As with every document, an effective summary demands a clear sense of audience and purpose. Before you write, you need to consider who you are writing for, and why they are reading it.

Exercise 1: Most of you are already familiar with summaries from your textbooks - many include summaries at the beginning and/or end of each chapter.

First, make a list of reasons you use such summaries - what, in particular, do you want from a summary in a textbook?

Second, look through several of your texts and locate two that do a good job meeting your needs.

Finally, submit a memo to your instructor explaining why the summaries you chose work well; explain your needs and how the summaries address those needs. You may even want to use that analysis to derive criteria for an effective textbook summary.

Audience & Purpose Analysis-->