Summary vs. Analysis

Learning Objectives

  • List strategies and techniques for summarizing a text
  • Recognize the difference between summary and analysis

What is a Summary?

When you summarize, you use your own words to condense a text in a way that preserves its original meaning. The trick is to strategically select which details to include or exclude according to your purpose.

For example, in the first chapter of his 1854 book, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau wrote the following:

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. (4)

What is the main idea in the passage above? The following is one way the passage might be summarized.

In his 1854 text, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau suggests that the human fixation on work and labor desensitizes man to the world around him, to the needs of his own intellectual growth, and to the complexity and frailty of his fellow humans. (4)

This summary accomplishes two goals:

  1. It contextualizes the information (who said it, when, and where).
  2. It lists the main ideas of the passage without using extensive quotations or citing specific supporting points of the passage.
  3. It digests a complex and difficult passage and helps the reader understand it.

Summaries can be long or short. They can be filled with concrete details or more focused on the abstract ideas communicated by a text. But they must be tailored to your purpose: the reason you’re writing or the topic you’re addressing. With this in mind, here are some general guidelines for writing effective summaries:

  • Avoid “point by point” summaries. You can often spot these summaries because they use transitions like First, Second, Third, etc. to describe what happens in a text in sequential order. While they offer detail, point-by-point summaries often fail to focus on the question or topic you are writing about and risk confusing your reader.
  • Stay true to the information and ideas in the original text. To do this, you need to have a strong understanding of what the author was trying to communicate, how, and why. With the example text above, for instance, it may take several readings—and maybe even the help of secondary works—to understand what Thoreau was trying to say.
  • Avoid mixing your summary with your analysis. You should also use signal phrases (“Austen writes”, “I argue”) to avoid confusing your reader. It’s important they know whose ideas are whose.
  • Use short quotes sparingly. Summarizing allows you to retain the continuity of the essay as it unravels in your voice. Cite all quotes to avoid plagiarism.

Try It

Aerial view of a forest

If summary looks at the whole forest…
Dendrologist measuring a tree trunk

…analysis looks at individual trees.

What is Analysis?

Etymologically,  “analyze” and “analysis” come from the Greek analusis, from ana– ‘up’ + lyein ‘loosen.’  In a sense, the job of analysis is to “loosen up” the text, taking it apart to figure out how it works. Analysis is the process of methodically breaking something down to gain a better understanding of it. Analysis also includes the ability to connect pieces of information as the basis for generalization or explanation.

Analysis can be applied to content but can also cover form, function, and context. For example, an analysis assignment in an art appreciation class might ask you to analyze the subject and symbolism of a painting, but also expect you to analyze the use of shape, space, color, and texture (form), as well as the artist’s intended purpose (function) and the culture or time period in which the work was created (context).

While each academic discipline characterizes the analytic process to suit its needs, the essential skills of analysis are the following:

  1. Breaking down information or artifacts into component parts
  2. Uncovering relationships among those parts
  3. Determining motives, causes, and underlying assumptions
  4. Making inferences and finding evidence to support generalizations

Summary vs. Analysis

It’s important to be aware of whether you are writing summary or analysis of a text. As the chart below suggests, the two ways of approaching a text are quite different. Often, the assignment will determine whether a summary or analysis is in order.

Summary Analysis
  • Does not present an argument or claim about the text
  • Presents the main points of the text
  • Presents elements of the text without a great deal of discussion or interpretation
  • Avoids making judgments about the text
  • Tends to use a matter-of-fact, neutral tone
  • Makes an argument or claim about the text
  • Presents elements of the text according to the needs of the argument
  • Discusses or interprets the elements of the text as they are presented
  • May include judgements or editorializing about the text
  • Often uses signal phrases like “I argue” or “I will claim” to mark the moments of editorial intervention

In many cases, your writing will involve a combination of summary and analysis.

Try It

Active Reading Strategies for Summary

When you’re marking up a text to summarize, it can be helpful to write keywords in the margin to help map the overall flow of the piece. To keep track of the main points for summary, put marks next to thesis and topic sentences. It can also be useful to label lists: When an author writes something like “The arctic faces three major threats…”,  first mark the statement announcing the list (“…three major threats…”), then look for the three points in the paragraphs that follow. Label each one with the appropriate number. This can give you a quick overview of the structure of the argument.

Active Reading Strategies for Analysis

Reading for analysis is somewhat different than reading for summary. Rather than just trying to understand and outline the structure of the argument, you’re now looking for clues to help you sort out how the text works. You may find yourself focusing on internal tensions in the argument or cracks in its logic, or you may notice connections to other texts (intertextuality) or rhetorical patterns within the text. One of the most effective ways to mark up a text for analysis is to write questions in the margin. These can help visualize the conversation taking place between the reader and the text, and offer jumping-off points for your own argument about the text.