Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 3: Read the article
• Part 2 of 3: Planning a draft version
• Part 3 of 3: Writing the summary

Summarizing a scientific article involves presenting a focused overview of a completed scientific study published in a peer-reviewed scientific source. A summary of a scientific article provides potential readers with short descriptive commentary, helping them to understand the thrust of the article. Writing and summarizing a scientific article is a task that students and research assistants regularly have to deal with. You can learn to read the article effectively for the purpose of creating a summary, learn to plan a successful summary, and write to completion.

To step

Part 1 of 3: Read the article

1. Read the abstract. The abstract is a short paragraph in which the author summarizes his / her research. Abstracts are added to articles in most scientific journals and are usually no longer than 100-200 words. The abstract offers a brief summary of the content of the article, in which the most important characteristics are mentioned.
   • The purpose of an abstract is to enable scientists to quickly scan scientific publications to see if they contain articles that are applicable to the research they are doing themselves. If you collect research on the immune system in rodents, you will know within a hundred words not only whether an article is relevant to your research, but also whether the conclusions support or undermine your own results.
   • Remember that an abstract and a summary are not the same. So a summary that is very similar to the abstract of the article is a bad one. An abstract is extremely concise, so it cannot provide the same level of detail in terms of research and conclusions as a good summary can.
2. Understand the context of the research. Make sure you know exactly what the authors are discussing or analyzing, why the research or topic matters, whether the article was written in response to another article, etc. from the article should use in your summary.
3. Jump to the conclusion. Scroll to the conclusion to find out what ends the investigation. This will allow you to learn more about the topic and understand where the complicated sketches and arguments will lead. It's a lot easier to understand the information properly if you read the scientists' conclusions first.
   • You will have to scroll back later to actually read the article, but only if the research is still applicable. If you are collecting research, for example, you may be looking for dissent for your own research - so if this article supports your thesis, it makes no sense to add it.
4. Identify the main argument or point of view. To avoid having to read the article twice, remind yourself of the most important point. Make sure you get it all at once. Take notes as you read and highlight or underline key ideas.
   • Pay special attention to the first two paragraphs of the article. There is a good chance that the author is outlining the hypothesis for the entire article here. Find out what the thesis is, and then determine the main idea or argument the authors are trying to make with this research.
     • Pay attention to words like "hypothesis", "theorem", "results", "data", "general", "generally", etc. These words can clarify which sentence the thesis is.
   • Underline, mark or rewrite the most important spearheads in the margin. Keep focusing on this idea so that you can link to it for the rest of the article to see how it all comes together.
   • In the humanities it is often more difficult to find a clear and concise research question. Research in this branch of science is often about complex, abstract ideas (such as class in postmodern poetry, or feminist film). If it is unclear, try to get the most important point in your own words so that you can best understand the author's ideas. This is the best way to find out what the researchers are trying to prove with their analysis.
5. Scan the argument. Keep reading the various sections of the article to highlight the most important points. Concentrate on the main concepts and notions presented and try to link them back to the main idea that the authors mentioned in the introduction to their article.
   • The different research areas of an article will usually be indicated in the form of headings and subsections - these usually focus on a specific step or development in the research. The titles for these subsections are usually bold and slightly larger than the font used for the rest of the article.
   • Keep in mind that scientific articles are often a bit of a dry read. Is it absolutely necessary to read 500 words about the formulas used in feeding frogs glycerin solution? Maybe yes, but probably not. Most scientific studies do not require you to read word for word. As long as you can get the most important point out and understand why the research matters, you're usually fine.
6. Take notes while reading. Efficiency is extremely important when you conduct research and collect information from scientific journals. Read actively as you work your way through the material. Circle or highlight each individual portion of the article and focus on the subsection titles. These segments usually contain an introduction, a description of the methodology, the research results, a conclusion and a source reference.

Part 2 of 3: Planning a draft version

1. Write a brief description of the study. Write freehand the academic journey you took in the article. Name the steps that brought you from the starting point to the conclusion, describe the methodology and the form in which the research has been molded. You don't have to go into detail yet; that's what the actual summary will be for later. If you are just starting out, it is useful to turn off your filter and just write down what you can remember about the article. This will help you discover the main points you need to write the summary with.
2. Determine which parts of the article were the most important. You can refer to these as the main concepts, views or sections of the article. Although these could be clearly indicated with subheadings, it sometimes takes a little more to discover them. Any point supporting the main argument should be present in the summary.
   • Depending on the research, you could provide a theoretical overview of the research or the scientists' assumptions. In scientific texts it is important to summarize the hypotheses that the researchers described prior to the research. You must also state the procedures that the scientists ultimately applied. Briefly summarize any statistical data and include an elementary interpretation of the data in your summary.
   • In humanities articles it is often wise to summarize the fundamental assumptions and to name the so-called school or movement to which the author belongs. You should also describe examples and ideas from the article.
3. Map out important vocabulary to use in your summary. Make sure to include all important keywords from the article in your summary. Any words or terms that the author has made up should also be added to your summary.
4. Try to keep it short and to the point. Summaries of scientific articles are nowhere near as long as the articles themselves. The purpose of a summary is to provide a concise but separate description of the study. This summary can be used by people collecting research or by yourself if you want to ruminate the information again at a later stage of the research.
   • As a rule of thumb, you can choose to devote a paragraph to each important point. You will not need to use more than 500-1000 words for most academic articles. For most summaries you will write several short paragraphs that summarize each separate part of the article.

Part 3 of 3: Writing the summary

1. Start by defining the research question. The authors should discuss the focus of their research at the beginning of the article, possibly in format. In it they make clear what their precise objectives are. Your summary starts here. Describe, in your own words, the main point the authors hope to make with their research.
   • With scientific articles there is usually an introduction that establishes the background for the experiment or research - so you won't have to summarize much for that. However, this introduction is usually followed by the development of the research question and methodology - these are extremely important as they determine what the rest of the article will look like.
2. Describe the methodology. Here the research methods of the research are described. In other words, you'll have to summarize how the authors or researchers arrived at the conclusions - did they use original first-hand research, or did they collect data?
   • You do not have to write out the investigation procedures literally in your summary; bring them back to a simplified idea of ​​how the research question was examined. The results of the study will usually consist of processed data, occasionally accompanied by raw unprocessed data. You only need to include the fully processed data in your summary.
3. Discuss the results. Describing what the authors have achieved with their research is perhaps the most important part of the summary. Did the authors achieve their goals with their research? What conclusions were the authors able to draw from this study? What impact, according to the authors, will this article have?
   • Make sure your summary describes the research question, conclusions / results and methodology. These are the most important parts of the article and should definitely not be missing.
4. Link the main ideas from the article. For some summaries it is important to show how the link between certain ideas came about. The main purpose of the summary is to provide a concise overview of the main points from the article. It is therefore important that you unpack the arguments and explain them in your own words.
   • This is sometimes even more important when dealing with humanities articles. For example, it may be helpful to describe in somewhat more mundane terms the dry arguments behind the poet George Herbert's relationship with the divine: "The author tries to make Herbert human by describing his daily routines, rather than opting for his philosophies. . "
5. Don't draw your own conclusions. An article summary should not contain your own interpretation of the data and no subjective comments - unless instructed to do so. In general, the purpose of a summary is to summarize the author's main points; and not to make your own additions and comments. This can be tricky for inexperienced writers at first, but remember to ignore the "me".
6. Refrain from direct quotes from the article. Quotations are more commonly used in essay and paper writing, and less important in abstracts of scientific articles. When writing a summary, try to paraphrase ideas without losing focus on the meaning and intended content of the article.
7. Use the present tense. Always use the present tense when discussing the content of an academic article. This will help you maintain a parallel grammatical structure.
8. Review your draft version. The master shows himself in the revision. Compare the focus and content of what you have written to see if it is consistent with the context of the scientific paper. A scientific article that is well summarized offers potential readers a brief overview. This is important if you are looking for specific information on a particular topic.