Vol. 11(21), pp. 2021-2033, 10 November, 2016
DOI: 10.5897/ERR2016.3020
Article Number: 25081E361512
ISSN 1990-3839
Copyright © 2016
Author(s) retain the copyright of this article
http://www.academicjournals.org/ERR
Educational Research and Reviews
Full Length Research Paper
A study on creating writing strategy and evaluation tool
for book summary
Sümeyye Konuk, Zeyneb Ören, Ahmet Benzer and Ayşegül Sefer*
Department of Turkish Language Teaching, Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara University, Turkey.
Received 28 September, 2016; Accepted 27 October, 2016
Summarizing is restating the most important ideas from an original text briefly. Students often need
summary writing skill along the education life since it provides understanding and remembering the
reading material. This study aims to apply book summary writing strategy which is based on in-class
implementations, and to develop the students book summary writing skill with education. With this aim,
to determine students’ book summary writing skill and analyze the development of their book summary
writing skill, researchers have developed a book summary writing strategy and also a rubric to evaluate
the written summaries. While developing the book summary writing strategy, researchers have
conducted the study with 44 university students studying at Turkish language teaching department in
the third grade. The study lasted for 11 weeks, and the education period is implemented as one week
education and one week summary writing implementation. The strategy and rubric have been updated
with the students’ views, feedbacks and researchers’ notes during the education process. In the study,
of the qualitative research methods, grounded theory was used. At the end of the study, it is stated that
students have been successful in writing a book summary, tagging and taking notes, isolating from
trivial details and also, they could write the summaries in a shorter time. The study findings revealed
the usable book summary writing strategy and the rubric for book summary evaluation.
Key words: Book summary, summary writing skill, rubric, writing.
INTRODUCTION
Summarizing is retaining required information from an
original text and restating these information in a shorter
version. During the education life, teachers want students
to read a number of texts and summarize them. When we
analysed the definitions of the term „summary‟, we are
faced with various definitions on it like activity, skill and
strategy. Many definitions have led us to call summary as
„a strategy‟. This strategy is a high skill which includes
using basic language skills: reading, writing and listening.
A student who learns the summary writing strategy
means that he or she can use the basic language skills
effectively.
“The ability to summarize information is important for
understanding and remembering texts, and therefore, the
development of this ability in children should be of
considerable pedagogical interest” (Brown et al., 1983).
Taylor (1986) states that summaries, in the first years
of education life, are generally in a simple book
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected].
Authors agree that this article remain permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License 4.0 International License
2022 Educ. Res. Rev.
evaluation form including main characters, basic events
and the moral of the book. In the upper grades, students
are expected to read different kinds and sizes of books
and write more complex and long summaries.
Summarizing which is a useful skill for students in many
ways helps them in many cognitive processes: to
categorise, analyse, explain, evaluate and conclude
(Erdem, 2012). Also, since summarizing makes
remembering easier, it provides retaining information.
According to Wichadee (2014) summarizing helps
students to determine the main idea of the text, make
generalizations, disuse unnecessary words, integrate
ideas and improve memory. Moreover, summary writing
education is important since it improves the reading and
summarizing skills; but Baleghizadeh and Babapour
(2011) emphasize that summarizing is completely
different from memorizing. In memorizing, all the
information and the words are tried to be memorized; on
the other hand, in the summarizing, only important points
are determined and written. This skill provides students to
focus on the most important ideas in a text and relating
these ideas with the others (Leopold et al., 2013).
Yang and Shi (2003) state that students summarize
many texts with the aims of integrating concepts
discussed in the courses, to get a better grade or to meet
the expectations of the instructors. In this context, it can
be remarked that summarizing is also an important skill
for students to be successful in the education life.
However, Messer (1997) pointed that summary writing is
a difficult skill to teach, learn and evaluate (Lin and
Maarof, 2013). Zipitria et al. (2004) remarked that this
skill is one of the best learning strategies to understand
whether a student comprehended a taught subject as
well (Idris et al., 2007). From a different point of view,
Bean (1986) indicated that an effective summary writing
instruction prevents egocentrism; because while
summarizing individuals concentrate on another person‟s
ideas. Susar-Kırmızı and Akkaya (2011) emphasize that
summarizing strategy also activates thinking process.
The aim of the summary is conveying information to the
reader with a shorter text without a literary concern.
Therefore, anybody can learn the main points of an
original text by reading the summary without seeing the
original text. In the summarizing process, the summary
writer concentrates on the most important ideas in the
text and eliminate trivial details. Yasuda (2014) stated
that summarizing is not a way of reconstructing meaning,
it is rather a process that existing information is restated
in a shorter version. While writing a summary we do not
reconstruct the meaning or information of the original
text, instead, we continue to give the main points of the
original text. Endres-Niggemeyer (1998) also emphasized
that summarizing requires using an intense cognitive
process. Moreover, Kirkland and Saunders (1991)
remarked that summarizing is an interactive and repeated
process like all the reading-writing activities; because
while writing a summary, individuals interacts with the
text directly and experiences rereading and rewriting
processes.
Wichadee (2014) has evaluated summaries of the
students in his study. According to him, these summaries
are poor in some way. Summaries can be a copy of the
original text. Wichadee (2013) also stated that since
students have difficulty in determining which information
is relevent and required for inclusion in the summary,
they can not write good summaries. On the other hand,
Garner (1984) remarked that when students can not
determine relevant information from the trivial details,
they can not make an effective study. Mani and Maybury
(2001) also emphasized that summarizing is a difficult
work; because this process requires to handle original
text completely, to focus on important points and
eliminate trivial details.
Students experiences two types of summary during
their education life. First, summarizing short texts in
textbooks, and the second is summarizing a book.
Although these summaries seem to be similar, they differ
in some ways. Similarly, Frey et al. (2003) determined
that there are two types of summaries used by students.
The first is précis, a brief summary and the second type
is the evaluation summary. Precis summary contains a
few sentences; on the other hand, evaluation summary
contains writer‟s opinions and insights. In the literature
review, there isn‟t a discrimination of the summarizing
strategy as text summary and book summary. In some of
the foreign studies, it is stated that there are two types of
summaries: book summary and text summary. Also,
these summary types are studied separately. Mihalcea
and Ceylan (2007) remarked that there is a significant
body of research carried out but most of this work has
been concerned with the summarization of short texts.
However, books are different in both length and genre,
and different summarization techniques are required.
This study is appropriate to „process-based learning
model‟ since researchers have developed a book
summarizing strategy with students in the process. This
learning model, according to Ashman and Conwey
(1993), is used for getting information about some
subjects, developing and reconstructing the information,
monitoring and enhancing behaviors by practicing plans
widely and continually (Karatay, 2013). In this leraning
model, it is important for students to think independently,
decide, solve problems, learn learning as well as gaining
cognitive awareness on the steps of writing process
(Karatay, 2013).
In the present study, student ideas on book summary
writing are evaluated, the problems they faced in the
writing process and their ideas to solve these problems
are also handled. The strategy in this study has been
developed with student feedbacks in the process.
In the scope of the study, it is aimed at developing a
theory to enable students to write a book summary. In
accordance with this, to make book summary writing
easier;
1. Establishing a theory showing the steps of writing a
book summary based on student views.
2. Applying book summary writing strategy to class
teaching and developing students‟ summary writing skill
along the education.
3. To be able to summarize any book in a lesson time
(approximately 40 to 50 min).
4. Developing a rubric to evaluate written summaries are
aimed.
METHODOLOGY
In this study, grounded theory is used. Creswell (2015) defines
grounded theory as establishing or discovering a theory with
reference to the research data. Here, the basic point is that the
theory is not provided from a ready material, rather the theory is
grounded on the participants experiences in the process. In this
method, researchers establish a general theory in the framework of
many participants‟ opinions related to the process, performance or
interaction. Bogdan and Biklen (2006) states that grounded theory
is a specific process developed by Anselm Strauss and Barney
Glaser. In this process, researchers collect and analyze data
simultaneously. This method also points to develop a theory with
induction by using qualitative data.
Grounded theory is a general methodology for developing theory
that is grounded in data systematically gathered and analyzed
(www.depts.ttu.edu). In the present study, researchers have been
active during all the process. Grounded theory is prefered to be
able to develop an applicable summarizing strategy with
participants and reflect the process of the study clearly. With this
aim, the study is applied to one group for 11 weeks. Participants of
the study have been active during the process. In the process,
creativeness has been encouraged, a productive classroom
atmosphere has been generated and the opinions of the students
have been taken continually. During the process, with the help of
acquired data, analysis have been made, and a book summarizing
strategy and a rubric have been developed to evaluate the written
summaries. The rubric has been used in the process simultaneously
with the theory, and the effectiveness and practicality of them have
also been tested.
Study group
The study group of the research is 60 university students studying
at Turkish language teaching department in the third grade in
İstanbul. But 44 student data is handled since they participated all
the process regularly. Creswell (2015) states that in the grounded
theory, while collecting data, interviews can be made with 20 to 60
students. The reason for applying the study to 3rd grade Turkish
language teaching department students is that the subject is related
to their lecture „Comprehension Techniques‟.
Data collection tools
In the study, semi-structured interview forms, in-class observation
notes, students‟ taggings, written summaries and some photos
were used to collect the data. Büyüköztürk et al. (2012) remarks
that semi-structured interviews provides both getting answers to
Konuk et al. 2023
questions and investigating a subject thoroughly. In the semi-
structured interview, what and how the questions will be asked is
determined beforehand. However, there is a free space for the
interviewer. In the implementation process, four semi-structured
interview forms have been used with summarizing simultaneously.
There is a list of questions in order. In the first and second interview
form there are 7 questions and in the third and fourth interview
form, there are 5 questions. With the acquired data from semi-
structured interview form, we aimed at updating book summary
writing strategy and determining missing points. In the ınterview
forms of all the students, some did not participate in all the
implementations, and they were also evaluated to make a
significant contribution to the study.
During the process, 264 semi-structured interview forms are
collected from the students. The questions in the forms have been
generated during the process appropriate to the grounded theory
based on the requirements. At the end of the study, 20 different
open-ended questions have been directed to the students through
these forms. In order to understand whether the book
summarization strategy works or not, researchers have made in-
class observations during the process and noted these
observations. Balcı (2013) states that with these notes, the
researcher can collect the data in the natural setting first hand. In
the present study, 264 summaries written by students are collected
with students‟ taggings. All these summaries have been analyzed
but 176 summaries which belongs to regularly participated
students, are handled in this study.
Collecting the data
In the research process, The Miserables (Victor Hugo, 2015), Of
Mice and Man (John Steinbeck, 2012), The White Steamship
(Cengiz Aytmatov, 2003) and The Alien (Yakup Kadri
Karaosmanoğlu, 2008) are the novels read by students based on
the views of 2 Turkish language teachers and 4 scholars. While
choosing these books, we remarked that they are nearly same in
length, all of them are in the same type (novel) and all are narrative.
Since having and reading book takes time, the book list has been
given to students three weeks before the implementation. After this
three weeks, the study has continued for sequential 8 weeks.
1st week
In the first week of the study, students are asked to summarize the
first book „The Miserables‟ without any instruction. Students have
been free of looking at the book while summarizing. While
summarizing, they are observed by 4 researchers. After students
have finished their summaries, they have answered the semi-
structured interview form including 7 questions.
2nd week
Book summary writing strategy (BSWS) education which is
developed through literature review and answers from the last
week‟s interview forms has been instructed to the students by
researchers. Four researchers participated in the education
program. The strategy includes three basic steps: Pre-summarizing,
while-summarizing and post-summarizing. All the processes of the
strategy has been shared with students. After then, the education
has been discussed in the class and students are asked to criticize
the education. Following this criticism, students are given previous
weeks‟ summaries and they are informed about their mistakes
(giving so many trivial details, missing important ideas) and missing
2024 Educ. Res. Rev.
points in their summaries. After the education, students are asked
to read „Of Mice and Man‟ until next week and make preparation for
summary writing while reading (tagging).
3rd week
Since students were told to read the novel in a week, researchers
asked whether they developed any strategy useful for summarizing
and what they did while reading the novel. After then, in-class
discussions have been made and observation notes have also
been taken. Moreover, students are also asked whether they could
apply the book summarizing strategy while summarizing and in
which item they had a problem. Each item in the strategy are
categorized in the form of „unusable‟, „usable‟ and „need
development‟ with students. In some of the items, researchers have
persuaded the students and in some other items students have
persuaded the researchers. After the discussions with students,
book summary writing strategy has been updated.
4th week
While students are writing the summary of „Of Mice and Man‟,
researchers have observed the students whether they use the
strategy or not and took some notes. In order to have students gain
awareness in some points, after the second summarizing
implementation, researchers have given students summary writing
form (Ap.B). After summarizing the book, students are given semi-
structured interview form including 7 open-ended questions.
5th week
In accordance with the answers in the interview forms, book
summary writing strategy has been updated. Students‟ summaries
written last week are discussed according to the strategy, and the
evaluation on their summaries have been shared with them. The
evaluation process and weak points in the summaries have also
been discussed and brainstorming has been made to overcome
these. Students‟ opinions have also been taken. Strategy education
has been proceeded by discussing missing and weak points of the
summaries. Afterwards, students are told to read „The White
Steamship‟ novel for the next week and make some preparation
while reading.
6th week
Students are asked to summarize „The White Steamship‟ novel.
While summarizing they have been decontrolled in using the book
summary writing strategy. Here, the aim is to observe whether
students use their old ways or not. During this process, researchers
have observed the students and taken some photos. After the
students finished summarizing they are asked to fulfill the interview
form including 5 questions. The questions in the interview form
have been varied weekly, with the implementation requirements.
7th week
BSWS has been updated by the researchers with reference to the
semi-structured forms‟ answers. Then feedback has been given to
the students about previous summaries. The summary writing
education is practiced to the students, not only their weak points but
also the strong points are emphasized. Afterwards researchers
brainstormed with students on the usefulness of each BSWS items.
Followingly, students are remarked that they will summarize the
novel “The Alien” for the next week, and thus they need to make
preparation.
8th week
Students‟ objections and suggestions in the brainstorming of the
previous week have been recorded by researchers, and BSWS
education has been updated. Summary writing implementation
process has been observed for the last time by four researchers in
the last week of the education. After the summary writing education
has finished, the semi-structured interview forms were apllied to the
students.
Analyzing the data
In the process of analyzing the data, researchers studied by
questioning all the concepts with new data without prejudicing. The
coding process are as follows:
1. Data is collected
2. A copy of the data is written to the computer
3. Data is reviewed and read to get a general idea
4. Codes are determined from the data
5. Themes are determined and defined (Creswell, 2008).
In accordance with the steps earlier mentioned, student views are
analyzed with open coding. While generating the strategy, 50 open
codes are determined. These codes are analyzed and according to
the relation among them, axial coding process is practiced.
According to the similarities and differences of codes, 18 axial
codes are generated. After determining the axial codes selective
coding process is handled. In the selective coding, general rules for
summarizing, pre, while and post-summarizing processes to do lists
are determined. Afterwards, these lists are developed with the
literature review and book summary writing strategy coding is
finalized as shown in Table 1.
According to the authors in this analysis, researchers may
requestion concepts with all the new data and may be free of any
prejudice. In constant comparison method, the concepts are
labeled, and each labelled concept is compared with previous
concepts and grouped. In the present study, as a result of this
weekly repeated analysis, the BSWS and an assessment tool is
developed.
The tool which is developed in order to evaluate the book
summaries is a rubric. While preparing the rubric, literature review
is made on writing a book summary and item pool is created.
Afterwards, these items are developed and have been made clear
with the suggestions from students on a weekly basis. Reference to
the suggestions from students again, disfunctional substances were
removed in rubric less functioning substances which were treated in
the education process. Moreover, new useful items are added.
While ensuring the validity of the rubric, opinions of 3 Turkish
language teachers, 4 domain experts and 2 scholars of educational
sciences have been received. For the reliability of the rubric,
randomly selected 5 summary texts are copied and sent to 4
independent researchers. Their results are evaluated. Consistency
between researchers rating results are calculated formula of
concordance percentage (“P= Na: (Na + Nd) x 100” “concordance
percentage = quantitative of concordance: (quantitative of
concordance + quantitative of discord) x 100”) (Türnüklü, 2000).
In this study, concordance percentage is 85%. Rubric has four
sub-dimensions: tagging, style, content and format. And it has 20
Konuk et al. 2025
Table 1. Summary writing strategy coding.
Open coding
Axial coding
Undetailed expression; Short expression; Expressing basic events; Giving the
main points; Expressing outline; Expressing general framework of the book
Expressing main points shortly
(trivial details are not included)
Expressing with a new style; Expressing the info that is remembered;
Expressing the read text originally
Summary writer uses his/her
sentences
Avoiding subjectiveness; Giving the message of the writer directly; Expressing
objectively and without commenting
Giving the original writer‟s idea
Expressing in the summary that the work belongs to another writer; It should
be understood that the original text was written by another writer ; Not to
summarize as if a character of the book
Summarizing with third person-
singular
Subject integrity; Coherence; Cohesion
Cohesion
The difference between summarizing a novel and a scientific book
Book type
Information on book cover; Writer of the book; Preface of the book ; Final
word of the book
Book tag
A common program in group implementation where everyone is responsible;
The duration given for reading a book
Reading plan
Taking short notes while reading; Important points should be noted for
summary while reading
Tagging
Reflecting the notes on the summary; Utilizing the notes on events,
characters, place and time
Tagging should be reflected on
the summary
General subject should be mentioned in the beginning; The time of the
events; The place of the events
Beginning with a general
introduction of the book
Character features of the main character; Physical appearance; The situation
of the character in the beginning and at the end of the book
Mentioning the main
characters in the beginning
Features of the supporting character; Relation with main character; Conflict
with main character
The relationship of the
supporting characters with the
main character
Events that have changed in the process; Main conflicts
Plot
A paragraph based on one idea; Giving one point in one paragraph
Cohesion in the paragraphs
Paragraphs giving the chronologic order of the events; Coherence of the
paragraphs
Cohesion among the
paragraphs
Conclusion of the book; Final point, the main character has reached
Inference of the reader
Rereading for cohesion
Rereading for control
Controlling trivial details and eliminating them
Spelling and punctuation control
Peer assessment
items that measure these dimensions. Each item contains scoring
and classification [weak (1 point), insufficient (2 points), medium (3
points), good (4 points), excellent (5 points)]. The highest score is
100 points in the rubric. From this perspective, rubric scoring
system is convenient for scoring system used in the schools (100
points).
Researchers evaluated summary texts with this measurement
tool. All the summary texts are collected in the process (264), and
has been evaluated to see results accurately and to improve
reliability. However, based on the regular attendance of the
students, of these, only 176 summary texts are handled in the study
for evaluation / comparison. Summarizing skills of the students are
quantified by rubric scores. Afterwards, development of the skills in
the items are monitored and compared week by week. Thus,
developing skills and fixed skills have been determined.
Results of the semi-structured interviews are divided into themes
based on the questions and content analysis. Since interview forms
are semi-structured, participants have been given the answer of a
question to another question occasionally. Furthermore, some
participants have also given more than one answer to one question.
Therefore, there can be seen an increase in the frequency rate of
the interview forms. Thus, inductive data analysis is used in the
quantitative data analysis (Büyüköztürk, 2012). According to the
author, the researchers do not determine the hypothesis precisely
and clearly in this analysis. Data is collected in a long period of
time, after then to make generalizations, these data is synthesized
inductively. The direct way is from part to the whole. In addition, this
research is very significant to find new ways for understanding and
comprehending.
In the present study, the data is subjected to classification
2026 Educ. Res. Rev.
according to their similarities and differences. Then the data is
coded and categorized and these codes, according to the
frequency levels are combined under the themes describing them
best. The data are then, interpreted. The data collected from in-
class observations are analyzed descriptively.
FINDINGS
In this section, book summary writing strategy which has
been based on in-class implementations and literature
review has been given.
Theory: Book summary writing strategy (Bsws)
1. General rules:
a. The summary should consist of our own words.
b. The message of the original text should be given in the
summary text.
c. The summaries should be written in third-person
singular.
d. The summary length depends on the length of the
book but the trivial details or unnecessary information
should not be given in the summary text.
e. The tense suffixes should be used to ensure the
cohesion between sentences and paragraphs.
Pre-summarizing stage
a. The type of the book should be determined before the
book is read. For example, the conflict between the
characters and events are important in narrative books
whereas in the informative books, ideas and their
influences are important.
b. The clues for providing information about the content
of the book, cover of the book, the author, translation,
publication date, edition number, should be collected.
c. Book reading schedule should be determined. The
duration for reading the book must be equal for all the
students. When reading is finished, before students have
not forgotten the topic, summary should be written
immediately.
d. While reading the book, the important points should be
tagged.
While-summarizing stage
a. While writing the summary students should benefit
from tagging that they wrote while reading the book.
b. The first sentence of the summary should be giving a
general information of the book, location and time should
also be given in the introduction.
c. In the begining part of the book summary main
characters should be mentioned. Moreover, characteristic
features, physical appearance, first situation and last
situation should be mentioned.
d. From the second paragraph, supporting characters
should be mentioned. Features of the supporting
characters first and last situations, relationship with the
main character, conflicts with the main character should
be explained.
e. In the body paragraphs the events which are caused
by the main caharacters should be explained. Moreover,
changing events and elements of conflicts should be
mentioned. In this part, for coherence "suddenly,
contrary, oppositely, whenever" conjunctions can be
used.
f. Every paragraph should include on opininon. It should
be formed around this idea without giving trivial details. In
the summary text for providing cohesion, statements like
“This part is written on that subject” should not be used.
g. While summarizing a book including many chapters,
for every part one summary paragraph should be written.
For example, while summarizing a book including 9
chapters, 9 paragraphs should be written.
h. The paragraphs created for the summary should be
reread sequentially and evaluated at the end. After the
evaluation, the paragraphs including the same ideas can
be connected to each other by adding a transition
sentence.
i. In the conclusion paragraph, how the book has finished
should be stated and an inference should be made.
4. Post-summarizing Stage
a. The summary should be read to check the cohesion
and integrity of the paragraphs.
b. In the summary text, if sentences includes trivial details
and unnecessary information they should be removed; if
there are missing sentences, they should be added.
c. In the summary text, style, grammar, punctuation
marks should be checked, if necessary, they should be
corrected.
d. If possible, summaries should be read by a peer and
peer-assessment can be made.
1. Findings from the rubric and semi-structured interview
forms are handled in this section.
Findings on book summary writing skill
The findings obtained from the rubrics have been
evaluated in four sub-headings, including tagging,
content, style and format. Each book summary collected
from students are given in the tables comparatively.
The items on tagging
According to the Table 2, each sub-items of tagging skill
have been improved regularly from the first to the fourth
Konuk et al. 2027
Table 2. Items on tagging.
Items
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
4. Summaries
The length of the tags is convenient
1.04
2.21
3.80
477
Main conflicts are given in the tags
0.88
2.23
4.02
468
Tags are in the form of word or phrase
0.93
1.62
3.77
463
book summary implementation. While the average rate
on the first item of the book summary is 1.04, the rate of
the fourth one is 4.77. Second item‟s rate is also
increased from 0.88 to 4.68 and third item‟s rate is
increased from 0.93 to 4.63. According to that, it can
be said that they have learned regarding the length of the
tags, use keywords, restrict content in tags. When the
book summaries are compared weekly, the weakest
items are the second item ( 0.88) in the first summary,
the third item in second ( 1.62), third ( 3.77) and fourth
( 4.63) summary.
Items on content
According to the Table 3, while an increase in all of the
items regarding with the content seen, this increase is
very clear, especially in the second item. While the
success of the fifth item is 2.38 in the first book
summary, it is 5 in the fourth book summary. The
success of the third item is increased from 2.13 in the
first book summary to 4.65 in the fourth book summary.
When the success of the items is compared weekly, the
weakest items are fourth item ( 2.06); in the first
summary, third item ( 3.37) and fourth item ( 3.31) in the
second summary, third item ( 4.06) in the third summary,
fourth item in the fourth summary.
Items on style
According to the Table 4, there is a regular increase in all
of the items but the maximum increase ( 1.68) is in the
sixth item. When the success in the items is compared
weekly, the weakest one is the sixth item ( 2.70) in the
first summary, the first item ( 3,89) in the second
summary, the sixth item ( 4.11) in the third summary and
the sixth item ( 4.38) in the fourth summary.
Items on form
According to the Table 5, the biggest increase is in the
first item. While this rate is 3.20 in the first summary, it is
4.77 in the fourth summary. When the success in the
items is compared weekly, the weakest one is the third
item ( 3.11) in the first, ( 3.56) second, ( 3.95) third, and
( 4.04) fourth summary.
Findings of student opinions
During the education of the BSWS, four individual semi-
structured interview forms have been applied to the
students after each summary writing implementation to
increase the intelligibility of the theory, test the feasibility
and identify problematic items. The summarizing duration
of the students, number of paragraphs and words they
used in the summaries and rubric score is compared
weekly and presented in Table 6. According to the Table
6, a significant relationship can not be seen between the
duration and the number of words and paragraphs. The
question "Do you like your book?" has been asked to the
students in the 1, 2, 3 and 4 semi-structured interview
forms. The following table shows the findings on this
question.
According to the Table 7, the least appreciated book is
the third book "The White Steamship" and the most
admired book is the first book “The Miserables”. Some
questions about tagging have been asked to the students
in the semi-structured interviews forms. These are: "Did
you tag before you start writing your summary?” in the
first form, “What challenges have you experienced while
tagging?”, “Do you observe development on your
tagging? If yes, what are they?” in the second and third
form. The following table shows the findings on these
questions.
According to the Table 8, before the BSWS education
is given, most of the students did not tag while
summarizing. Beside this, when the points that students
have some difficulties while tagging are similar both in the
second and third book summaries, but in the third book
summary students have difficulties in tagging by omitting
the key words. This is remarkable about tagging since it
increases the awareness of the students.
According to the Table 9, in three of the book summary
implementations, it can be seen that students have given
the same answers about the points they have difficulty
while summarizing. In the table, the most remarkable
2028 Educ. Res. Rev.
Table 3. Items on content.
Items
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
4. Summaries
Short information is given
about the book in the
introduction of summary
2.65
3.38
4.58
4.81
The information about the main
characters is given in the
summary text
2.93
4.23
4.72
4.84
The information about the
supporting character is given in
the summary text
2.13
3.37
4.06
4.65
The information about duration
is given in the summary text
2.06
3.31
4.88
4.38
The information about the
place is given in the summary
text
2.38
4.84
4.93
5
The plot is compatible with the
book
3.04
3.89
4.22
4.90
The main conflicts affecting
novel fiction is given in the
summary text
2.90
3.57
4.11
4.88
The solution of the book‟s
problem is stated in a
conclusion sentence.
2.97
4.17
4.31
4.81
Table 4. Items on style.
Items
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
4. Summaries
The summary text is clear and
fluent
3.56
3.89
4.22
4.95
The tense suffixes are used
compatibly
3.93
4.28
4.52
4.81
The summary text has been
written by the reader‟s own
sentences
4.25
4.86
4.88
5
The students used third-person
singular in their summaries
4.29
4.78
4.90
5
The message of the original
text is given in the summary
text.
4.09
4,68
4,79
4,95
The details or unnecessary
information isn‟t given in the
summary text
2.70
4.07
4.11
4.38
Konuk et al. 2029
Table 5. Items on form.
Item
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
4. Summaries
Spelling and punctuation are used correctly
3.20
4.10
4.22
4.77
There is no incoherency
3.18
3.97
4.13
4.56
The order of paper is regarded
3.11
3.56
3.95
4.04
Table 6. The summary writing skill average rates.
Item
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
4. Summaries
The duration
61.65
44.95
61.88
63.53
The number of paragraphs
7.5
5.7
9.20
7.8
The number of words
539.38
411.04
616.71
537.52
Rubric score
55,13
75.04
86.88
94.71
Table 7. Findings about the approval rates of the students.
Do you like your book?
1. Book (%)
2. Book (%)
3. Book (%)
4. Book (%)
Approval rates of the
students who liked
93.44
89.04
71.92
87.67
Table 8. The findings on tagging.
Tagging
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
Did you tag before you write
your summary?
No tagging (68.18%)
-
-
What challenges have you
experienced while tagging?
-
Analyzing important and
unimportant information
(31.81%); Tagging in the
same order of the events as
in the original book (11.36%)
Analyzing important and
unimportant information (34.09%);
Tagging in the same order of the
events as in the original book
(20.45%); Tagging by using key
words (11.36%)
Do you observe
development on your
tagging? If yes, what are
they?
-
Number of people who didn‟t
make tagging in the second
week (12.32%); Tagging
easier (13,69%); Tagging
shorter and clearer (8.21%);
People who think that
tagging is not required in the
novel (6.84%)
Coding important information
(7.01%); Tagging shorter and
clearer (15.78%); Tagging by
using key words (10.52%); People
who don‟t make any explanation
after the answer of “yes” (57.89%)
point is the variability of the student opinions on tense
suffixes. BSWS is updated with the help of these and a
change is observed on students after updating. However,
the problem of writing introduction sentence could be
2030 Educ. Res. Rev.
Table 9. Findings on the diffculty of summary writing.
Variable
1. Summaries
2. Summaries
3. Summaries
Do you have
difficulty in writing
summary, if you
have what are
those?
Regarding the plot (40,90%)
Regarding the plot (22,72%)
Regarding the plot (15,90%)
Using tense suffixes (11,36%)
Using tense suffixes (25%)
Using tense suffixes (4,54%)
Eliminating trivial details (25%)
Eliminating trivial details
(18,18%)
Eliminating trivial details
(20,45%)
Writing an introduction sentence
(6,81%)
Writing an introduction
sentence (4,54%)
-
Remembering the names of the
characters and place (22,72%)
Tagging (6,81%)
Tagging (4,54%)
93,44% while writing summary
95,89% while writing
summary
68,42% while writing
summary
overcomed in the following weeks. In the 2nd, 3rd and
4th interview forms, students are asked “Do you think that
there is a mistake or something missing in the BSWS
education?” and “When you become a teacher will you
practice the things you have learnt?”
According to the Table 10, in the second imple-
mentation of the BSWS education, 36.98% of students
states that there is no missing points; this rate is 82.2% in
the fourth implementation. Before the second book
summary implementation, students are given information
on how to tag. Consequently, as can be seen on Table
10, in the third implementation 12.18% of the students
remarks that they have diffuculty in tagging but in the
fourth week, it is significant that they have reported
tagging as one of the exercises they like most. When
students are asked that “When they become a teacher,
will you practice the things you have learnt?” 92,27% said
“yes”, this shows that this education can be thought to be
useful.
According to the Table 11, while 81.81% of the
students remark that they write better summaries when
compared with the first implementation, in the fourth
application, this rate becomes 91.64%. On the other
hand, most of the students state that writing summary is
beneficial and this rate is 96.72% in the first interview
form, it is 100% in the second interview form. The
question which is asked to the students to learn in which
parts BSWS education was beneficial for themselves is
answered as writing in a planned way (38.35%) in the
second interview form, and writing a better summary
(92.64%) in the fourth interview form.
DISCUSSION
In the scope of the research, a book summary writing
strategy and a rubric for evaluating summaries have been
developed by the researchers. According to Goulding
(1999), grounded theory method that has been used in
this study, is used when there is so much information on
a case and in a need to add new information to the
present information (Kaya, 2014).
In the process of using grounded theory in this study,
the instructor guided students properly. In this process,
students‟ confidence to the lecture decreased occa-
sionally. Because while developing this theory students
construct the knowledge. In this constructing process,
knowledge is reviewed, tested and evaluated according
to students‟ feedbacks and either modified or removed.
Students are active and decision-maker during all the
process. Moriarty (2011) states that grounded theory is
advantegous since it aims to produce information from
the data itself instead of using the available hypotheses,
providing new information on the subject that has been
researched and also it is useful in terms of flexibility of
data collection tools (Kaya, 2014).
After implementing the strategy, it is determined that
the average achievement of the students‟ book summary
writing skill has increased gradually. According to this,
(from assessment tool) they increased their succes with
the rates of 55.13 for the first week, 75.04 for the
second week, 86.88 for the third week, 94.71 for the
fourth week.
When the duration of writing their summaries is
observed, the average is for Les Miserables (180 pages),
Of Mice and Men (128 pages), The White Steamship
(186 pages), and The Alien (214 pages) which has the
largest number of pages are respectively 61.65, 44.95,
61.88 and 63.53 min. Accordingly, there is no
meaningful relation between the period for students to
write summary and the number of pages.
In the first book, the rate of the students who eliminate
trivial details is the least successfull item ( 2.70). Even
though this rate shows increase upwards in the following
weeks, it came forward (in the meeting form) as the most
challenging material for students as the last one of the
questions were asked to the students again in 3 different
weeks (20.45%).
This result is compatible with the findings of Wichadee
(2013) and Garner (1984). According to these writers,
since students can not distinguish whether the information
Konuk et al. 2031
Table 10. Findings on the BSWS education.
Variable
2. Interview form
3. Interview form
4. Interview form
Do you think that there
is a mistake or
something missing in
the BSWS education?
There is no mistake (36,98%)
1. Uncertainty in using tense
suffixes (13.69%)
2. Not personal feedback
(12.32%)
3. Not dwelling on the main
idea (5.47%)
There is no mistake (70.17%)
1. Practicing in a lesson time
(8.77%)
2. Tagging obligation (12.28%)
3. Not giving feedback
simultaneously (14.03%)
There is no mistake (82.2%)
1. Practicing in a lesson time
(5.47%)
2. Tagging obligation (4.10%)
What do you like the
most in BSWS
education?
-
-
1. Giving feedback (34.09%)
2. Making application (6.81%)
3. Learning how to tag (29.54%)
4. Reading four different books
(11.36%)
When you become a
teacher, will you
practice the things you
have learnt?
1. Yes, I will. (97.27%).
Table 11. Findings on the BSWS education ımplementation process.
Variable
1. Book Summary
2. Book Summary
4. Book Summary
What are the differences
between the summary
you write first time and
second time?
-
1.Writing summary convenient to the
plot (6.81%)
2.Eliminating trivial details (4.54%)
3.Writing summary in a less time
(9,09%)
4.Writing a planned summary (6.81%)
5.Writing a better summary than before
(81.81%)
6.Tagging (18.18%)
-
Do you think that writing
summary is useful, if yes,
in what ways it is useful?
1.96.72% of the students
think that it is useful
2.Retaining information
(22.95%)
3.Help to comprehend the
book (11.47%)
4.Improving memory
(16.39%)
1.100% of the students think that it is
useful
2.Writing introductory, body and
conclusion parts (6.84%)
3.Regarding the plot (16.43%)
4.Writing a planned summary (12.32%)
-
What are the changes in
your summary writing skill
before and after BSWS
education?
-
-
1.Writing a better
summary than before
(91.64%)
2.Eliminating trivial details
(12.84%)
3.Tagging (15.06%)
4.Writing a shorter and
clear summary (4.10%)
5.Writing a planned
summary (4.10%)
Did the BSWS education
help you to write
summary? If yes, how?
-
1.Writing a planned summary (38.35%)
2.Eliminating trivial details (15.06%)
3.Tagging (12.32%)
-
2032 Educ. Res. Rev.
is necessary or not and whether it needs to be in the
summary or not, they explain that they can not write a
good summary. 40.90% of the students remark that they
had some difficulties in the first book summary and in
“regarding the plot” while this rate shows a noticable
decrease to the second book summary, they mention that
this topic no longer in the third and fourth book
summaries. Findings of the rubric supports that the
averages of summaries which is related to this item are
3.04 for the first book summary, 3.89 for the second,
22 for the third, and 4.90 for the fourth one. This result
shows that BSWS make students acquired “the skill of
writing summary convenient to the plot”
When the findings obtained related to the points that
students have some diffuculties while writing summary
are evaluated, 11,36% of students remark that they had
some difficulties in using consistent tense suffixes in the
summaries which are written before the BSWS education
is given. This rate increases to 25% after the education
and with the last change store in the strategy and the
third book summaries, this rate decreases to 4.54%. In
the implementation of the last book summary, they do not
mentioned this topic. In the rubric, when the findings
which are related to the relevant item is observed, the
first one is 3.93, the second one is 4.28, the third one
is 4.52 and the fourth one is 4.81.
That condition results from the instruction given to the
students in the BSWS education. Through literature,
students are given instruction to use present tense in the
first week. However, they could not manage to use those
instructions in their book summaries. In the second book
summary, this item is changed as using consistent tense
suffixes. As a result, difficulty for tense suffixes is
decreased, and achievement is increased for students.
When answers which students have given related to
the condition of appreciation of books they gain to
summarize in practice are evaluated, it is determined that
the rubric did not overlap the findings. While a steady
decrease is being observed by weeks in findings
obtained from rubric, the condition of appreciation of the
students for the book is said to be directly related to the
achivement of the students for summarizing.
One of the remarkable points of the study is that
students acquire the skill of summarizing completely.
Accordingly, when the findings obtained from the rubric is
observed, students are viewed to gain full grades in the
point of “giving information about the location in
summary, using third-person singular in the summaries,
writing the summary with thier own sentences”. In this
context, after the BSWS education, students have gained
those abilities. On the other side, of the 14 items from 17
rubric items, they are determined to get grade upon
4.50. According to that, after the BSWS education,
students have gained three of the book summary writing
skills and in many skills they have become in the
practising level.
Throughout the strategy education, some items are
removed from the rubric and some items are added to the
strategy with the opinions of the students. For example,
students have hesitated about how to finish the summary
in the last paragraph. After this situation, instruction is
given to students that they can finish the summary with a
question to invite audience to read the book and to state
how the problem in the book has been solved should be
mentioned in the conclusion sentence (Lake, 2005).
Since students could not have a consensus on finishing
the summary with a question sentence, with their
opinions this instruction is removed from the strategy.
When the fourth book summary is observed, the rubric
item „how the problem is solved is expressed in the result
sentence‟ have a rate of ( 4.81). This rate shows that
students have been successful in applying this instruction.
CONCLUSION
In accordance with the student opinions and the develop-
ment in the book summary writing skill, when BSWS
education is applied in the classroom, it can provide
students to gain the ability of writing a book summary.
For evaluating summary texts, the rubric which is
developed is also determined to be applied by research
in the way of function. In BSWS, education is original in
showing that students can summarize a book in a lesson
time. In this context, with the help of BSWS education,
students are determined to write better book summaries.
The rates of the rubric of the last practice ( 94.7) also
supports this idea.
Suggestions
In the implementation process, it is determined that some
students have come to the classroom by writing the
summary that they obtained from the internet. To
overcome that situation teachers should give a ready
form to write the summary in the classroom.
When teachers make a summary writing study in the
classroom, he or she should give a publishing firm to
make students read the same book. If students are not
informed, they may buy different presses of the same
book they may have read the same book in different
lengths. In the present study, „The Miserables‟ book have
different presses from different publishing firms changing
from 60 to 1715 pages. The researchers have selected
and recommended one among them according to the
study group. When teachers make a summarizing study
in the classroom, they should determine a reading period
of time. Moreover, they should prepare a reading
calendar according to the level of the students and the
density of the lesson.
The reading calendar can be prepared both by the
teacher and the student. With the help of this calendar, all
the students can read and finish the same book
simultaneously. Therefore, all of them can write their
summaries in the classroom during the lesson time.
Teachers, by making the students write the summaries in
the classroom can prevent them to acquire a ready
summary from the internet.
Conflict of Interests
The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The support of Marmara University Scientific Reasearch
Projects team, code EGT-A-080715-0366, is appreciated.
REFERENCES
Aytmatov C (2003). Beyaz gemi. Ankara: Elips kitapları.
Balcı A (2013). Sosyal bilimlerde araştırma yöntem, teknik ve ilkeler.
Ankara: Pegem Academy.
Baleghizadeh S, Babapour M (2011).The effect of summary writing on
reading comprehension and recall of EFL students. Nera J. 47(1):44-
48.
Bean JC (1986). Summary writing, Rogerian listening, and dialectic
thinking. College Composition and Communication. 37(3):343-346.
Bogdan CR, Biklen SR (2006). Qualitative Research for Education,
USA: Pearson International Edition.
Brown AL, Day JD, Jones RS (1983). The development of plans for
summarizing texts. Child Development. 54:968-979.
Büyüköztürk Ş, Kılıç Çakmak E, Akgün ÖE, Karadeniz Ş, Demirel F
(2012). Bilimsel Araştırma Yöntemleri. Ankara: Pegem Akademi.
Cerswell JW (2008). Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and
Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research (3rd Edution.). New
Jersey: Pearson Internationaal Education.
Cerswell JW, Clark LP (2015). Karma Yöntem Araştırmaları. (Dede, Y.,
Demir, S., Aydın, E., Güzel, E. B., Bursal, M., Çorlu, S., Delice, A.,
Güngör, F., Köksal, M. S., Kula, S., Peker, M. Yaman S., çev.)
Ankara: Anı Publishing.
Endres-Niggemeyer B (1998). Summarizing Information. Almanya:
Springer.
Erdem C (2012). Türk dili ve edebiyatı öğretmen adaylarının özetleme
stratejilerini kullanım tercihleri ve metin dil bilimsel bir özetleme
çalışması. Dil ve Edebiyat Eğitimi Dergisi. 1(3):36-52.
Frey N, Fisher D, Hernandez T (2003). What‟s the gist? summary
writing for struggling adolescent writers. Voices from the Middle.
11(2):43-49.
Garner R (1984). Rules for summarizing texts: is classroom instruction
being provided?. J. Educ. Res. 77(5):304-308.
Hugo V (2015). Sefiller. İstanbul: Serüven kitabevi.
Idris N, Baba S, Abdullah R (2007). Designing heuristic rules to detect
student‟s strategies in summarizing using decomposition of expert-
written summaries. 1st International Malaysian Educational
Technology Convention, Malezya.
Konuk et al. 2033
Karaosmanoğlu YK (2008). Yaban. İstanbul: İletişim Yayıncılık.
Karatay H (2013). Süreç temelli yazma modelleri: 4+1 planlı yazma ve
değerlendirme modeli. Yazma Eğitimi (21-40). Ed. Murat Özbay.
Ankara: Pegem Akademi.
Kaya Ö (2014). Eğitimde Bilimsel Araştırma Yöntemleri. Mustafa Metin
(Ed.) Temellendirilmiş Teori (s.239-260). Ankara: Pegem Academy.
Kirkland MR, Saunders MA (1991). Maximising student performance in
summary writing: Managing cognitive load. TESOL Quarterly pp. 105-
121.
Lake L (2005). Writing an effective book summary.
http://www.justaboutwrite.com/A_Archive_WritingBookSummary.html
Access date: 20.01.2016.
Leopold C, Sumfleth E, Leutner D (2013). Learning with summaries:
effects of representation mode and type of learning activity on
comprehension and transfer. Learn. Instruction 27:40-49.
Lin OP, Maarof N (2013). Collaborative Writing in Summary Writing:
Student Perceptions and Problems. Procedia – Soc. Behav. Sci.
90:599-606.
Mani I, Maybury MT (2001). Advances in Automatic Text
Summarization. USA: Massachusstes Institute of Technology.
Mihalcea R, Ceylan H (2007). Explorations in automatic book
summarization. Proceedings of the 2007 Joint Conference on
Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing and
Computational Natural Language Learning. Prague, 380-389.
Steinbeck J (2012). Fareler ve insanlar. İstanbul: Sel Yayıncılık.
Susar-Kırmızı F, Akkaya N (2011). A qualitative study on the use of
summarizing strategies in elementary education. Hacettepe
Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 41:267-277.
Taylor K (1986). Summary writing by young children. Reading Res. Q.
21(2):193-208.
Türnüklü A (2000). Eğitim araştırmalarında etkin olarak kullanılabilecek
nitel bir araştırma tekniği: görüşme. Kuram ve Uygulamada Eğitim
Yönetimi. 24:543-559.
Wichadee S (2013). Improving students‟ summary writing ability through
collaboration: a comparison between online wiki group and
conventional face-to-face group. Turk. Online J. Educ. Technol.
12(3):107-116.
Wichadee S (2014). Developing reading and summary writing abilities
of EFL undergraduate students through transactional strategies. Res.
Educ. 92:59-71.
Yang L, Shi L (2003). Exploring six MBA students‟ summary writing by
introspection. J. English Acad. Purposes. 2:165-192.
Yasuda S (2014). Exploring changes in FL writers‟ meaning-making
choices in summary writing: A systemic functional approach. J.
Second Language Writing. 27:105-121.