Writing a Summary
Guidelines
1. SELECTION Only essential details belong in a précis. For example in the opening of the story "The Necklace", the author describes the daydreams of the major character. She is preoccupied with visions of the pleasures of wealth, such as large rooms, tapestries, lamps, servants, silks, furniture, and elegant and exotic meals. In a précis, it is sufficient to say something like "Mathilde daydreams about wealth". Selection of detail must be based on the importance of the material in the work being considered.
2. ACCURACY All details should be both correct and accurate. Watch out for using words that give a misleading impression. Thus, in "The Necklace", Mathilde cooperates with her husband for 10 long years to repay their 18,000-franc debt. In a summary about this detail it would be easy to say that she "works: during this time. The word "works" id misleading, however, for it may be interpreted to mean that Mathilde gets paid for outside employment. In fact, she does not. What the author tells us is that Mathilde gives up her servant girl and then does all the heavy housework herself as part of her general economizing in her own household, not in the houses of others.
3. DICTION The summary is an original essay and therefore it should be written in your own words. The best way to ensure this is to record the major events,
then put the original away while you are writing. If some words and phrases do occur, put them in quotation marks but keep these to a minimum.
4. OBJECTIVITY The summary should be factual and avoid adding your own opinions and explanations to this.
5. SENTENCES
| Mathilde gives up her nice apartment. She works hard for ten years. She climbs stairs. She cleans floors. She uses big buckets of water. She gets coarse and loud. She bargains with shopkeepers. She is no longer young and beautiful. | She gives up her nice apartment and devotes herself to hard work for the entire ten years. At home, she climbs many stairs and throws buckets of water to clean floors. When marketing, she haggles with shopkeepers for bargains. At the end of the time, this hard work has made her loud and coarse, and her youthful beauty is gone. |
Which of the above paragraphs would a native speaker consider a better summary? Why?
In a summary, it is important to keep the events in the same order and withhold the conclusion until the very end. For each major division, episode, scene, action or section, the summary should be divided into paragraphs.