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Writing
Magazine Summaries
- Read
the passage carefully.
- On a piece of paper,
write down these questions in list form: Who? What?
When? Where? Why? and How? Try
to answer all these questions about the article.
For example, who is the article about?
What happens in the story? When
did it happen? Where did it
happen? Why did this event take
place? How did the event take
place?
- Reread the article. This
time divide the passage into sections or stages of thought. Label, on
the passage itself, each section or stage of thought. Underline key ideas
and terms.
- Write one-sentence
summaries, on a separate sheet of paper, of each stage of thought or, if
appropriate, of each paragraph.
- Write a topic sentence--a one-sentence summary
of the entire passage. The topic sentence should express the central
idea of the passage, as you have determined it from the above steps.
You may find it useful to keep in mind the information contained in
the lead sentence or paragraph of most newspaper articles--the what,
who, why, where, when, and how of the matter. In the case of persuasive
passages, summarize in a sentence the author's conclusion. In the case of
descriptive passages, indicate the subject of the description and its key
feature(s). Be sure to include the author's name and the title of the
essay (or passage) being summarized in your first sentence. Example:
In her article "Home in West Virginia," Mary Smith
argues that West Virginia is the
best place to live.
- Write
the first draft of your summary by combining the topic sentence with the
information from steps 2 and 4. Eliminate repetition and combine sentences
for a smooth and logical flow of ideas, NOTE: You need not include
sentences "in order."
- Revise your summary,
inserting transitional words and phrases where necessary to ensure
coherence. Check for style. Avoid series of short, choppy sentences.
- Edit your summary. Check
for grammatical correctness, punctuation, spelling.
Completed magazine summaries are often between ˝ and 1 page in
length when handwritten on notebook paper.
Brevity
+ Completeness
+ Objectivity = Effective
Summary
Student Exemplar
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JoJo Eliott
Mrs. Adams
Senior English: Magazine Article Summary
January 29, 2003
Andrew
Curry reports in his U.S. News and
World Report article, “Civil War Sleuths,” that historians now
know that more spying occurred in the Civil War than anyone previously
thought. Secrets were being
let out when they were not supposed to.
Elizabeth Van Lew and her slave, Mary Bowser, were very quiet and
no one paid any attention to them in the 1860s.
Whenever Mary Bowser was in Jefferson Davis’s office in the
Confederate White House, where she spent most of her days as a volunteer,
she would read the papers on the desk about plan for Union Prisoners of
War. She would later slip out
and tell Yankee sympathizers about everything that was going to happen.
She was a spy, but she didn’t look like one, and she didn’t
have any special gadgets to help her like spies do today. Instead, she
just looked like a Southern belle.
Spies were
important in the Civil War. Many
generals relied on these spies for information about their enemy’s
numbers, strategies, and looked for sympathetic locals.
Usually, the spies were not men but women and ex-slaves.
Because women and ex-slaves had low status, many people did not
believe that they had the courage or intelligence to give them data about
the enemy.
Another spy
was a woman named Rose Greenhow, who was a Maryland widow, who entertained
high-ranking politicians at her house for dinner. When they let secrets slip out, she would make sure the
secrets would get to Confederate ears.
But, she got caught and was put in jail.
Somehow, Rose found ways to pass messages to the Confederates from
prison.
These
Southern belles and ex-slaves were great spies because no one suspected
them. They worked so quietly
that it has taken years for us to find out about them.
Article: Curry, Andrew. “Civil
War Sleuths.” U.S. News
and World Report.
Feb.3, 2003 issue.
Page 55
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