Weekly Schedule:
- Fri 2/4: Intro video lesson is live! Introduction to the 500-word summary
- Mon 2/7:
- Perusall: Read and annotate “How to Write a Summary”
- Google Drive folder: Upload your first two annotated bibliographic entries to the folder labeled “500 word summary.”
- Thur 2/10:
- Google Drive folder: Upload your last two annotated bibliographic entries to the folder labeled “500 word summary.”
The 500-word article summary
Mark Twain is supposed to have said, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one.”
The point is, it’s hard work to be brief. It’s so easy to just start writing and keep going and going and going. That’s fine if it’s just for you. But bosses won’t take the time to read it. Neither will clients. And when you’re trying to convey complicated technical information, it can be even harder to “write short.”
So for this assignment, you’re going to find a technical or scientific article about something you’re interested in and is part of your technical or professional field, and write a 500-word summary of that article. Here’s the assignment as the department has written it:
Individually, you will write a 500-word summary of a technical or scientific article that demonstrates: 1. ability to identify key processes and concepts in a professional science or technology article. 2. ability to describe complex processes and concepts clearly and concisely. 3. an awareness of audience. The summary should cite the article and any quotes following APA format.
You’ll be doing this in a few steps:
- Go to Perusall and read/annotate the assignment labeled “How to Write a Summary.” That will get you thinking about what to do.
- Write brief annotated bibliographic entries for three potential articles. Essentially, you’re just writing down the bibliographic information, two to four sentences that say what the article is about, and a sentence about whether you think it might be something you would want to do a full summary on. Researchers use annotated bibliographies all the time because they give information briefly, save you having to keep looking it up, and let you compare things quickly.
- Handout 1 below will tell you more about how to create an annotated bibliography. You can use the example in the handout as a model for how to write your own although you really only need the bibliographic information and one short paragraph (what it’s about, whether you might want to use it for the assignment).
- Your first one is due Monday 2/7 in the Google Drive folder labeled “500 word summary.” You might want to create a new folder with your name on it since you’ll be uploading these annotations in two batches and the Summary draft itself next week.
- Annotations #2 and #3 are are due Thursday 2/10 in the Google Drive folde.
- Write and upload your 500-word summary draft Week 3 to the Google Drive. Handout 2 below is a template for it. The Lorem ipsum jibberish is actually what designers use to imitate text when they’re trying to demonstrate how to lay out something and don’t want anybody to pay attention to the text itself. You’ll see that you need specific things:
- First paragraph that introduces the article and gives a summary of the main idea.
- Second paragraph that lays out the supporting ideas.
- APA citation.
To find and work with articles:
First, go to the library using the link on the main CityTech site or in the widget on the right hand side of our OpenLab site. Click on the Research Help tab at the top to find tutorials about searching for articles. They’re a lot better than anything I could write here. If you’re already familiar with using the library, just click on Find and go for it.
Second, read the article from start to finish. The best way to do this is to do a quick first look, focusing on the abstract if there is one, the introduction, and the conclusion. As you go through, look for subheads and tables because they’ll also give you some basic information that will make reading the whole article easier. Then go back and read the whole thing, annotating as you go.
Third, write a reverse outline of the article by reading each paragraph again, looking away, typing one sentence in your own words summarizing that single paragraph, reading the next paragraph, writing one sentence summarizing it, etc. until the end of the article. This not only helps you focus on what the paragraph is really about, it will also give you your own base outline for your summary because those paragraph summaries really are the main and/or supporting points.
