Assignment 7 Source 1 Summary: How to Complete It Correctly
A section-by-section guide to reading your assigned source, answering the eight pre-writing questions, building the summary paragraph, formatting the APA narrative citation, and submitting a template that meets the rubric requirements at every level.
Assignment 7 is Step 2 of 6 in the Critical Essay sequence. Its job is narrow: you read or view one assigned source, extract the main ideas from the beginning, middle, and end, and assemble those ideas into a structured summary paragraph using a specific template format. That is the whole task. But students consistently lose marks because they skip the pre-writing questions, confuse their own opinion with the source’s ideas, misformat the APA citation, or write a paragraph that describes the topic instead of summarizing the source. This guide walks through each section of the template in sequence, explains what every question is actually asking, and identifies the exact mistakes that drop scores from Advanced to Proficient to Needs Work on the rubric.
This guide explains how to approach each part of the assignment. It does not complete the assignment for you. Your summary must reflect the actual content of the source you read or viewed — the Bernadotte video or the Scott article, depending on which topic you are working on. Using this guide to understand the structure and requirements is the right use of it. Submitting content that does not come from your own reading of the source defeats the purpose of the pre-writing step and will be visible to your instructor.
What This Guide Covers
What the Assignment Requires
Assignment 7 is a source summary exercise — one of the most foundational academic writing skills at the college level. You are not being asked to analyze, evaluate, argue with, or agree with your source. You are being asked to read it carefully, identify its key ideas, and report those ideas accurately and objectively in paragraph form.
The template structures the task into two parts: a pre-writing section (eight questions answered in complete sentences) and a summary paragraph (built directly from your answers to those eight questions). The paragraph follows a fixed format provided in the template. The rubric evaluates four distinct components: the pre-writing section, the first sentence, the summary section, and the APA citation.
The summary you write in Assignment 7 becomes the first body paragraph of your Critical Essay. That means every decision you make here — which main ideas you choose, how you phrase them, how you handle the APA citation — carries forward into the larger assignment. Cutting corners in the pre-writing section produces a weaker paragraph, and a weaker paragraph produces a weaker essay. Completing the pre-writing thoroughly is not busywork; it is the drafting process for your essay body paragraph.
The Two Topics and Their Sources
The assignment gives you a choice of two topics. You should already know which one you selected based on the Week’s Discussion you completed previously. The discussion topic you chose determines which source you are assigned for the summary.
Your reference entry is already given to you in the assignment instructions. The template tells you to copy and paste it into the designated field at the top of the template. Do not retype the reference from memory — copy it exactly as it appears in the assignment. APA formatting is evaluated on the rubric, and a small error in the reference entry (wrong punctuation, missing italics, extra capitalization) can drop you from Advanced to Proficient on that criterion.
If you have not yet completed the Week’s Discussion, choose the topic that genuinely interests you — because you will work with it across multiple assignments in this Critical Essay sequence, not just this one. The discussion question asks you to reflect on why the topic matters and why it interests you personally, which means your engagement with the material directly affects the quality of your writing. A topic you care about is easier to write about with specificity and clarity.
How to Read or View the Source Before You Answer Anything
The single most common reason students struggle with the pre-writing questions is that they try to answer them while reading or viewing the source for the first time. That approach produces thin, out-of-order notes because you are still processing content as you write. A more effective method involves two passes through the source.
Pass 1: Full Read or View
Go through the entire source without stopping to take notes. Your goal is to understand the full argument or message before you try to identify individual parts. For the video, watch it completely. For the article, read the whole thing.
Pass 2: Structured Notes
Return to the source with the eight pre-writing questions in front of you. This time, look specifically for the overall main idea, the point made early on, the point developed in the middle, and the point or conclusion at the end. Mark or write down the relevant sections.
Answer in Your Own Words
Write your answers to the eight questions in your own words — not copied phrases from the source. The summary paragraph must be objective, but it should use your phrasing, not lifted text. This protects you from plagiarism and produces a more coherent paragraph.
For the video source (Bernadotte), divide it mentally into three sections — the opening argument or hook, the development of the main argument, and the closing point or call to action. For the article source (Scott), the same structure applies: the article’s opening establishes the main claim, the body sections develop it with evidence and explanation, and the conclusion ties it together with implications or recommendations.
The Eight Pre-Writing Questions: What Each One Is Asking
The eight questions in the template are not generic comprehension questions — each one maps directly onto a sentence in the final summary paragraph. Understanding what each question targets helps you answer it with the right level of detail.
Question 1: What is the overall main idea of your source?
This is the thesis-level question. The overall main idea is the central argument or message the entire source is making — not one detail, not one example, but the claim that the whole piece supports. For a video, it is what the speaker is ultimately trying to convince you of. For an article, it is the central claim stated or implied in the introduction and reaffirmed in the conclusion. This answer becomes the core of your first sentence in the paragraph.
Question 2: What is the main point of the first part of the source?
The “first part” is the opening section — the first few minutes of the video or the first few paragraphs of the article. This is where the author establishes context, frames the problem, introduces the argument, or hooks the reader. Identify the dominant point being made in that section. Do not describe what happens — state the point being made.
Question 3: What is one piece of information that supports this point?
A supporting detail for the first point — a statistic, example, anecdote, study finding, or explanation the author uses to back up the opening claim. This is one sentence of supporting detail, not a list. Choose the detail that most clearly supports the point you identified in Question 2.
Question 4: What is the main point in the middle of the source?
The middle section develops the argument — typically through explanation, evidence, or complication. The point here usually builds on or extends the opening point. For the video, it is what the speaker focuses on in the body of the talk. For the article, it is the main idea developed in the body paragraphs. Identify the dominant claim of that section, not a list of every idea mentioned.
Question 5: What is one piece of information that supports this point?
Same structure as Question 3, but for the middle section’s main point. Select the single most relevant supporting detail — the one that makes the middle section’s claim concrete and credible.
Question 6: What is the main point of the final part of the source?
The final section is typically where the author draws conclusions, offers solutions, or makes a call to action. The assignment instructions note that “the idea from the end of the source usually concerns the author’s conclusion and call to action.” Focus on what the author is driving toward — what they want the reader to understand, believe, or do after engaging with the source.
Question 7: What is one piece of information that supports that point?
The supporting detail for the final section’s point. The same standard applies — one concrete piece of information, stated in your own words, that shows how the author supports the concluding claim.
Question 8: If there is a conclusion or call to action, what is it?
This is the “so what” of the source — what the author wants to leave the reader with. A call to action is a direct appeal to change behavior, reconsider an assumption, or take a specific step. If the source ends with implications rather than a direct call to action, describe what those implications are. If Questions 6 and 8 overlap, that is acceptable — use slightly different phrasing to distinguish the final main point (what the author concludes) from the call to action (what the author wants the reader to do).
The rubric’s Pre-Writing criterion specifically distinguishes between “answered thoroughly in sentences” (Advanced) and “answered but not necessarily in sentences” (Proficient). That means bullet points, fragments, and notes that are not complete sentences will not earn full marks even if the content is accurate. Every answer should be a grammatically complete sentence with a subject and predicate. Write “The author argues that stress impairs memory consolidation during sleep” — not “stress impairs memory.”
Identifying the Overall Main Idea: The Most Important Question
Question 1 is the most important question in the pre-writing section because it determines whether your entire summary is oriented correctly. If you misidentify the overall main idea, every sentence built from that foundation misrepresents the source — which directly affects your score on the Summary Section criterion, which carries 25 of the 50 available points.
The overall main idea is not: a topic, a detail, a question the author raises, or a statistic from the source. It is the central claim the author makes about the topic — the argument the whole piece is built to support.
Not the Overall Main Idea
- “The source is about stress and memory.” — This describes the topic, not the claim.
- “Stress affects students.” — Too vague; does not reflect the source’s actual argument.
- “The author talks about cortisol levels.” — This is a detail, not the main idea.
- “College students experience a lot of stress.” — This is background context, not the author’s argument.
How to Frame the Overall Main Idea
- It answers the question: “What is the author trying to prove or show?”
- It can be summarized in one clear sentence.
- Every main point in the source should connect back to it.
- It tells the reader the source’s position, not just its subject matter.
A practical test: after you identify what you think the overall main idea is, ask yourself whether every major section of the source is working to support that claim. If you find a large section that does not connect, you probably identified a supporting point rather than the main idea. Revise upward until you find the claim that everything else is serving.
Breaking the Source Into Beginning, Middle, and End
Questions 2 through 7 ask you to identify one main point and one supporting detail from three distinct sections of the source. The assignment labels these “the first part,” “the middle,” and “the final part.” You are responsible for dividing the source into those three segments yourself.
How to Divide Your Source Into Three Sections
For the Bernadotte video (First-Gen topic): The video runs approximately 14 minutes. The first part covers roughly the opening few minutes where Bernadotte introduces the claim and establishes context. The middle is the body of the argument — the evidence, reasoning, and development. The final part is the conclusion, where the speaker brings the argument to a close and delivers the primary takeaway or appeal to the audience. Use the natural transitions in the speaker’s delivery to identify these sections.
For the Scott article (College Stress topic): The article is organized with headers or clearly distinct paragraphs. The first part is the introduction — where Scott states the topic and establishes the central claim about stress and memory. The middle is the body of the article — likely covering how stress hormones affect memory, the distinction between short-term and long-term memory effects, or specific conditions under which stress helps versus harms recall. The final part is the conclusion or the last section, where Scott addresses implications or recommendations for managing stress to protect memory function.
You do not need to split the source into exactly equal thirds. “Beginning, middle, and end” refers to the logical structure of the argument — the setup, the development, and the resolution — not to three equal time or word segments. A video’s conclusion might be two minutes long even if the body spans ten minutes. That two-minute section is still the “end” for purposes of this assignment.
The Conclusion and Call to Action Question
Question 8 often trips students up because they either repeat what they wrote for Question 6 or leave it blank because they do not see an explicit “call to action” in the source.
A call to action does not have to be a direct instruction like “do this.” It can be an implied shift in perspective the author wants the reader to make, a recommendation for a change in behavior or policy, or an appeal to reconsider an assumption. If the source ends with “we should rethink what we mean by college success” or “students need to build stress-management habits,” that is a call to action even without imperative language.
What to Do When Questions 6 and 8 Seem Identical
If the final section of your source contains both a concluding claim and a direct call to action, separate them: Question 6 gets the intellectual conclusion (“the author concludes that stress-induced cortisol release impairs memory consolidation during sleep”) and Question 8 gets the practical appeal or implication (“the author suggests that students should prioritize sleep and stress-reduction strategies before high-stakes assessments”). If the source has only one of those and not the other, answer Question 8 with whatever closing message the author delivers — it does not need to be a formal call to action to count as an answer.
Building the Summary Paragraph From Your Pre-Writing Answers
The template provides the exact structure for the summary paragraph. Once you have answered all eight pre-writing questions in complete sentences, the paragraph is built by combining those answers in the sequence shown in the template. The format is:
[Authorlastname] (YEAR) explains that [paste sentence from Question 1 here]. Paste sentence 2. Paste sentence 3. Paste sentence 4. Paste sentence 5. Paste sentence 6. Paste sentence 7. Paste sentence 8.
Note: “Paste sentence” refers to the sentences you wrote as answers to pre-writing Questions 1–8, assembled in order. The result is an eight-sentence paragraph with a narrative in-text citation at the start.
“Pasting” your answers does not mean copying them verbatim without review. When you assemble the eight answers into a paragraph, read it aloud as a continuous piece of writing. Adjacent sentences need to flow together — if the transition between your answer to Question 3 and your answer to Question 4 is abrupt, revise the wording of one of them so the paragraph reads cohesively. The paragraph should read like connected prose, not eight separate answers stapled together.
Because this summary becomes the first body paragraph of your Critical Essay in Step 3 of 6, the quality of transitions, sentence variety, and flow matters beyond just this assignment. Treating the assembly step as mechanical — paste and submit — produces a paragraph that will require heavy revision later. Taking five extra minutes to read it aloud and smooth the transitions saves time in the next step of the essay sequence.
Writing the First Sentence of the Paragraph Correctly
The First Sentence criterion is worth 10 of the 50 available points — equal to the entire Pre-Writing section. It has a specific structure that must be correct for full marks. The rubric’s Advanced description says: “The first sentence identifies the author and year and states the author’s overall idea clearly and accurately.”
The template builds this sentence for you with the placeholder format: [Authorlastname] (YEAR) explains that [your answer to Question 1]. This is a narrative in-text citation structure — the author’s last name and the publication year are embedded in the text of the sentence, not placed in parentheses at the end. This matters because it is the APA narrative citation format, and the rubric checks for it.
Incorrect First Sentence Formats
“Stress affects memory in important ways (Scott, 2025).” — This uses parenthetical citation, not narrative citation. It also does not identify the author by name in the sentence and does not state a clear main idea.
Correct First Sentence Format
“Scott (2025) explains that [state the overall main idea you identified in Question 1].” — Author name first, year in parentheses immediately after, “explains that” introduces the paraphrase of the main idea. This is the format the template and rubric require.
First Sentence With Vague Main Idea
“Scott (2025) explains that stress is a big problem for students.” — Technically structured correctly, but the statement of the main idea is vague and inaccurate. The rubric specifies that the overall main idea must be stated “clearly and accurately” — a vague paraphrase of the topic is not the same as stating the author’s claim.
First Sentence With Accurate Main Idea
“Scott (2025) explains that [specific claim from the source about how stress interacts with memory functions, stated in your own words based on your reading].” — The claim is drawn directly from the source and states the author’s actual position, not a generic description of the topic.
APA Narrative Citation and Reference Entry
The APA criterion is worth 5 of the 50 points but is binary in effect — either your citation is correctly formatted or it is not. The two components evaluated are the in-text citation (the narrative citation in your first sentence) and the reference entry (copied from the assignment instructions into your template).
| Component | What It Looks Like | Common Error |
|---|---|---|
| Narrative In-Text Citation | Scott (2025) explains that… / Bernadotte (2018) argues that… | Using (Scott, 2025) at the end of the sentence instead of embedding the author and year in the sentence itself |
| Reference Entry | Copied exactly from the assignment instructions — author, date, title in italics, source name, URL | Retyping the reference from memory and introducing errors in capitalization, punctuation, or italics format |
| Placement of Reference | Listed at the end of the template after the summary paragraph | Omitting the reference entry entirely, or placing it inside the paragraph |
The APA Publication Manual (7th edition), which governs citation format in this type of assignment, distinguishes between parenthetical citations — where the author and year appear in parentheses at the end of the sentence — and narrative citations, where the author’s name is used as part of the sentence and only the year appears in parentheses. The template format (“Authorlastname (YEAR) explains that…”) is the narrative citation form. Using the parenthetical form instead will cost marks on the APA criterion even if the content of the citation is otherwise correct.
The assignment instructions tell you explicitly to “copy and paste” the reference from the lecture into the assignment. This instruction exists because APA formatting details — the period after the author’s name, the comma between last name and initials, the italics on the title, the date format — are easy to get wrong when you retype them. Copy the reference exactly as it appears in your assignment instructions and paste it directly into the template. Verify that the italics on the source title transferred correctly after pasting — some formatting is lost when pasting between platforms.
Staying Objective: How to Remove Your Opinion From the Summary
The Summary Section criterion explicitly evaluates whether sentences are “clear and objective (do not share the student’s opinion or analysis).” This is one of the defining requirements of a summary, and it is one of the easiest requirements to violate accidentally.
Objectivity in a summary means your paragraph only reports what the author said — not what you think about it, whether you agree with it, how it relates to your own experience, or how important you think it is. The word “I” should not appear in the summary paragraph at all. Evaluative words like “importantly,” “unfortunately,” “clearly,” or “obviously” signal the writer’s perspective and should be removed.
Opinion Inserted Into Summary
“Scott (2025) importantly shows that stress, which students should definitely try to manage, can hurt memory in ways that I think are really significant for anyone trying to study effectively.” — Multiple evaluative intrusions: “importantly,” “definitely,” “I think,” and “really” all express the writer’s perspective, not the source’s content.
Objective Summary Language
“Scott (2025) explains that [main idea]. [Supporting detail from the source]. [Middle point from the source]. [Supporting detail]. [Final point from the source]. [Supporting detail]. [Conclusion or call to action].” — Each sentence reports what the author said, using neutral verbs like “explains,” “describes,” “notes,” “argues,” and “states.”
A practical test before submission: read each sentence in your paragraph and ask, “Is this something the author said, or something I am adding?” If it is something you are adding — a reaction, an interpretation, a connection to your own life — delete it or replace it with something drawn directly from the source. The Summary Section criterion penalizes both the presence of opinion and the absence of supporting detail. Each of the three main ideas in your paragraph needs a supporting detail attached to it, not just a claim in isolation.
Where Most Submissions Lose Marks
Pre-Writing Answered in Fragments or Notes
Writing “stress → memory loss” or “cortisol is bad” as an answer instead of a complete sentence. The rubric distinguishes between “answered thoroughly in sentences” and answered in fragments. Fragments earn Proficient at best — and only if the content is correct.
Instead
Every pre-writing answer must be a grammatically complete sentence. If you wrote a note or fragment, expand it before submitting. “The author argues that elevated cortisol levels during periods of high stress interfere with the process by which short-term memories are consolidated into long-term storage” is a complete sentence. “cortisol interferes with memory” is not.
Summary Paragraph Summarizes the Topic, Not the Source
Writing general knowledge about college stress or first-generation students instead of reporting the specific claims and supporting details from the assigned source. A paragraph that reads like an encyclopedia entry on the topic rather than a summary of one specific source will score in the Needs Work range on the Summary Section criterion.
Instead
Every sentence in the summary paragraph must trace back to something the author of your assigned source actually said or showed. If you can write the sentence without having read the source, it does not belong in the summary. The summary is about this source, not about the topic in general.
Only One or Two Main Ideas in the Paragraph
The rubric requires three main ideas — one from the beginning, one from the middle, one from the end — each with supporting detail. Students who combine the beginning and middle into one idea, or skip the final section entirely, produce a paragraph with insufficient coverage of the source and lose marks on the Summary Section criterion.
Instead
Map your eight pre-writing answers to the paragraph: Question 1 is the first sentence’s main idea. Questions 2–3 cover the beginning. Questions 4–5 cover the middle. Questions 6–7 cover the end. Question 8 is the call to action. If you answered all eight questions in complete sentences, the paragraph will have three main ideas with supporting detail by construction.
Parenthetical Citation Instead of Narrative Citation
Ending the first sentence with (Scott, 2025) or (Bernadotte, 2018) instead of starting the sentence with “Scott (2025) explains that…” or “Bernadotte (2018) argues that…” The parenthetical format is correct in other contexts but wrong here — the template specifies narrative citation.
Instead
The first sentence of your paragraph must follow the template format exactly: Author’s last name, immediately followed by the year in parentheses, followed by “explains that” or a similar reporting verb, followed by your statement of the main idea. The year goes in parentheses directly after the last name — “Scott (2025) explains that…” — not anywhere else.
Reference Entry Retyped With Errors
The reference for the Scott article includes a date of December 3, 2025, a specific website name (Very Well Mind), and a URL. The title is italicized. Students who retype the reference often introduce errors: wrong date format, missing italics, added capitalization in the title, or a broken URL.
Instead
Copy and paste the reference directly from the assignment instructions. After pasting, check that the title italics transferred correctly. If your word processor removed the italics when pasting, manually re-apply italic formatting to the title. Do not add anything to the reference or change its punctuation.
What Each Rubric Criterion Actually Measures
The rubric has four criteria worth different point values. Understanding what each criterion is actually evaluating helps you prioritize where to spend your revision time.
| Criterion | Points | What Advanced Looks Like | Most Common Way to Drop to Proficient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Writing | 10 | All eight questions answered thoroughly in complete sentences. “Thoroughly” means each answer contains enough information to become a usable sentence in the paragraph — not a one-phrase note. | Answers that are technically sentences but so brief they contain no useful detail. “The main point is about memory.” is a sentence but not a thorough answer. |
| First Sentence | 10 | Author last name + (year) + reporting verb + accurate, specific statement of the overall main idea. All three elements present and correct. | Identifying the author and year correctly but stating the overall main idea vaguely or inaccurately. The rubric specifically checks that the main idea is stated “clearly and accurately.” |
| Summary Section | 25 | Three main ideas (beginning, middle, end) each with at least one supporting detail. All sentences are complete, clear, and objective — no student opinion or analysis visible anywhere. | Missing one of the three main idea sections, omitting supporting details, or allowing evaluative or personal language to appear in any sentence. This criterion carries the most points and the most ways to lose them. |
| APA | 5 | Narrative in-text citation correctly formatted in the first sentence. Reference entry copied accurately from the assignment instructions and present at the end of the template. | Using parenthetical citation format instead of narrative citation. Omitting the reference entry entirely. |
- Reference copied and pasted exactly from the assignment instructions (including italics on title)
- All eight pre-writing questions answered in complete, grammatically correct sentences
- Each answer is detailed enough to function as a sentence in the paragraph, not just a note
- First sentence follows the format: Lastname (Year) explains that [main idea]
- The main idea stated in the first sentence is accurate and specific — not a topic description
- Three main ideas present in the paragraph — one from the beginning, one from the middle, one from the end
- Each main idea is accompanied by at least one supporting detail
- No opinion, evaluation, or first-person language appears anywhere in the summary paragraph
- Reference entry is at the end of the template in correct APA format
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Summary Writing Is a Gateway Skill for College-Level Writing
Assignment 7 sits at a specific position in a larger writing sequence, which is why its requirements are structured the way they are. Summary writing — the ability to accurately and objectively report what another writer said — is foundational to every advanced academic writing task: literature reviews, research papers, annotated bibliographies, critical essays, and argumentative writing all depend on it. You cannot engage critically with a source you have not first understood on its own terms.
The requirement to separate “what the author said” from “what I think about it” is not arbitrary. It develops a discipline that becomes essential in research writing, where conflating your interpretation with the source’s claim is a form of misrepresentation. The three-part structure — main point, supporting detail, main point, supporting detail — mirrors the way academic paragraphs are built in any discipline. Learning to identify the structure in someone else’s writing builds the capacity to construct it in your own.
The Purdue Online Writing Lab’s APA Style Guide — one of the most widely used free academic citation resources — provides detailed guidance on narrative versus parenthetical citations, reference entry formatting, and the distinction between quotation and paraphrase. If you are uncertain about any aspect of how to format your citation or reference entry, the OWL APA guide is the clearest free reference available for the 7th edition standards your assignment uses.
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