Main -->How-To-->Article Summaries

 Definition:  Summary (n.):  A short, direct re-telling.

The point of this assignment is to write clearly and briefly in fifth grade language, showing that you understood a science news article and thought about it.

HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT:

1. Over the weekend, choose a science article.  
2. Read it. Underline or highlight the important parts.
3. In your journal, write the author, title, publication, date published, date accessed (if it's an Internet article), and a couple of sentences giving the main idea and supporting details (the "who what when where why" of the article). These are your notes.
4. Show me the article and your notes the first class of the week.
5. Now you are going to write the summary. On a piece of paper with a proper header, write or type the information about the article (title, author, publication, date, URL if necessary)
6. Write a topic sentence. Make it interesting.
7. Get your notes out. Don't look at the article. In your own words (double spaced if typed) write at least two sentences to summarize the article:
8. Finish with two sentences giving your reaction.  Tell what you think about the article, or talk about what you might think as a result of the news you read, or explain why it is important news. "I am happy about this," "This is cool," or other things like that are not good reactions (I call them "Wow" reactions).   
9. Cut the article out or print it out. Paper-clip or staple it to the back of your summary.
10. Bring it to class and hand it in (homework is not "done" until you hand it in) (strange but true).

Click here for good examples of article summaries.

Click here for some good Internet science news links.

Please avoid using phrases that say nothing and can be left out without changing the meaning in any way, such as:

"This article is about . . . "
"I picked this article because . . . "
"My article is about . . . "

"My opinion is that . . . "

"My reaction is"
:"My opinion of this article is that . . ."
"I think that . . . "

It's better to say, "We need to protect our coral reefs more." than it is to say, "My opinion of this article is that we need to protect our coral reefs more."

Oh, yeah, and I hate reaction sentences which say, "This article was very informational." or "This article had a lot of information." That says nothing. It's not a reaction, it's like saying, "This page has a lot of words."

Questions?  Send me some e-mail!  Click on the address below.

dturner@haverford.org

This page last updated October 31, 2002

Copyright 2002 Delia M. Turner, Ph.D.