Summaries and
Book Reports
I.
The summary
A summary is a brief restatement of the
essential thought of longer composition. It
reproduces the theme of the original with as
few words as possible. When we write a
summary, we should not interpret or
comment. All we have to do is to give the
gist of the author’s exact and essential
meaning.
1. Uses of summary writing
(1) Summary writing is a very good exercise for
improving reading comprehension.
(2) Summary writing is also helpful to
composition writing.
It trains one to express one’s thought clearly, concisely
and effectively.
(3) Summary writing has practical uses.
The ability to grasp quickly and accurately what is read,
or heard, and to reproduce it in a clear and concise way
is of great value to people of many professions.
2. Procedure
(1) Reading
A. first read the passage through carefully to get the gist of
it.
B. give a title to your summary
To find a suitable title will help you to define what
exactly the subject, or main theme, of the passage is.
C. decide what parts of the passage are essential and what
parts are comparatively unimportant and can be omitted
without much loss.
D. jot down in brief notes the main points—the subject, the
title, and the important details
(2) Writing Page 264
A. be about one-third to one-fourth as long
as the original passage.
B. be all in our own words.
C. follow the logical order of the original
passage, if possible (and desirable).
D. be self-contained, i.e. it must convey the
message of the original fully and clearly,
E.
In writing a summary, we may:
-Omit the details.
-Reduce the examples.
-Simplify the descriptions.
-Eliminate all repetitions.
-Compress wordy sentences and change phrases to
words.
e.g. “His courage in battle might without
exaggeration be called lion-like.”
He was very brave in battle.
-Use general words instead of specific words.
She brought home several Chinese and English
novels, a few copies of Time and Newsweek, and
some textbooks. she intended to read all them
during the winter vacation.
This may be turned into:
She brought home a lot of books and magazines to
read during the vacation.
-Use the shortest possible transitions.
-Put the main points of a dialogue in
indirect speech.
e.g.
Kate looked at Paul disapprovingly: “You use much too much salt on
your food, Paul—it’s not at all good for you!”
Paul put down his knife and frowned: “Why on earth not! If you
didn’t have salt on your food it would taste awful…like eating
cardboard or sand…just imagine bread without salt in it, or potatoes
or pasta cooked without salt!”
Kate was patient. She didn’t want to quarrel with Paul. She wanted
to persuade him. She said firmly: “But too much salt is bad for you.
It causes high blood pressure and later on, heart-attacks. It also
disguises the tastes of food, the real tastes, which are much more
subtle than salt, and which we have lost the sensitivity to appreciate
any more.”
Kate suggested to Paul that he should eat less salt. She thought that
eating too much salt would do harm to Paul’s health and that it
could reduce the real tastes of food. But Paul disagreed. He said that
food without salt would be tasteless.
(3) Revision
Revise your draft. Compare it carefully with the
original to see that you have included all the
important points.
If it is too long, further compress it by omitting
unnecessary words and phrases or by remodeling
sentences.
Correct all mistakes in spelling, grammar and
idiom, and see that it is properly punctuated. Make
the language simple and direct.
For the summary of a novel or a play
an outline of the plot is sufficient. The
summary may be only one-hundredth or
even one-thousandth of the length of the
original book. Usually, it is written in the
present tense.
II. The Book Report
Writing book reports helps students to improve
their reading comprehension and their ability to
analyse and evaluate books.
Generally speaking, a book report consists of the
following three main parts:
information about the author and his times,
a summary of the book, and
comments on it.
A brief account of the author’s life should be
given together with a description of his times.
The latter should include the circumstances that
led to the writing of the book under discussion and
the historical and social background related to the
content of the book.
To make these things clear, the writer perhaps
needs to read some reference material, such as
biographies of the author and histories of the
period described in the book.
A summary should be self-contained,
clear, and easy to understand.
Above all, it should be objective.
Comments on and evaluation of the book form the
third and most important part of a book report.
In this part we expresses our own views on the
book, names its merits and demerits, and discusses
its relevance to the present time.
The discussion should center on the content of the
book, but the author’s style and techniques of
presentation, if interesting, can also be touched
upon.
Evaluating
Writing an evaluation involves making and
justifying judgments.
Here are some suggestions for writing an
evaluation:
-Determine the appropriate criteria for the
evaluation.
-Base our evaluation on clear and sufficient
evidence.
-Let readers see how we arrive at our judgment.
-Arrange our arguments in logical order—perhaps
in order of increasing importance.
The Book Report
Book reports can help learners improve their
reading comprehension and enhance their ability
to analyze the story and the characters.
Generally speaking, a book report is usually
composed of three major parts. They are:
1.information about the writer (his
name, the books he has published, the
years of his birth and death, the
publisher of the book)
2.a summary of the book (the story and
main characters)
3.some comments on the book
(personal interpretation of the meaning
of the book)
When giving the information about the writer, the learner
writer should include some historical and social
background to which the book is related. To make things
clear, the learner writer should read some reference
materials, such as biographies of the writer and histories of
the period in which the book was written.
A book report should contain a summary of the book under
discussion. The summary should be concise, clear and
easy to understand. The learner writer should make sure
that the summary be subjective and center on the major
theme of the book.
As for the tense of the book report, it
depends on the subject matter of the book.
If it is a novel or a play or a science fiction,
the present tense is more appropriate
while the past tense is required for
nonfiction such as history books.
The third part and also the most important part of a
book report is the comment. In this part, the learner
writer's job is to evaluate the book according to his or
her own personal interpretation and discuss the
merits (优点) and demerits (缺点) of the book, the
social and/or historical significance of the book. If the
learner writer is competent enough to discuss the
writing style of the author, he or she should feel free
to do so.
The Book Report - A Sample
Sons and Lovers is a novel written by David
Herbert Lawrence and it was first published in
1913 in London by Wyman & Sons.
D. H. Lawrence was born at Eastwood, Notts, on
September 11, 1885, the fourth child of a miner who
had been employed at Brinsley Colliery since he
was 7 years old. In 1911, his first novel The White
Peacock was published.
Sons and Lovers is divided into two parts and is
composed of 15 chapters altogether. the story, set
in England, can be interpreted as an
autobiographical novel of Lawrence
The hero of the book, Paul Morel, is the second son of a
miner's family. His mother, Mrs. Morel, is a daughter of
a mid-class family. Because of the differences in family
background and education, a shadow is soon cast upon
the married life of Mrs. Morel. And this shadow is
darkened by Mr. Morel's laziness and alcoholism. By
misfortune or bad luck, Mr. Morel has an accident and
becomes a cripple, which changes him into a man of
bad temper.
As a result, the couple shares less and less the
things in common and is driven farther and
farther apart from each other. Little by little, Mrs.
Morel transports her attention and love to her
children, especially her two sons, William and
Paul. She encourages them to leave the small
mining region for a big city to find opportunities
for a better life.
After the death of her first son, William, because
of hard work and pneumonia, Mrs. Morel's
divided attention and love is poured completely
upon Paul. The mother's abnormal love robs
Paul of his normal love for his girl friend.
Sons and Lovers has always been claimed since its
publication to be another version of Oedipus complex*.
But D. H. Lawrence is in no sense an imitator. Sons and
Lovers is truly an autobiographical novel. It describes
an ordinary life of a coal miner's family. The abnormal
love from the mother deprives Paul of his independent
personality and mental health. It is perhaps because of
this true picture of life that the novel has won Lawrence
everlasting reputation.
Selected Books
Jack London
D.H.Lawrence
Charles Dickens
Mark Twain