Guidelines for writing a summary

In the first sentence, mention the title of the text, the name of the author, and the author's thesis.
Maintain a neutral tone; be objective.
As you present the author's ideas, use the third-person point of view and the present tense: Taylor argues…. (If you are writing in APA style, see 60b.)
Keep your focus on the text. Don't state the author's ideas as if they were your own.
Put all or most of your summary in your own words; if you borrow a phrase or a sentence from the text, put it in quotation marks and give the page number in parentheses.
Limit yourself to presenting the text's key points.
Be concise; make every word count.