ECH 3330 D / Selected Research Topics in Conflict and Human Rights

Civil Wars: The Case of the CaucasusWinter 2011Wednesday 7 – 10

Christoph Zuercher

GSPIA / uOttawa

 

On the Art of Writing Summaries

Click View then Header and Footer to change this footer

Why writing summaries

  To ensure that you understand the main arguments of the text

To ensure that you understand how the author(s) reached their conclusion (methods)  Because digesting a lot of information is essential for all knowledge-based work

Because a summary saves you time when you need to retrieve this information

Doing summaries of important texts builds up your knowledge base 

Click View then Header and Footer to change this footer

Elements of a Summary

Title and source of the text, name of author (and very short biographical information) What is the main question this text addresses?What are related questions?

Main findings of the textRelated findings of the text Main concepts: How are they defined?

Methods used (literature overview, single case, comparative, quantitative, survey….) 

Click View then Header and Footer to change this footer

 Title / Source

Question

Findings 

Concepts

Methods 

What Else?

  You can add your own critical reflections, assessments, and follow-up questions. 

This is NOT part of a summary!

But it is useful if you plan to work with the text. But note that a summary is about the text you summarize, not about what you think of this text

 

Click View then Header and Footer to change this footer

QDefFM…… Smart Annotations

 

When reading the text, use smart annotations. For example:

“Q” for all questions “Def” for definitions of key concepts“F1, F2, ….” for key findings “M” for methods.

If you do this, writing the summary should not take long

 

Click View then Header and Footer to change this footer