A summary is a condensed, or shortened, version of something—often, a longer piece of writing, a movie or television show, a situation, or an event. In writing a summary, you give the main points and key support in your own words.

Here is a summary of the textbook excerpt “Daily Hassles.” The main point is double-underlined, and the support points are underlined.

Hockenbury and Hockenbury tell us that daily hassles often cause more stress than major problems do. According to studies, men and women report different kinds of daily stress and react to stress differently, though both experience psychological and physical symptoms. Some research shows that daily hassles produce stress because their effects are cumulative — that is, they add up over time to create major stress.

A summary is a useful way to record information from a reading in a course notebook. You can put the main points of an article into your own words for later review. You may also be asked to provide summaries in homework assignments or on tests in order to show that you read and understood a reading. In addition, summary is an important tool for keeping track of information for a research project.