Chapter 9 of Kolin's Successful Writing at Work

CHAPTER 9
Summarizing
Information at
Work
Philip C. Kolin
University of Southern Mississippi

Copyright © Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. 9 | 2
Summaries in the Information Age
(slide 1 of 2)
 A summary is a brief restatement of the main
points of a book, report, website, article,
laboratory test, PowerPoint presentation,
meeting, or convention that saves readers
hours of time because it captures only the most
important parts of a work.
 Because of the Web and other technologies
today, we have an abundance of information.
For example:
 Google retrieves positive “hits” by looking for
keywords that summarize a source.

Summaries in the Information Age
(slide 2 of 2)
 A home page for a website is essentially a summary
of the pages to which it is connected.
 Instant messaging and text messages require you to
summarize information due to space and time
constraints.

The Importance of Summaries in
Business
 On the job, writing summaries for employers,
co-workers, and customers is a regular and
important responsibility.
 You may have to condense a proposal to fit a
one-page format for an organization.
 Or you may be asked to summarize the main
features of a competitor’s product or a new
model you saw at a trade show.
 You may be asked to write a news release—
another type of summary vital for your
organization’s image.

Contents of a Summary
 In a straightforward and accurate manner, a
summary should answer:
 What are the findings of the report or meeting?
 How do the findings apply to my business,
research, or job?
 Include in a summary a purpose, essential
specifics, conclusions or results, and
recommendations or implications.
 Omit from a summary opinion, new data,
irrelevant specifics, examples, backgrounds,
jargon, and reference data.

Figure 9.1 Summary of Long
Report on Child Care Facilities

Preparing a Summary (slide 1 of 2)
 Preparing a summary essentially means
reading the material carefully, making sure you
understand it, identifying your major points, and
putting the essence of the material into your
own words. Follow these steps to prepare a
concise, useful summary:
 Read the material once in its entirety to get an
overall impression of what it is about.
 Reread the material, underlining the most important
points.
 Collect your underlined material or notes and
organize the information into a draft summary.

Preparing a Summary (slide 2 of 2)
 Read through and revise your draft(s) and delete
whatever information you can.
 Now put the material into your own words.
 Edit your summary to make sure it is fair, clear, and
concise.
 Identify the source you have just summarized.

Make Sure Your Summary Is
Ethical
 Your summary should be honest, fair, and
accurate. You can write an ethical summary by
doing the following:
 Make sure your summary agrees with the original.
 Emphasize the main points made by the author.
 Do not omit key points.
 Be fair in expressing the author’s conclusions or
recommendations.
 Do not dwell on minor points to the exclusion of
major ones.
 Do not let your own opinions distort or contradict the
message of the original document.

Figure 9.2 Original Article with
Points Highlighted for a Summary
(slide 1 of 3)

(slide 2 of 3)

(slide 3 of 3)

Figure 9.3 Working Draft Summary
of the Article in Figure 9.2

Figure 9.4 A Final, Effective
Summary of Article in Figure 9.2

Executive Summaries (slide 1 of 2)
 An executive summary is usually one or two
pages long and condenses the most important
points from the proposal or report for an
executive. Executives will look for the four E’s:
evaluation, economy, efficiency, and
expediency. Organize it as follows:
 Begin with the purpose and the scope of the report.
 Relate your purpose to a key problem.

Executive Summaries (slide 2 of 2)
 Identify in non-technical language the criteria used
to solve the problem.
 Condense the findings of your report.
 Stress conclusions and possible solutions.
 Provide recommendations.

Figure 9.5 An Unethical, Misleading
Summary of Article in Figure 9.2

Figure 9.6 An Executive Summary

Evaluative Summaries (slide 1 of 3)
 An evaluative summary follows the guidelines
of an executive summary but also asks for an
opinion regarding the work summarized. Here
are some guidelines:
 Keep the summary short—5 to 10 percent of the
length of the original.
 Blend your evaluations with your summary; do not
save your evaluations for the end.
 Place each evaluation near the corresponding
summarized points.

 Include a pertinent quotation from the original to
emphasize your recommendation.
 Comment on both content and style.
 To evaluate the content, answer these
questions for your readers:
 How carefully and completely is the subject
researched?
 Is the writer or speaker objective?
 Does the work achieve its goal?
 Is the material relevant to your audience?

 To evaluate the style, answer these questions
for your readers:
 Is the material readable?
 Is the material organized and free of errors?
 What kind of vocabulary does the writer or speaker
use?
 What visuals are included?

Figure 9.7 An Evaluative Summary
of an Article

Abstracts
 An abstract is brief summary of the content of a
work. It is different from an executive or
evaluative summary in that it is much shorter,
the first person singular or plural (“I” or “we”)
is never used, and footnotes are never
incorporated. There are two distinct types of
abstracts:
 An informative abstract indicates what research was
done, what conclusions were reached, and what
recommendations were made.
 A descriptive abstract does not go into detail or
provide conclusions. It indicates what topics a work
discusses but not how or why they are discussed.

Figure 9.8 A Collaboratively Written
Evaluative Summary of a Seminar

Figure 9.9 Descriptive Abstracts of
Journal Articles

Writing Successful News Releases
 A news release is a type of summary that
makes an official announcement to the public.
 Subjects appropriate for news releases include:
 New products, services, or publications
 New policies or procedures
 Personnel changes and awards
 New construction and developments
 Financial and business news
 Eco-friendly (green) news
 Special events

Organization of a News Release
 The cardinal rule in writing a news release is to
put the most important piece of news first.
Everything in a news release should be
arranged in descending order of importance.
 There are three parts of a news release:
 The slug (or headline) announces a specific subject
for readers and draws them into it.
 The lead is the first sentence of a news release and
ideally will answer the questions Who? What?
When? Where? Why? and How?
 The body fills in the most necessary supporting
details and amplifies Why? How? in the lead.

Figure 9.10 A News Release from
the Web

Chapter 9 of Kolin's Successful Writing at Work

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