Working with summaries

In her book “The Process of Paragraph Writing”, Reid (1994) describes the main characteristics of a summary. The author claims that the general purpose of a summary is to give a limited amount of information to a specific audience.
However, summary writing is not an easy task. In order to write an accurate summary, you not only have to extract the main ideas but you also have to be capable of expressing these main ideas, trying to avoid repeating the exact phrases of the original material. Moreover, good summaries are clear and balanced. That is to say, the reader should not find difficulties in understanding the main ideas of the material.
After reading Reid´s (1994) summary writing definition (as cited in Pintos. 2008, p 15), the body of the summary can easily be found. Paraphrasing techniques as well as connectors are used. The information is clearly stated and organized. However, there is no evidence of a concluding sentence. It seems there is no conclusion at all. Up to the very last sentence of this summary new and relevant information is being acknowledged. Conclusions should provide a feeling of rounding off.
In the introductory paragraph, on the other hand, the second sentence helps direct the reader narrowing the options, purposes and audience of a summary. Connectors provide an organizational framework and help the reader understand the connection among the ideas stated in the summary.
Several questions could be asked to the author of the summary to clarify some unclear aspects. When referring to “clear and balanced” (Reid, 1994), though it is certainly a summary, these two concepts should be developed in a more detailed way, in order to understand and produce a successful summary. Moreover, when “trying to avoid repeating the exact phrases of the original material” (Reid, 1994), no information is shared on how this should be done.
According to Pintos (2008) one of the major roles of academic writing is to generate knowledge. Knowledge transformation is driven by two different functions: “knowledge telling and transforming” (Pintos, 2008).
However, some academically delimitations have to be defined in order to produce an accurate writing. The most relevant delimitations are considered to be: register, style, language, sources and genre. Not only the characteristics mentioned before are crucial, but also the type of audience and the purpose of the writing are important when dealing with academic writing.
All in all, academic writing aims at composing for knowledge transforming following certain delimitations which will guide and provide a framework not only to the writing but also to the reader.

Reference
Pintos, V. (2008), Unit 3: Academic Writing. Universidad CAECE: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Retrieved August, 2009 from
http://caece.campus universidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=273