DIRECTIONS ON HOW
TO WRITE SUMMARIES

(You can either copy these directions
and pass them out to students in your class or refer students, in your class, to this web page)

(1) The summaries in journals should generally vary between 250 and 500 words in length - excluding the bibliographic information at the top and the student’s name, etc. at the bottom. Three hundred to three hundred and fifty (300-350) words seems a reasonable length. But, obviously, we need be flexible regarding the number of words in a summary. Articles in Current Anthropology, with CA comment, should average 600 words - with roughly 400 words for the article, another 100 words summarizing the commentators, and a final 100 words summarizing the author's reply.

(2) The summary should focus on:

(a) what is the overall problem or concern the article addresses - what is the general issue the author deals with, the larger intellectual concern that frames the author’s specific argument;  (b) what is the author' basic argument - what does the author set out to prove, within the context or problem noted above; and (c) how is the argument constructed - how does the author make his or her points, focusing on

(1) what types of evidence are used in the argument - what are the data offered in the article

(2) how is this evidence presented to support the argument's main points - how does the author organize and present this data to convince readers that his or her argument is reasonable and correct

(3) The bibliographic information regarding the article - and which precedes the summary itself - should be presented as follows: Author (Last Name, First Name - in Bold). Title of the Article (in Bold). Journal, Year of Issue. Volume Number (Issue Number): Page Numbers. Between each item (e.g. between [a] the author and the title or [b] the year of issue and the volume number) there should be three spaces. Here is an example:

Bourgois, Philippe. Confronting Anthropology, Education, and Inner-City Apartheid. American Anthropologist June, 1996 Vol.98(2):249-258.

(4) the student summarizing the article should also evaluate the article as to its clarity - how easy is it to read and understand - based on a scale of one to five with five being the clearest and one being the least clear. This rating should be placed at end of the article before the student's name like this: CLARITY: 4

(5) the student should list her or his name - in bold and caps, the name of his or her school, and the name of her or his teacher (again in parentheses): for example: BRANDON LEDWARD Hawaii Pacific University (Rob Borofsky). Please note the punctuation: - (a) the students name is bolded and in caps, (b) there are four spaces between the students name and the name of the school, (c) the name of the school is written in regular fashion (d) between the school and the name of the teacher are two spaces and (e) the teacher’s name is in parentheses.

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