Teaching Executive Summaries

WRITING EXECUTIVE SUMMARIES IN MGT 111

Definitions:
In business contexts, an executive summary appears on the first page of a report. It provides for readers a brief overview of the report's contents. Its purpose is to consolidate the principal points of a document in one place. After reading the summary, an audience should understand the report's main points and the evidence for those points without having to read every part of the report in full. That's why they are called executive summaries -- the audience is usually someone who makes funding, personnel, or policy decisions and needs information quickly and efficiently.

For this more academic assignment in Mgt 111--an executive summary of a reading-- you need to condense a good deal of information into a short and concise abstract or précis of what you've read. You may have several purposes in writing this summary:

· to demonstrate to your professor that you've read and understood the material
· to persuade an audience (perhaps your instructor; perhaps other students, or someone outside of Management 111) to read the article or to take action based on its ideas;
· to incorporate the article's ideas into your own writing.

Whatever your specific purpose, your task is to provide an overview or preview to an audience who may not have time to read the whole article. Therefore, writing a useful summary means reading carefully and closely:

· Make sure that you describe the context of the article (where it appeared, information about its author(s), occasion for its writing, etc.).
· Be careful to represent the main points accurately. A summary does not usually contain your evaluation of the reading; however, if you are asked to make recommendations or offer an assessment of the article you are summarizing, put that assessment up front and use the rest of the summary to support your recommendations.

Guidelines for reading in order to summarize:

· Read the article quickly to get a sense of its overall organization, main points, and tone.
· Read through the article again with a pen in your hand, glossing the text by writing notes in the margin of each paragraph that describes what that paragraph says, how it contributes to the author's developing point or argument.
· On a separate sheet, use your glosses as a guide for writing more notes, this time in two categories: first, what the article "says" - its content, and second, what each paragraph "does" - how it functions to advance the author's overall argument. Examples
· Then, go back and look at your notes and begin to make decisions about what points are the most important and which ones support those main, general ideas.
· The article's title and subheadings often provide useful strategies for organizing your summary. Look also at the beginnings and endings of paragraphs for key points. Look for words that represent relationships between the author's ideas, such as first, finally, therefore, principal.

Guidelines for writing summaries:

· Write a one-sentence summary of the article. Then, expand that summary to 100 words. Finally, keep adding supporting material until you get to a one-page summary (approximately 250 words).
· Remember that you do not need to "cover" every point in the article you're summarizing; keep the audience's needs in mind as you make choices about what's most important.
· Consider using bullets in your summary as a useful method of organizing your information quickly.
· Don't introduce any information that is not in the article you're summarizing.
· Executive summaries should communicate independently of the report/article they condense. Ask someone not familiar with the article to read your executive summary.
· Remember to spell-check and proofread. Don't trust the spellchecker alone.

For additonal help on writing executive summaries, click here. If you have any questions about writing in the School of Business, please contact the Howe Writing Initiative team of consultants: 9-1581, 9-8296, or at ronaldkj@miavx1.muohio.edu