How to Work with Information from Sources

Writing Summaries

For purposes of this demonstration, we'll follow the progress of student writers Jenna Alberter and Gaele Lopez. We'll look at Jenna's research essay exploring the general topic of images of women in Dutch Baroque art and then focusing on the issue of how these paintings "influenced and were influenced by the culture in which they were created." We'll also look at Gaele's informative research essay for his introductory composition course that explored reasons for low turnout among voters under 25 years of age. We'll see how both Jenna and Gaele used different types of summaries to help strengthen their project documents. (Note that this demonstration uses MLA style for documentation. If you are using an alternate style, consult the appropriate guidebook for that documentation style.)

The main steps to remember when creating a summary are:

1. Check to see if the tone or style of your summary is appropriate for your project document. If it is not, revise your summary to better fit your project document.
2. Properly identify the source of your summary.
3. Make sure that your summary accurately and fairly represents the ideas in the original source.

To begin this demonstration, click on the Continue button.