Summary
Identifying the source in a summary
Most summaries will have a sentence near the beginning that contains two elements: the source and a main idea. Notice the use of the present tense in the later examples.
According to Boskin (2004) _________ (main idea).
Young and Song's 2004 paper on fluoridation discusses _________ (main idea).
Bernstein (2004) states / claims / argues / maintains that _________ (main idea).
Barinaga (2004) suggests / asserts / hypothesizes / states / concludes that _________ (main idea).
There is a range of reporting verbs that you may use when referring to your source material. Here are the most frequently used verbs to report content.
analyze – argue – demonstrate – describe – develop – discuss – examine – expand – explain – find – note – observe – point out – propose – report – show – study – suggest – use
Although in theory summaries are supposed to be objective, this is not entirely true. A variety of reporting verbs can be used in summary writing to reveal your personal stance toward the source material. Notice how the reporting verbs in the following examples could allow the writer of the summary to convey his or her attitude.
Campbell (2004) presumes that all parents are equally capable of helping their children with schoolwork.
The authors speculate that people who scrap their old cars will immediately buy another, new(er) car.
Notice also how the addition of an adverb (in midposition, of course) can even more clearly reveal your stance, which you may want to do when writing in order to critique.
The authors wrongly assume that patients will adhere to the treatment method.
Summary reminder phrases
In a longer summary, you may want to remind your reader that you are summarizing.
The author goes on to say that ...
The article further states that ...
Jones also states/maintains/argues that ...
He also believes that ...
Wiley concludes that ...
In the second half of the paper, O'Conner presents ...
In fact, if your summary is quite long, you may want to mention the source author's name at different points in the summary -the beginning, the middle and/or the end. When you do mention the author in the middle or end, be sure to use the surname only.
Goodman goes on to say ...
Bradley et al. also believe that ...
The author further argues that ...
Some of the following sentence connectors may be useful in introducing additional information.
additionally - also - further - in addition to - furthermore - moreover