In the previous blog, we investigated the question of what a summary is together with defining the distinction between summaries, paraphrases, and critiques. This week, we shall pursue this question further by exploring the purpose of summarising in an educational context.
First, developing an ability to summarise a range of academic texts is arguably one of the most important learning aims essential for effective performance at all key stages of the university experience. The reason for this is that the ability to summarise academic information incorporates the requirement to learn 10 fundamental academic subskills. We shall be developing some of these subskills further in later blogs in this series.
The 10 key subskills essential to the process of summarising
1. Time management
Inevitably, the issue of time management underpins all aspects of the university experiences. The process of summarising is unavoidably an extended, time-consuming process. Indeed, there is no space at any stage to engage in last-minute panic endeavours without immediately risking serious negative consequences.
2. Task analysis
The first step in the extended summarising process is to acquire an ability to carefully and accurately analyse the task focusing especially on the key elements required to achieve an effective response.
3. Researching texts
One of the most challenging and time-consuming initial steps in the process of writing effective summaries is learning an ability to research appropriate texts for the task. The link between this issue and task analysis will be our key focus of the blog next week.
4. Identifying information
Another important skill is the ability to locate and select key information in academic texts that are of immediate relevance to the task objectives. The initial starting point here is learning where key information might be situated in a range of sources. At this stage, the student is dependent on having been successfully taught the key elements in the process of critical reading that we explored in a previous series.
5. Note-making
It is essential to repeatedly stress that there is no point even attempting to read academic texts without making notes. We covered this issue with the examples in the previous blog.
6. Logical design
Once key information has been selected from the academic texts, we now must spend time thinking carefully about how this collection can be organised in a clear logical order that highlights the development of key issues, arguments, and evidence.
7. Cohesion and coherence
Another demanding step that can take considerable time to design is ensuring that the information is both cohesive and coherent to the reader. Note carefully that, at every step in the writing process, you must focus on the target audience. Cohesion means that there must be clear developmental links between each new reported and cited information. Coherence means that the information makes immediate sense to the reader as, unlike a presentation, you will not be present to provide further clarification.
8. Academic style
Throughout the process of writing a summary, it is essential to maintain academic style. We will be covering this topic in our next series that explores all the main issues of this style.
9. Citations and references
One specific and critical element in academic style is to ensure that all reported information is cited accurately in the text and listed in a separate section at the end of the summary. Again, we shall discuss this issue in a future blog post.
10. Polishing and proofreading
It is essential to leave sufficient time before the submission of any assigned task to improve the language as much as possible, which is called polishing. Moreover, it is also of critical importance to then proofread what you wrote several times to ensure the accuracy of the information cited. This critical action, of course, falls way beyond the ability of the last-minute student. However, failure to polish the language and proofread is one of the main causes of disappointing low performance grades.
The relationship between summarising and plagiarism
Another critical reason why students need to learn and develop the ability to complete the process of summarising is to avoid the ever-frequent threat of drifting towards plagiarism. Internationally, plagiarism is becoming an increasingly serious issue within the university context. While we shall explore the causes and consequences of this serious issue in more detail in a later blog post, below is a brief description of the major forms of plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Note here that plagiarism is a serious breach of all university honour codes that always results in disciplinary procedures that can lead to expulsion from the university.
Types of Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty
Direct plagiarism
Direct plagiarism is where a student unashamedly copies the language of the original author(s). This is impossible to do by accident.
Indirect plagiarism
Indirect plagiarism is where a student fails to proofread their work and forgets to add the citation of the author(s), or includes an incorrect citation, either in terms of the author, publication date, or appropriate citation format.
Improper Paraphrasing
Improper paraphrasing is where a student makes minimal changes to the original text such as slightly altering the word order or replacing a word with a synonym, resulting in the paraphrase too close to the original.
Patchwork plagiarism
Patchwork plagiarism is where a student copy-and-pastes sections, often plucked rather arbitrarily, from several texts, or other sources, to make it appear that the final work is their summary. It is impossible to do this by accident.
Collusion
Collusion is where two or more students share work but make minor changes to pretend that each submission is their original effort.
Theft
Theft is where a student tries to present work, often with minor changes, of a student who previously attended the course as their original effort.
Recycling
Recycling is where a student tries to represent work from a previous course with minor changes.
Spinning
Spinning is where a student purchases technology that disguises plagiarism by continuing to spin for synonyms until the work is clear on a plagiarism search engine.
Question 1
Why is time management such a crucial issue in the process of summarising?
Question 2
Is there a difference between logical order and cohesion?
Question 3
What is meant by analysing and narrowing down the task?
We shall explore Question 3 in the next blog.
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