Article Summary

Description

Read the posted article “The Last Island of the Savages”. Read the article a second time to highlight the main ideas. Read the article a third time in order to find examples and supporting details to back up the main ideas.

An article summary condenses and presents information from a single source-in this case from the article I have provided. There are no quotes used in an article summary.

An article summary presents the author’s, this is you, ideas objectively. You do not express your opinion. No first or second person usage! A well-written essay contains 5-7 well written paragraphs. Keep this in mind when writing your essay with the intro, body, and concluding paragraphs.

The title will be centered and is the title of the article itself, which is in quotes.

In the introductory paragraph you must include the title of the article (be sure it is in quotes), the author of the article, and the central idea of the article, which is the thesis sentence/statement. Again, this is the introductory paragraph; it introduces the article.

The body paragraphs outline the most important points in the article. Do not forget your topic sentence which is the first sentence in each body paragraph. The topic sentence lets the reader know what the focus of the body paragraph is about.

The concluding paragraph sums up the ideas of the author of the article. Again, you are summarizing what the author has stated. You are the author of the article summary, not of the article.

As a final paragraph, after the concluding paragraph, I would like for you to comment on the article and state your personal feelings. You may use first person “I” in this final paragraph. Therefore, you will meet the 5-7 paragraphs criteria for the article summary, and then a final paragraph, too, meeting the criteria above-commenting on the article and stating your personal feelings.

When writing an article summary you must capture the ideas of the author using your own sentence structure and words. It is all right to repeat key terms; however, unusual words or phrases should be reworded. The sentence structure should vary in form from that of the original article.

Again, academic writing is objective-no first or second person usage (except for the final paragraph that I have requested for your personal comments and feelings about the article). Avoid using quotes in an article summary. You are summarizing the article in your words. Refer to Proofing Checklist for additional info.

A Works Cited page is mandatory for an article summary. Use the information provided from the article- author, title of article (in quotes), title of the magazine/journal/newspaper (italized), date of article’s publication, date of access to article, and if provided the volume, issue, and page no.

Since you only have one source for this paper, be sure to use Work Cited, as there is only one single source.

This is a two page max essay. Again, it is 5-7 paragraphs to include the intro, body, and concluding paragraphs. The final commenting paragraph I have requested does not count as one of the 5-7 required paragraphs. Therefore, if you have 7 paragraphs for your article summary, then the 8th paragraph is your commenting paragraph. Also, the commenting paragraph may go over the two page limit for the essay. However, be sure the article summary itself does not go over the two page max allowed!

Keep in mind the article summary is just that, a summary of the article. It is not rewriting the article! You want to capture what the author is stating objectively, and in your own words.