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- Title
A Scheme for Understanding and Writing Summaries.
- Authors
Farkas, David K.
- Abstract
Purpose: Writing a summary is not necessarily a straightforward task. Presented here is a scheme of twelve descriptors that reveals much of the complexity of summaries. The scheme can also serve as a design heuristic. Method: The scheme draws upon the psychology of text processing and applied linguistics, and derives theoretically from the intertextual relationship between the summary and the summarized text and the contrast between summary as microcosm (miniature of the summarized text) and the many ways in which summaries are not microcosmic. Results: The scheme consists of these twelve descriptors. The Purpose of the summary. The possibility of a Specification constraint that complicates the writing of the summary. Reduction, the length of a summary as a ratio of the summarized text. The Phrasing--informative or descriptive--of the summary. Proportion and Exclusion, how fully each part of the text is represented in the summary. Structure, how the ideas in the summary are arranged in relation to the text. Placement, where in relation to the text (before, after, within, alongside, or independent of) a summary (or multiple summaries) appears. Addition, the possibility of adding content not in the text to the summary. Authorship, whether the author of the text (or an associate) or someone not associated with the text wrote the summary. The Stance, Style, and Format of a summary. Conclusion: The scheme advances our understanding of summaries and, especially when used as a heuristic, can help technical communicators in their work. It may also be the basis of further research.
- Publication
Technical Communication, 2020, Vol 67, Issue 3, p45
- ISSN
0049-3155
- Publication type
Article