How ineffective can summaries be?

Writing academically is a challenging task which involves a high level of expertise, since the main purpose is to construct knowledge in “an organized, structured way” (MSc Study Skills Guide, n.d.). Hence, only individuals who possess in-depth and specialist knowledge are the major contributors. Summary writing is a particular genre which entails experience as well as the appropriate use of some typical characteristics, such as a considerable proficiency in language use, formal style and register (Pintos, 2008).
Below is a summary written by a student in which different features will be analysed and discussed:
In Reid’s (1994, cited in Pintos, 2008) book “The Process of Paragraph Writing", she describes the main characteristics of a summary. The author claims that the general purpose of a summary is to give a limited amount of information to a specific audience.
However, summary writing is not an easy task. In order to write an accurate summary, you not only have to extract the main ideas but you also have to be capable of expressing these main ideas, trying to avoid repeating the exact phrases of the original material. Moreover, good summaries are clear and balanced. That is to say, the reader should not find difficulties in understanding the main ideas of the material.
The reader is prone to feel somewhat confused after reading this summary since the structure may be inadequate and discourse markers have been misused. In addition, some academic rules have not been respected, the choice of reporting verbs is not the appropriate one and the introductory phrase does not follow the APA (American Psychological Association) Style.
With reference to the use of the reporting verb “claim”, it does not seem to be the most suitable verb in this context, as the verb means to state that something is true although it has not been proved. The choice of another reporting verb might have proved more efficient, for instance “assert” or “state”, which are closer in meaning to what Reid (1994, cited in Pintos, 2008) denoted.
In-text citation enriches academic writing since, “[f]irst, it allows instructors to check the accuracy of your research. Second, it gives your readers the opportunity to find additional related information. Most importantly, citing sources gives credit for the research and theories that you [are] citing to the people who [have] created them” (Scott, n.d.). However, the student did not use in-text citations making the summary seem less academic. When quotations are too long, resorting to the use of ellipses, that is to say, the omission of a part of a paragraph or the use of insertions of words between square brackets become effective tools (Pintos, 2008).
All these remarks followed by the analysis of the summary clearly reveal how difficult and ineffective writing an academic summary may be unless all the academic rules are borne in mind. Not only must the person who writes a summary have an excellent command of the foreign language but also have a deep knowledge of the rules applied in academic writing contexts.



References

MSc Study Skills Guide (n.d.). Oxford Brookes University. Oxford. UK. Retrieved October 1st, 2009, from http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/social /psych/handbooks/studyskills/Study%20Skills%20Guides_13.htm

Pintos, V. (2008). Unit 3: Academic Writing. Universidad CAECE: Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Scott, B. (n.d). APA Citations: How to Cite Sources Inside APA Style Text. Retrieved October 4th, 2009, from http://www.lousywriter.com/writingstyles /apa-citation-how-to-cite-sources-in-apa.php