Vital Parts Of A Proper Research Paper Summary: A Writing Guide
You may be feeling done in after weeks of working on your research paper, and perhaps the last thing you now want to do is write a summary of the essay as well. The good news is it isn’t as hard as it may first seem. I mean, you’ve already written your essay, so you already know what’s in it! Right? So all you have to do is contain that in a succinct and concise manner, and make sure you’re following the rules. Easy!
Equally, you may have been asked to provide a summary on a professional thesis. Whether it’s your own or someone else’s work you are compressing, the rules remain the same.
So, the parts of your summary are simply the same as the parts of an essay, but condensed. Let’s have a look at each one in turn:
- If the essay has an abstract (which is an overview of what can be expected to be found in the forthcoming work), then begin your summary with that- summarizing the abstract into even more basic points.
- If there is only an introduction, then begin there. There will often be a thesis statement in the introduction that needs to be incorporated. Again, simply fish out the main points and restate them.
- Moving into summarizing the essay itself, you should list the main arguments (both in support for and against the topic at hand) and include references for each.
- You should state the methodology used in the essay, in terms of experimentation, calculations, variables and so on.
- State the analysis of the data and then relay the results of the analysis.
- Summarizing the discussion points that were had in the essay being discussed should also be included.
- Finally, state the conclusion that the author of the work has come to.
It’s always beneficial to study some actual examples of summaries to ascertain that you are getting it right. You will be able to find plenty of examples online (look on reputable educational websites to find the best samples) and your campus library should also be a first port of call; there will be an abundance of past student essays for you to peruse.
The more time you spend studying good examples, not only to see how the content has been pieced together and handled, but also how to write with a good flow (for instance) the more you will be able to hone your skills.