TASK 5: ANSWERS

1.

Summary	Comment
3 and 6	Clearly unsatisfactory! 3 refers to a nuclear catastrophe and is very incomplete; 6 gives personal opinion twice – 'I think ..,' and last sentence.
	Unsatisfactory – too wordy, redundant information: no mention of tree-ring data research.
	May be acceptable as a brief summary but does not mention tree-ring data research at all.
	Fails to give emphasis to research on stones as main topic of original article; otherwise satisfactory.
	The most satisfactory – complete; effective paraphrase.

 

There may be some disagreement about which of the above is the most satisfactory. Any discussion about which is the best summary can be continued with the question and checklist that follow the alternative summaries. Students should be encouraged to see the most successful approach to summary-writing as one that involves working from notes on the original text rather than simply a 'copy – delete' strategy, which encourages plagiarism or, at best, results in work that is partially modified and may not be fully understood by the student.

 

CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFEGTIVE SUMMARY: ANSWERS

(a) Not necessarily – it may sometimes be convenient to have a different order.

(b) No.

(c) Yes, very likely.

(d) No – a common fault.

(e) No – students may sometimes think it is desirable to include personal opinion, as in 6 above.

(f) Not necessarily - expressing an idea more concisely may require greater sophistication of vocabulary.

(f) Yes.

 

IMPORTANT STEPS IN WRITING AN EFFECTIVE SUMMARY: ANSWERS

All the steps mentioned may be desirable or useful, except (b). Steps (c) and (e) may require some explanation.

2.

Summary	Comment
1 and 2	Both acceptable, though clearly 1 is more detailed.
	First statement is inaccurate.
	Accurate but too brief and general.
	Inaccurate – very loosely linked to the source text.
	Inaccurate – the writer does not suggest that biopolitics 'is likely to gain increasing acceptance' or that 'changes in the enviroment and in human behaviour can be bought about through political processes'. The last statement is also untrue.
	Grossly Inaccurate, with extraneous information and a concluding statement that has no basis in the source text.