ANALYSIS vs. SUMMARY

Summary:  A brief paragraph describing and informing three or more of the following elements: 

1.                  Who: those involved

2.                  What: the event or topic being covered

3.                  When: time, period, era, night or day

4.                  Where: the location, distance, place

5.                  Why: the cause or causes

6.                  How: the process(es) 

Report: An extended summary that delves deeper into more descriptions and details of the above elements 

Example:        This is what a summary of a car accident would look like: 

On August 30, 2002, a car accident involving two parties on a very curvy highway was reported by police at 5:30 PM.  One of the drivers, a 17 year-old male, quickly accelerated his black sports car into the farthest left lane of the highway to pass another driver, a 45-year old man driving a blue minivan, on that lane.  The man driving the minivan brakes quickly but hits the sports car from behind, prompting the 17-year old to slow down, but due to another vehicle in front of him, he cannot swerve to his right side.  Both slow down and move their vehicles off to the emergency lane on the left side of the highway.  Police arrive on the scene and take their information as well as pictures of the conditions of both vehicles.  Both drivers did not suffer injuries but this was not the case for the vehicles.  The sports car driver was double-ticketed for driving 12 miles over a 70 MPH speed limit. 

Analysis: examines the summary elements described above in order to look for their meaning in the following contexts: 

1.                  Relationships, trends, patterns

2.                  Roles of people, places, objects, situations

3.                  Consequences or results of events, decisions and processes

4.                  Causes and their effects

5.                  Advantages and disadvantages/ gains and losses

6.                  Strengths and weaknesses 

If we take the above example, we can apply an analysis of the above contexts towards an examination of the car accident: 

Example:         

On August 30, 2002, a car accident involving two parties (a 17-year old driving a black sports car and a 45-year old man driving a blue minivan) brought about financial and legal consequences to the sports car driver as well as traffic congestion to those driving on the highway at 5:30PM that day. The sports car driver’s rapid acceleration unto the farthest left lane of the highway not only caused the minivan driver from behind to crash into him, but other cars behind the minivan either had to quickly move to other lanes or rapidly decelerate as well.  The sports car driver’s acceleration, 12 miles above the speed limit, caused him to violate the 70 MPH speed limit highway, whose dangerous curves are known for causing deadly accidents from those trying to drive above its speed limit.  As a consequence, he was double ticketed for violating the speeding law and for placing other drivers in danger of causing a worse accident.  However, 70 MPH is too fast a speed limit to be implemented on such a curvy highway.  People have a tendency to drive 10-15 miles faster on a speed limit of 70 MPH or more.  Therefore, the sports car driver’s high penalty needs to be reconsidered as well as the speed limit for such a dangerous highway.