As students and researchers, we often need to write summaries of research papers written by us or other research scholars. Many of them face several issues while writing them. Due to this fact, writing a research paper summary is quite a complicated task.
The leading challenges people face while writing summaries include:
- Maintain objectivity
- Avoid plagiarism
- Concise information
- Maintain clarity
This article is for you if you also face any of these issues while writing. Here, we will discuss some of the best ways to write a practical research paper summary.
How to Write a Summary for a Research Paper?
- Mention All Key Findings
While writing a summary, you can exclude many things except the key findings of the research articles. These findings are the result of days and nights of research. They are the real essence of the research papers. So, omitting them from summaries is unacceptable. No matter what, you must mention all the key findings and write them clearly so readers can understand the article. Without them, the research papers and summaries have no value.
- Ruthlessly Proofread it
Proofreading plays a pivotal role in making any piece of content more compelling. It differentiates ordinary articles from outstanding ones. That’s why, whether you have enough time or not, you should ruthlessly proofread your articles and remove all imperfections from them. While proofreading, you can also improve the summary language and add a personalized touch, catering to your readers’ specific needs. Without proofreading, you could make your articles less credible as they may have various grammatical, contextual, and factual errors.
- Maintain the Flow
Whenever you are reviewing or summarizing a book, article, essay, or any other published or unpublished work, you must not play with its flow. It can be helpful if you maintain the flow and never disturb it. Otherwise, it could confuse readers, and you may fail to summarize the work perfectly. Moreover, maintaining the flow can help you communicate what you want to say.
- Read All the Guidelines
Before penning down a single word, you should always read all the guidelines and analyze what your readers or university demands from you. When you know such things, you can adjust your language, tone, and all other things that could make your work more engaging, trusted, and effective. On the other hand, if you start writing before knowing such things, you could fail to fulfill even the basic demands of the university or journals. Ultimately, you may have to revise your entire work.
- Leverage Online Writing Assistants
Nowadays, people are blessed to have online writing assistants by their side. They don’t need to create the entire articles themselves. Instead, they can use AI-powered writing assistants, including a paraphrasing tool, grammar checker, plagiarism checker, etc. All these tools can provide much assistance and take the content to the next level.
For instance, an advanced paraphraser can refine the content using the right words and terminologies according to the context. Moreover, it can also remove repetition by modifying sentence structures and removing plagiarism from the text.
Similarly, a grammar checker can rectify all grammar issues in the content and make it more readable and understandable for all readers. Usually, our lack of grammar knowledge affects any work and reduces clarity. That’s where grammar checkers can come into play and help researchers.
We can also get some assistance from a plagiarism checker. The plagiarism-checking tool can scan the text and track all duplicate instances. It can help summary writers ensure the summary is free from plagiarism.
- Omit Additional Supporting Details
The research articles include all relevant details about the assigned or selected topics. They are usually much more comprehensive than any other form of content.
However, when summarizing it, you must not add all the details. Instead, you should omit most additional work or references and stick to the real point. You can skip most of the points from the introduction, literature review, methodology, and data collection chapters.
If they are essential, cover them in one paragraph each. Your primary focus should be on the hypothesis or research question, the significance of the study, and its findings.
- Use Concise Language
“Never use a long word where a short one will do,” George Orwell. The Animal Farm author emphasizes the importance of concise language, which is more attractive and effectively communicates the message. This rule applies to most forms of writing. There is no need to use jargon or complicated terminologies just to show vocabulary knowledge. Long words overly complicate things and confuse readers, so you must avoid them and ensure your summary is worth reading.
To Conclude
Summarizing research papers is a bit tricky. However, it’s not as difficult as many students think. Using simple tricks and techniques, they can quickly summarize a detailed research paper for various needs. This article has highlighted some of the most practical and helpful ways to summarize research papers; use them, and you will efficiently complete the task.