How to Work with Information from Sources

Understanding Summaries and Their Use

Summaries can be a useful tool to research writers because they allow writers to use entire books and large documents by condensing information into smaller, more manageable pieces. It is common for research writers to summarize entire works, sometimes as briefly as a single sentence. In some cases, a summary might occupy one or more paragraphs or be integrated into the discussion contained in one or more paragraphs. You can also use summaries to convey key information or ideas from a source without summarizing the entire source.

You can summarize an entire source, or specific ideas and information from a source or a group of sources.