity.

• Question

  Is there whatever limit for summary? If 20-30 articles are reviewed, then how can I sum them up?

  

  Summarize a different commodity in each paragraph, and try to make each summary smaller if possible. Then, detect a mode to mash upward all the summaries in i. At that place is no limit simply the shorter the entire summary is, the improve.

• Question

  How practice I write highlights of articles?

  

  Article highlights consist of short bullet points that convey the cadre findings of an article and provide readers with a quick textual overview. Specific journals accept different requirements then it is best to check the guide to authors department of the journal website to ensure you keep within word limits.

• Question

  Should a periodical synopsis have a championship?

  

  Yes. I recommend titling information technology every bit "Summary of (commodity proper noun italicized)"; this way, the title is straight to the point. If you are summarizing multiple articles, championship the page with the field of study you are writing about (be specific!).

• Question

  The article says that I demand to include my main supporting ideas. Where do I include those in the writing?

  

  The main supporting ideas are by and large going to exist thought of as the meat of your commodity paragraphs. You tin can include them as headers of the sections, or you can just use them as inspiration for the section'due south content.

• Question

  Are summaries supposed to have embrace pages included along with them?

  

  If it is for a schoolhouse assignment, that depends on the instructor. Some instructors crave cover pages, while others exercise not.

• Question

  Do I demand to have sub topics in my summary?

  

  It all depends on what or who your summary is nearly. Adding a sub topic is of import in some topics that you are doing, every bit it often helps the person who is reading the summary to gather, analyse, and process a flake of formation on what is being presented to them. If it helps give a little bit of information that would allow you to make a logical decision almost the summary, so do so.

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About This Article

Article Summary 10

To summarize a journal article, start past reading the writer's abstruse, which tells you the main argument of the article. Next, read the commodity advisedly, highlighting portions, identifying central vocabulary, and taking notes as y'all go. In your summary, define the research question, indicate the methodology used, and focus mostly on the results of the research. Utilise your notes to aid you stay focused on the main argument and ever go on your tone objective—avoid using personal pronouns and drawing your own conclusions. For tips on how to read through the journal article thoroughly, such equally starting with the determination, keep reading!

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