2. CONTENTS
• In this lecture, you will find:
• Tips on what makes a good summary
• My own summarization process
• A doggo
3. THE TEXT I’M SUMMARIZING
• The text I’m summarizing is “Response of a Laboratory Rat—Or, Being Protocoled”
by Donald M. Murray. You can find this on p. 137 in your textbook, or by clicking on
this link (Murray’s article starts on page 14):
https://www.jstor.org/stable/357403?casa_token=uxN5INgcj-
sAAAAA:NxLJ5AHe1kykaJdRnv8TU05rjeq1vtN4e_Boko1ojlwBNyuMa8EdojCFsKT
NKgVUDGxyi53moSDlktPoOini8Hc5msj-
CbRO9YXTpEz6fibmM9QG4YCE&seq=14#metadata_info_tab_contents
4. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A SUMMARY?
• It might help you to understand why you’re being asked to summarize something. The
Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has this to
say:
• “Before you write the summary, consider why your audience (professor, boss, client)
wants to read it. Why shouldn't the reader just read the original? Summaries benefit the
reader because they offer a concise, general version of the original information. For a
busy reader, summaries provide quick overviews of material. Summaries also show
readers that you have understood the general point of a text, and in this way, teachers
can test your knowledge. The process of summarizing someone else's material enables
you to better understand that material. Finally, summaries allow you to introduce
knowledge within a research context: you can summarize someone's argument in order
to analyze or critique it”
5. THE PURPOSE OF A SUMMARY (CONT’D)
• In the context of this paper, the summary will help me (the
reader) to know that you understood the information in the
text you chose. It will also help you to get a really good
handle on the main points of the article, which will help you
when you’re analyzing.
6. WHAT THE PROMPT ASKS FOR OUT OF
YOUR SUMMARY
• The prompt wants your summary to answer several questions, not necessarily in this
order:
• The territory the text covers and the niche it occupies (I’ll explain this in the lecture
about Swales’s CARS model, forthcoming on 4/1/20)
• The text’s main parts or sections
• The author’s underlying theoretical framework (underlying theories or principles it
uses to study or interpret whatever it’s focused on) if the author shares this
• Research methods, if the author shares these
• The author’s findings, main claims, main discoveries
• The implications of the piece (which will be mostly in the conclusion and potentially in
the introduction as well, if they are stated directly)
7. DOES THAT LOOK INTIMIDATING?
• It shouldn’t. Everything the prompt asks for, you
guys have already had practice identifying and
explaining in the synthesis essay. Don’t worry.
8. QUICK QUESTION, THOUGH--SHOULD A
GOOD SUMMARY INCLUDE QUOTES?
• Sources seem to disagree on that point. I always like to toss
in a couple of quotes, partly because using the writer’s
original language helps me to convey the tone of the article
to the reader, and partly because sometimes, the original
writer just said the thing best.
9. DOGGO BREAK!
This is my friend Kim’s dog,
Gwen. I understand that
Corgi owners call this pose a
“sploot.” Research suggests
that this is a hip stretch
that helps doggos stay
flexible.
10. SO: HOW DO I START?
• The first sentence of any
summary I write always
contains:
• The type of text I’m
summarizing
• It’s title
• The writer’s name
• The writer’s occupation
• A one-sentence summary of the
text
• Therefore, the first sentence of my
summary for Murray’s article would
read: In the short article (type of
source) “Response of a Laboratory
Rat—Or, Being Protocoled,” (title) the
writer (occupation) Donald M. Murray
(writer’s name) reflects on his
experience as the subject of an
experiment about the writing process of
professional writers by the researcher
Carol Berkenkotter (one-sentence
summary)
11. THE TEXT’S MAIN PARTS OR SECTIONS
• I would continue by addressing the second criterion from the prompt, the text’s main parts or
sections, since it’s good for you to give the reader, early on, an understanding of the structure of
the text. So, building on my first sentence:
• In the short article “Response of a Laboratory Rat—Or, Being Protocoled,” the writer Donald M.
Murray reflects on his experience as the subject of an experiment about the writing process of
professional writers by the researcher Carol Berkenkotter. In eleven short, numbered sections,
Murray discusses the things that surprised him, what he learned about his own writing process,
and the implications both for his own teaching and further research into the writing process.
• Notice how I got more specific in this second sentence. The first sentence talks about “his
experience as the subject of an experiment,” and the second section elaborates, turning “his
experience” into “the things that surprised him, what he learned about his own writing process,
and the implications both for his own teaching and further research into the writing process”.
12. THE TEXT’S MAIN PARTS OR SECTIONS
(CONT’D)
• Notice, too, that I have referred to the writer of the article twice now. These kinds of
references are essential to a good summary. If you don’t refer to the writer often
(“Murray reflects”; “Murray discusses”), it can start to look like these are your own
thoughts rather than another writer’s.
• Finally, notice how listing these main parts or sections can function as a kind of
focusing statement for the rest of the summary. Now, all I have to do is to explain
those things that Murray was surprised by, what he learned about his own writing
process, and what he sees as the implications for his own teaching and further
research about the writing process.
13. THE AUTHOR’S UNDERLYING THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
• Since Murray is responding to an experience rather than a research question, there
isn’t really a theoretical framework to speak of here. Your text may have one,
though, and you can find it by looking for keywords such as “building on the
research of” or “several studies have shown”. The underlying theoretical framework
of an article may have been established by other researchers, in other words, so
looking for that can help you figure out what the theoretical framework is.
14. RESEARCH METHODS, IF THE AUTHOR
SHARES THESE
• The same thing applies here: since Murray is responding to an experience, there are
no research methods to discuss. However, since it might be difficult for the reader to
understand Murray’s response without understanding what he did for
Berkenkotter’s experiment, it will be necessary for me to go back and look at
Berkenkotter’s methods (that is, the methodology of the experiment in which
Murray participated).
• You can usually find the research methodology in the “Methods” section of an article,
if there is one.
15. RESEARCH METHODS, IF THE AUTHOR
SHARES THESE
• Going back to Berkenkotter’s article, I found a section labeled “Methodology” (p. 125
in your textbook, for reference). This section starts: “The objectives that I began with
are modifications of those Sandra Perl identified in her study of five unskilled
writers.” (Here, Berkenkotter is talking about her theoretical framework.) She
continues: “I wanted to learn more about the planning and revising strategies of a
highly skilled and verbal writer, to discover how these strategies could be most
usefully analyzed, and to determine how an understanding of this writer’s processes
would contribute to what we have already discovered about how skilled writers plan
and revise” (125). Here, she’s explaining her motivations (see Lecture One).
16. RESEARCH METHODS, IF THE AUTHOR
SHARES THESE
• Now, what I would do is to explain what Berkenkotter asked Murry to do, as well as
how she analyzed the data she collected from him. I would try to do this as quickly
as possible, probably in only a couple of sentences, since this summary isn’t of
Berkenkotter, but of Murray’s article. My explanation of Berkenkotter’s methods is
purely so that the reader has enough context to understand what Murray responded
to.
• This is a great way to think about summarizing someone’s research methodology—
what did they do (or ask others to do), and how did they analyze the data they
collected?
17. THE AUTHOR’S FINDINGS, MAIN CLAIMS,
DISCOVERIES
• In my case, these are the things that surprised Donald Murry about his own writing
process—that is, what he discovered about himself as a writer. In the case of your
individual texts, this will vary widely. If you’re reading a classically-structured
scientific article, you’ll probably find these in the “Results” or “Discussion” section,
in which the writer draws conclusions from or interprets the data they collected.
18. THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE PIECE
• The wider application, the thing that the conclusions, the interpretations, the data
really means for the reader, or for the wider world.
• In my case, these are the things Donald Murry discovered about his teaching after
having been part of this experiment—that he wants to conduct more public
workshops, that he wants to make himself available to students as they’re writing,
that research in this area can and should continue, and how.
• Many scholars will talk about where the research should go from here—look for the
phrase “further research” or “further study” and you’ll be able to spot this.
19. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
• You do not have to address these questions in this exact order. As long as they’re all in
there, somewhere, I’ll be most pleased.
• I noticed, when I read your synthesis essays, that many of you didn’t do some of the
steps mentioned in this lecture. Many of you didn’t mention the type of text, for example,
or the writer’s credentials (the degrees they hold or where they work). I read the results
of many a study without having an understanding of the researchers’ methodology.
Before you write this summary, go back and look at my feedback for the synthesis essay.
If I asked you for more context about the writer, then you’ll know you need to be more
careful about introducing the text at the beginning of this upcoming summary. Following
the formula I laid out in slide 9 should help. If I asked you to explain the study, you’ll
know you need to pay particular attention, in the upcoming summary, to the researchers’
methodology section.
20. WHAT’S NEXT?
• In the next lecture, I’ll show you how I would go about analyzing Murray’s article.
