Writing summaries of IST 2420 class notes:

Last updated: 9/29/05

From the IST 2420 Syllabus, Page 7, in the section "Partially Online Assignments":

• Making up class time
• Follow the normal procedure for making up a missed class; download the class notes and write a one-page (strict limit) summary
• Turn the summary in using Moodle

This refers to the section on Summaries for face-to-face people. In that section "Absence," page 6, it says, "Summarize course content only; do NOT include reminders about assignments, exams, rules, etc. You will still be responsible for the reminders and rules, but not responsible for including them in your summary. Use the same page format as for the Essays."

If you are at a class meeting (for example, the first class meeting) you do not need to turn in a summary for that meeting. However, if you joined the class late and missed the first meeting, then you DO need a summary for it. So, once you start attending the required meetings, this mostly means that you do not need to turn in summaries for the Midterm or the lab sessions.

This was reviewed with the Partially Online sections during the first class meeting.

An example of a summary: Can you summarize this?
"A summary of a piece of writing is another piece of writing that has within it the overall most important points of the original piece. The summary typically omits sub-points, examples, references and other supporting content, and will often omit exceptions and other negative statements, unless these are the main point themselves."

Here is a good summary of the above:
"A summary is the key points."

Formats for Summaries

A summary is normally in the form of normal writing ("prose"), but it can be an outline, or bullet points. Sometimes you may be assigned a format; I am not doing that for these summaries. However, I would feel that a summary in the form of poetry, or a graphical format, would not be acceptable.

Hints on writing summaries

My dictionary defines summary as writing that "presents the main points or general idea in brief form." Here are some steps that you might take to write a summary:

1. Read the notes carefully.
2. Highlight or underline the main points as you go along.
   • One hint about the main points in these notes is that they are in larger type, and not indented
3. Write a description of the main points.
4. Review the notes to make sure that you have the main points.
5. If you have gone over the page limit, go back over to see where you can remove words.

Other than that, I don't have any requirements for a summary, except note that plagiarism applies to these summaries also.

One of my purposes in this assignment is that you read the notes often enough and carefully enough that you have a good idea of what they say. I will grade summaries, on the basis of whether or not they accurately summarize the main points of the notes. If you feel that I have unfairly graded your summary, you are, as always, free to bring that up with me.

I do not have an example of a summary of these notes, but I could put up an example of a summary, if anyone wants to see one. There really are very few hard and fast rules. The basic idea is the quote at the top.

Deciding on what the main points are could also be a discussion topic for the general forum.

What is course content (and therefore to be included in your summary)?

Your IST 2420 POL summaries of the course notes should include course content, but not information about assignment dates, who is attending where, changes to the Syllabus, etc. If this is confusing, here is another way of deciding what you should include, and what you can leave out. If it is something that could appear in an exam in the course, include it. Otherwise, leave it out.

Example: say the notes contain a discussion on the scientific method, and a reminder that Essay 1 is due soon.

In this course, would it be reasonable to expect a Midterm question about the scientific method on the Midterm? Yes. Then that is part of the course content, and you should include it (summarized) in your summary.

In this course, or any other course, would it be reasonable to expect a Midterm question on what date Essay 1 was due? Ridiculous. Then do not include that in your summary.

NOTE: Some people may complain that you have the list of possible Midterm questions. The method above is really, then, asking whether it would be reasonable of me to put such a question on the list of possible questions, so that it could appear on the Midterm. This fundamental question is whether a given section is course content or not; the type of thinking described here is basically a method of answering that question.