How to Use Summary Street
Summary Street is a computer-based summary evaluation program that was developed to help students improve their summary writing skills. When you submit a summary to Summary Street for evaluation, the program provides feedback on the content of your summary, but not the quality of your writing. Summary Street compares your summary to the original text and then provides feedback regarding how well your summary covers the information in the original text. After you revise the summary to improve the content, the program will tell you if your summary is too long for a good summary, and it will also give you advice on how to improve your summary.
Step 1. Use Internet Explorer and go to http://lsa.colorado.edu/. Summary Street is not compatible with Netscape.
Step 2. Choose Summary Street from the list of demonstrations.
Step 3. The first page of Summary Street provides guidelines for summary writing. Read this information—writing a summary will be easier if you know what is expected.
Step 4. Scroll down the page to the list of texts. There are several texts about Energy Sources. Select one, read it, and write a 250-word summary of it. (Note: Some texts allow a 300-word summary. Summary Street will give you the length limit for each text.) It might be helpful to print the text. Write your summary using a word processor so that you can paste your summary into the Summary Street program. Here is the list of topics.
Texts on Energy Sources: Biomass, Coal, Geothermal, Hydropower, Natural gas, Nuclear, Petroleum, Propane, Solar, and Wind.
Step 5. Scroll down the page until you see a colored box labeled “Run Summary Street.” Leave the initials as “guest.” Select your text from the pull down menu of topics and then choose New Summary. A new window will open. Copy your summary and paste it into the box. Choose Save changes/check my spelling. If no spelling errors are found, then choose Feedback on my summary. If your summary needs modification, then modify it and resubmit it for feedback until it passes the content requirement. After modifying your summary, make sure you repeat the Save changes/check my spelling step. If you don’t, the feedback might not be correct.
Step 6. When your summary passes the content requirement, you will be given the option of running a Redundancy Check and a Relevance Check. Perform each of these checks. If your summary needs modification, then modify it, resubmit it for feedback, and repeat the Redundancy Check and Relevance Check until no problems are found.
Step 7. Next run your summary through a spell-checker and a grammar-checker as instructed.
Step 8. Print your summary and turn it in for grading. Remember to turn in 2 copies and include your ID number and TA’s name on the title page. Also, send an e-mail version of your summary to your Teaching Assistant.