Informational Text Summary

1

• Informational Text Summary
• A summary begins with an introductory sentence
  that states the title and author of the piece of
  information being summarized.
• A summary must contain the main thesis or
  standpoint of the text, restated in your own
  words
• A summary is written in your own words.
• A summary is always shorter than the original
  text.
• A summary should contain all the major points of
  the original text and ignore most of the fine
  details, examples, etc.
• The backbone to the summary is formed by crucial
  details (key names, dates, events, words, and
  numbers).
• A summary must contain ONLY the ideas of the
  original test. (Do not insert your own opinions,
  interpretations, or comments into the summary)
• A summary, like any other writing, has to have a
  specific audience and purpose and should be
  written in present tense. Our audience is middle
  school students.
• Summaries do not need a formal conclusion
  sentence.
• Quotations
• You must quote the article 2 times.
• You should choose quotes that are short and are
  very important to the text. Each time you need
  to use quotations and use a transition to
  introduce the quote. Ex According to the Mr.
  Author, fish are green.
• Discussion Questions
• After summarizing each article, you need to come
  up with 2 discussion questions about that
  article. Discussion questions should be open
  ended (not just one right answer!!).

• A Four-Step Summary Paragraph
• Write a topic sentence using the 3-part topic
  sentence method.
• Copy this sentence to look like a real sentence.
  Fix spelling and capitalization errors.
• Create a fact outline. Facts you want to include
  from the summary. Include 2 short quotes.

Identify the article and author. Select a verb. Finish your thought.

- - - -