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- Writing Article Summaries
- Understanding Article Summaries
Common Problems in Article Summaries
Read carefully and closely, structure of the summary, writing the summary.
- Sample Outlines and Paragraphs
Understanding Article Summaries
An article summary is a short, focused paper about one scholarly article that is informed by a critical reading of that article. For argumentative articles, the summary identifies, explains, and analyses the thesis and supporting arguments; for empirical articles, the summary identifies, explains, and analyses the research questions, methods, findings, and implications of the study.
Although article summaries are often short and rarely account for a large portion of your grade, they are a strong indicator of your reading and writing skills. Professors ask you to write article summaries to help you to develop essential skills in critical reading, summarizing, and clear, organized writing. Furthermore, an article summary requires you to read a scholarly article quite closely, which provides a useful introduction to the conventions of writing in your discipline (e.g. Political Studies, Biology, or Anthropology).
The most common problem that students have when writing an article summary is that they misunderstand the goal of the assignment. In an article summary, your job is to write about the article, not about the actual topic of the article. For example, if you are summarizing Smith’s article about the causes of the Bubonic plague in Europe, your summary should be about Smith’s article: What does she want to find out about the plague? What evidence does she use? What is her argument? You are not writing a paper about the actual causes of Bubonic plague in Europe.
Further, as a part of critical reading, you will often consider your own position on a topic or an argument; it is tempting to include an assessment or opinion about the thesis or findings, but this is not the goal of an article summary. Rather, you must identify, explain, and analyse the main point and how it is supported.
Your key to success in writing an article summary is your understanding of the article; therefore, it is essential to read carefully and closely. The Academic Skills Centre offers helpful instruction on the steps for critical reading: pre-reading, active and analytical reading, and reflection.
Argumentative Articles
As you read an argumentative article, consider the following questions:
- What is the topic?
- What is the research question? In other words, what is the author trying to find out about that topic?
- How does the author position his/her article in relation to other studies of the topic?
- What is the thesis or position? What are the supporting arguments?
- How are supporting arguments developed? What kind of evidence is used?
- What is the significance of the author’s thesis? What does it help you to understand about the topic?
Empirical Articles
As you read an empirical article, consider the following questions:
- What is the research question?
- What are the predictions and the rationale for these predictions?
- What methods were used (participants, sampling, materials, procedure)? What were the variables and controls?
- What were the main results?
- Are the findings supported by previous research?
- What are the limitations of the study?
- What are the implications or applications of the findings?
Create a Reverse Outline
Creating a reverse outline is one way to ensure that you fully understand the article. Pre-read the article (read the abstract, introduction, and/or conclusion). Summarize the main question(s) and thesis or findings. Skim subheadings and topic sentences to understand the organization; make notes in the margins about each section. Read each paragraph within a section; make short notes about the main idea or purpose of each paragraph. This strategy will help you to see how parts of the article connect to the main idea or the whole of the article.
A summary is written in paragraph form and generally does not include subheadings. An introduction is important to clearly identify the article, the topic, the question or purpose of the article, and its thesis or findings. The body paragraphs for a summary of an argumentative article will explain how arguments and evidence support the thesis. Alternatively, the body paragraphs of an empirical article summary may explain the methods and findings, making connections to predictions. The conclusion explains the significance of the argument or implications of the findings. This structure ensures that your summary is focused and clear.
Professors will often give you a list of required topics to include in your summary and/or explain how they want you to organize your summary. Make sure you read the assignment sheet with care and adapt the sample outlines below accordingly.
One significant challenge in writing an article summary is deciding what information or examples from the article to include. Remember, article summaries are much shorter than the article itself. You do not have the space to explain every point the author makes. Instead, you will need to explain the author’s main points and find a few excellent examples that illustrate these points.
You should also keep in mind that article summaries need to be written in your own words. Scholarly writing can use complex terminology to explain complicated ideas, which makes it difficult to understand and to summarize correctly. In the face of difficult text, many students tend to use direct quotations, saving them the time and energy required to understand and reword it. However, a summary requires you to summarize, which means “to state briefly or succinctly” (Oxford English Dictionary) the main ideas presented in a text. The brevity must come from you, in your own words, which demonstrates that you understand the article.
Sample Outlines and Paragraph
Sample outline for an argumentative article summary.
- General topic of article
- Author’s research question or approach to the topic
- Author’s thesis
- Explain some key points and how they support the thesis
- Provide a key example or two that the author uses as evidence to support these points
- Review how the main points work together to support the thesis?
- How does the author explain the significance or implications of his/her article?
Sample Outline for an Empirical Article Summary
- General topic of study
- Author’s research question
- Variables and hypotheses
- Participants
- Experiment design
- Materials used
- Key results
- Did the results support the hypotheses?
- Implications or applications of the study
- Major limitations of the study
Sample Paragraph
The paragraph below is an example of an introductory paragraph from a summary of an empirical article:
Tavernier and Willoughby’s (2014) study explored the relationships between university students’ sleep and their intrapersonal, interpersonal, and educational development. While the authors cited many scholars who have explored these relationships, they pointed out that most of these studies focused on unidirectional correlations over a short period of time. In contrast, Tavernier and Willoughby tested whether there was a bidirectional or unidirectional association between participants’ sleep quality and duration and several psychosocial factors including intrapersonal adjustment, friendship quality, and academic achievement. Further they conducted a longitudinal study over a period of three years in order to determine whether there were changes in the strength or direction of these associations over time. They predicted that sleep quality would correlate with measures of intrapersonal adjustment, friendship quality, and academic achievement; they further hypothesized that this correlation would be bidirectional: sleep quality would predict psychosocial measures and at the same time, psychosocial measures would predict sleep quality.
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Assistant Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy
Destenie Nock, PhD
- Destenie Nock
- Apr 8, 2019
How To Read and Summarize Technical Papers and Journal Articles
Reading technical papers is something no student can escape. This article presents tips on reading journal articles and technical papers quickly and efficiently.
April 8, 2019 By Destenie Nock
In graduate school reading technical papers (aka journal articles) is something that you cannot escape. A common mistake people make (particularly when coming from undergrad) is trying to read each research paper like a text book. If you can read and summarize a paper efficiently then this will help you save a ton of time. Also when you are writing your thesis/dissertation you will have to include some sort of literature review to justify the motivation for your project, so it will be good to catalog all the knowledge you are reading to save time down the road.
Below are my suggestions on reading and summarizing technical papers. What I have written below is a combination of everything I heard and learned from many mentors and my own experiences throughout graduate school.
Suggestions for Reading a Technical Paper
First read the Abstract - find out if it's interesting and if it relates to research. How is their topic similar/different to yours?
Skim introduction and lit review to get a sense of what else has been done, and motivation. Find the problem they want to answer, if you didn't already find it in the abstract. Think about how that problem is connected to your research.
Read over the methods and approaches (this will give you the base for understanding some of their results). If the Methods section starts to get too technical go to the results section.
Results and Discussion Section: What did they find? What do the results tell us? - Sometimes the answer to the second question is found in conclusions
Skim conclusions
Summarizing Papers (Making a Lit Review)
Put the author's name(s) and paper year at the top. This is important for tracking and not losing papers. Would also be good to put the web link.
Write 2-4 sentences on the problem the paper is trying to solve. What is the reason for doing the research in the first place?
Write 2 - 4 sentences on the solution the paper proposes. What is the solution they are proposing to solve the problem? This could be the methodology, metric, model, framework, algorithm, etc. How they will answer their overarching question?
State 2 strengths of the paper. What was good about the approach the author(s) took? Why should we listen to these authors? Did they collect good data? Has their approach been tested in other areas/articles? Did their approach use consistent data collection methods across different variables (ex: they found hourly data for wind and solar, as opposed to daily data for solar and monthly for wind)
State 2 weaknesses/unanswered questions of the paper. Were there holes in the data? Did they approximate a majority of variables? Are their assumptions inconsistent? Do their results change drastically under different assumptions? What are opportunities for future research directions? Sometimes weaknesses/unanswered questions can be found in the future research section.
Example Summary Template (this does not have to be followed for every paper)
Johnson et al. (2056)
Johnson et al (2056) focuses on the issue of ______________. This problem includes/encompasses/involves/etc _____________. As a solution the authors propose/create/etc ___________. The researchers used _______ to solve the problem above. A strength of this paper was that the data/model/metric/etc _________________. One weakness in this study is that a ___________. In addition the authors could have done _______________ to make their analysis stronger.
Something I have not covered is how to synthesize the papers into a review for a journal article. This website has a helpful discussion on that.
Hopefully these tips can help you move through those papers faster, and lead to less re-reading throughout your academic career. If you like this post and want to get more tips feel free to subscribe below (I promise not to spam you).
#HiddenCurriculum #PhDAdvice
Note about the author: Destenie Nock holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UMass Amherst and two BS degrees from North Carolina A&T State University. She finished her PhD in 4 years thanks to the help of 7 undergraduate research aides and a wonderful adviser. Throughout grad school she spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to reach her optimal level of success...a task she still has on her to-do list.
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How to Summarize a Journal Article
Last Updated: October 6, 2022 References Approved
Reading Article
Planning draft, writing summary, sample summaries.
This article was co-authored by Richard Perkins . Richard Perkins is a Writing Coach, Academic English Coordinator, and the Founder of PLC Learning Center. With over 24 years of education experience, he gives teachers tools to teach writing to students and works with elementary to university level students to become proficient, confident writers. Richard is a fellow at the National Writing Project. As a teacher leader and consultant at California State University Long Beach's Global Education Project, Mr. Perkins creates and presents teacher workshops that integrate the U.N.'s 17 Sustainable Development Goals in the K-12 curriculum. He holds a BA in Communications and TV from The University of Southern California and an MEd from California State University Dominguez Hills. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 24 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 1,375,243 times.
Summarizing a journal article is the process of presenting a focused overview of a completed research study that is published in a peer-reviewed, scholarly source. A journal article summary provides potential readers with a short descriptive commentary, giving them some insight into the article's focus. Writing and summarizing a journal article is a common task for college students and research assistants alike. With a little practice, you can learn to read the article effectively with an eye for summary, plan a successful summary, and write it to completion.
- The purpose of an abstract is to allow researchers to quickly scan a journal and see if specific research articles are applicable to the work they are doing. If you're collecting research on immune system responses in rodents, you'll be able to know in 100 words not only whether or not the research is in your field, but whether the conclusions back up your own findings, or differ from it.
- Remember that an abstract and an article summary are two different things, so an article summary that looks just like the abstract is a poor summary. [1] X Research source An abstract is highly condensed and cannot provide the same level of detail regarding the research and its conclusions that a summary can. [2] X Research source
- You still need to go back and actually read the article after coming to the conclusion, but only if the research is still applicable. If you're collecting research, you may not need to digest another source that backs up your own if you're looking for some dissenting opinions.
- Look for words like hypothesis, results, typically, generally, or clearly to give you hints about which sentence is the thesis.
- Underline, highlight, or rewrite the main argument of the research in the margins. Keep yourself focused on this main point, so you'll be able to connect the rest of the article back to that idea and see how it works together.
- In the humanities, it's sometimes more difficult to get a clear and concise thesis for an article because they are often about complex, abstract ideas (like class in post-modern poetics, or feminist film, for example). If it's unclear, try to articulate it for yourself, as best as you can understand the author's ideas and what they're attempting to prove with their analysis.
- Try to analyze the author's tone, looking at some of the keywords that really tells you what they are trying to get across to you.
- Different areas of focus within a journal article will usually be marked with subsection titles that target a specific step or development during the course of the research study. The titles for these sub-sections are usually bold and in a larger font than the remaining text.
- Keep in mind that academic journals are often dry reading. Is it absolutely necessary to read through the author's 500 word proof of the formulas used in the glycerine solution fed to the frogs in the research study? Maybe, but probably not. It's usually not essential to read research articles word-for-word, as long as you're picking out the main idea, and why the content is there in the first place.
- These segments will usually include an introduction, methodology, research results, and a conclusion in addition to a listing of references.
- When you're first getting started, it's helpful to turn your filter off and just quickly write out what you remember from the article. These will help you discover the main points necessary to summarize.
- Depending on the research, you may want to describe the theoretical background of the research, or the assumptions of the researchers. In scientific writing, it's important to clearly summarize the hypotheses the researchers outlined before undertaking the research, as well as the procedures used in following through with the project. Summarize briefly any statistical results and include a rudimentary interpretation of the data for your summary.
- In humanities articles, it's usually good to summarize the fundamental assumptions and the school of thought from which the author comes, as well as the examples and the ideas presented throughout the article.
- Any words or terms that the author coins need to be included and discussed in your summary.
- As a general rule of thumb, you can probably make one paragraph per main point, ending up with no more than 500-1000 words, for most academic articles. For most journal summaries, you'll be writing several short paragraphs that summarize each separate portion of the journal article.
- In scientific articles, usually there is an introduction which establishes the background for the experiment or study, and won't provide you with much to summarize. It will be followed by the development of a research question and testing procedures, though, which are key in dictating the content for the rest of the article.
- The specifics of the testing procedures don't usually need to be included in your summary in their entirety; they should be reduced to a simple idea of how the research question was addressed. The results of the study will usually be processed data, sometimes accompanied by raw, pre-process data. Only the processed data needs to be included in the summary.
- Make sure your summary covers the research question, the conclusions/results, and how those results were achieved. These are crucial parts of the article and cannot be left out.
- This is sometimes more important in summaries dealing with articles in the humanities. For example, it might be helpful to unpack dense arguments about poet George Herbert's relationship to the divine with more pedestrian summaries: "The author seeks to humanize Herbert by discussing his daily routines, as opposed to his philosophies."
- This can be difficult for some inexperienced research writers to get the hang of at first, but remember to keep the "I" out of it.
- Check verbs after writing. If you're using the same ones over and over, your reader will get bored. In this case, try to go back and really see if you can make really efficient choices.
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- ↑ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/owlprint/930/
- ↑ http://www.uis.edu/ctl/wp-content/uploads/sites/76/2013/03/smreabs.pdf
- ↑ https://student.unsw.edu.au/writing-critical-review
- ↑ http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/courses/faq/JouranlArticleSearch.htm
- ↑ http://web.cortland.edu/hendrick/journalarticle.pdf
About This Article
To summarize a journal article, start by reading the author's abstract, which tells you the main argument of the article. Next, read the article carefully, highlighting portions, identifying key vocabulary, and taking notes as you go. In your summary, define the research question, indicate the methodology used, and focus mostly on the results of the research. Use your notes to help you stay focused on the main argument and always keep your tone objective—avoid using personal pronouns and drawing your own conclusions. For tips on how to read through the journal article thoroughly, such as starting with the conclusion, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No
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How to Write Article Summaries, Reviews & Critiques
Writing an article summary.
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When writing a summary, the goal is to compose a concise and objective overview of the original article. The summary should focus only on the article's main ideas and important details that support those ideas.
Guidelines for summarizing an article:
- State the main ideas.
- Identify the most important details that support the main ideas.
- Summarize in your own words.
- Do not copy phrases or sentences unless they are being used as direct quotations.
- Express the underlying meaning of the article, but do not critique or analyze.
- The summary should be about one third the length of the original article.
Your summary should include:
- Give an overview of the article, including the title and the name of the author.
- Provide a thesis statement that states the main idea of the article.
- Use the body paragraphs to explain the supporting ideas of your thesis statement.
- One-paragraph summary - one sentence per supporting detail, providing 1-2 examples for each.
- Multi-paragraph summary - one paragraph per supporting detail, providing 2-3 examples for each.
- Start each paragraph with a topic sentence.
- Use transitional words and phrases to connect ideas.
- Summarize your thesis statement and the underlying meaning of the article.
Adapted from "Guidelines for Using In-Text Citations in a Summary (or Research Paper)" by Christine Bauer-Ramazani, 2020
Additional Resources
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How to Write a Summary - Guide & Examples (from Scribbr.com)
Writing a Summary (from The University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center)
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- Last Updated: Dec 15, 2022 1:25 PM
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Students are often required to summarize scholarly journal articles or to base reviews or critiques or research papers on scholarly sources, all of which
An article summary is a short, focused paper about one scholarly article that is informed by a critical reading of that article. For argumentative articles
However, if the purpose of summarizing the article is to include it in a paper you are writing, the summary should focus on how the articles relates
How To Read and Summarize Technical Papers and Journal Articles · Put the author's name(s) and paper year at the top. · Write 2-4 sentences on the
Summarizing a journal article is the process of presenting a focused overview of a completed research study that is published in a peer-reviewed, scholarly
Tips for summarizing a journal article. 30K views 2 years ago Student Success Center Tip Videos · ASU Department of Psychology.
Tips for writing journal article summaries · How to Write an Article Summary - Step by Step · How to Read a Journal Article in 10 Minutes or Less.
Summarizing an article can help you better understand the main idea. Here are some tips and ideas for summarizing a scholarly article:.
Writing an article SUMMARY · State the main ideas. · Identify the most important details that support the main ideas. · Summarize in your own words
JOURNAL ARTICLE SUMMARY GUIDE. THIS DOCUMENT IS INTENDED TO AID STUDENTS WRITING SUMMARIES OF PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL. SCIENCES.