To write a summary, identify the source’s main point, select only the details needed to explain it, and restate them accurately in your own words. A summary is a smaller account of a larger work: it preserves the important meaning while leaving out examples, repetition, and side points that do not serve the reader’s purpose. Draft from notes rather than copying sentences, then compare your version with the source for accuracy.
Find the controlling idea
Read the whole source once to understand its subject and purpose. Ask: What is the writer chiefly trying to explain, argue, or show? A title or opening paragraph may offer clues, but the central idea can become clearer only after you see how the piece ends. Write a short answer to that question in your own words.
On a second pass, mark the claims or steps that directly support that answer. In a short article, these may be a few key points. In a story, they may be the events that change what a character knows or does. A summary of a poem may describe its movement or central tension without claiming that one interpretation is the only possible one. Plain-language guidance begins with writing for a specific audience and helping that audience understand the content. [1]
Separate essentials from examples
For each marked point, ask whether removing it would make the source’s main idea harder to understand. Keep the points that pass that test. Usually omit repeated claims, decorative description, minor anecdotes, and details that merely illustrate a point already captured. A short summary cannot carry everything, so selection is part of the work.
Imagine a source explaining that a neighborhood library extended its evening hours after surveys showed that many residents could not visit before work. It says the change began in spring, describes a volunteer’s first visit, lists several book titles, and notes that the library will review use at the end of the year. A compact summary might keep the access problem, the decision to extend hours, and the planned review. The volunteer and book titles can go unless the summary’s purpose specifically concerns those details.
Build a clear new account
Close or set aside the source and draft from your notes. Start with the central point, then group the essential supporting ideas in an order that makes sense to your reader. You do not have to follow the source sentence by sentence: a summary can reorganize material, as long as that reorganization does not distort the author’s emphasis or logic.
Use specific nouns and verbs so readers can tell who did what. Purdue’s sentence-clarity guidance recommends making relationships between ideas easy to follow and keeping pronoun references clear. [2] For instance, “It changed this after they saw the results” leaves readers guessing. “The library extended its evening hours after survey responses showed that residents needed a later option” names the action and its reason.
Compress without distorting
Now check each sentence against your purpose. Does it contribute the main point or an essential supporting idea? If not, cut it. Combine related details where that makes the account easier to follow, but do not compress so aggressively that readers cannot see how the ideas connect. A summary of instructions may need the sequence; a summary of an argument may need the reason behind its conclusion.
Keep the source’s degree of certainty. If an author says a change may improve access, do not turn that into proof that it did. Distinguish reported claims from your own judgment, and do not add conclusions that the source never made. When the exact wording matters, such as a specialized term, keep it clearly recognizable while making the surrounding explanation your own.
Run an accuracy check
Compare your draft with the source one point at a time. Check that the central claim is intact, the selected details are accurate, and the order does not imply a cause or result the source did not establish. Then compare the draft with your notes: an unexplained new fact may be your own inference rather than part of the source.
Finally, read your summary as a standalone piece. Replace vague references, remove repeated wording, and make sure the opening identifies the subject. If readers need to consult the original for a small detail you deliberately left out, that may be fine; if they cannot understand what the source was mainly about, revise the selection.
