Topic: write a summary essay of following article:
Friedmann, N. & J. Costa (2010). The child heard a coordinated sentence and
wondered: On children’s difficulty in understanding coordination and relative clauses with crossing dependencies. Lingua 120, 1502–1515.
(這個我會提供，以下為寫作指導以及評分標準。謝謝)

Appendix I: Some general guidelines for writing a summary
• Follow the author’s way and order of presenting his/her research only if you cannot think of any better way of presenting it. Use your own words; do not simply rephrase sentence by sentence from the target article.
• Do not aim to be comprehensive - focus on the main points instead.
• Imagine writing your review for some staff member in our department who is not a
psycholinguist. You do not have to explain basic linguistic terms that every linguist
knows (e.g. NP, VP, adjective, inflection…), but provide relevant background (even
if the target article doesn’t) on the specific linguistic phenomenon under study,
particularly if this comes from a language other than English, and explain relevant
psycholinguistic background (methods, models, etc.) that the average linguist may
not be familiar with.
• However, bear in mind that you are writing a LINGUISTICS assignment – avoid
lengthy presentations of purely or primarily psychological or neurological issues.
• Present your summary in a reader-friendly way using linguistic examples, tables,
graphs, and other visual illustrations. If you copy graphs or tables from the target
article, you should guide your reader through them in your text.
• Present RELEVANT results IN DETAIL reporting actual
scores/percentages/reaction times and results of statistical tests (explaining what
they mean), but focusing on the most important findings.
• Use direct quotations sparingly (if at all), usually not more than 3 or 4 in your entire
text, and each one usually not longer than 1 sentence. If you include direct
quotations, provide the exact page number in the original work.
A good way of organising a summary of an article that contains empirical work is the
following:
i. Introduction: Present the theoretical or empirical issue under discussion, and the
main positions/approaches
ii. Method: Include important features of the experimental design explaining the
subjects’ tasks, the materials used, how the data were analysed, etc., but do not
include irrelevant technical details such as the make of the experimental software or
equipment.
iii. Results: Summarise the main empirical findings in a fairly neutral way, so that they
could also be interpreted by someone who does not share the author’s theoretical
views.
iv. Discussion: How does the author analyse the results?
v. Conclusion: What does the author conclude from his/her analyses?#p#分頁標題#e#
Provide a word count excluding graphs, tables, appendices and list of references.

write a summary essay  Appendix II: Marking Criteria
Your assignment will be marked according to how well it meets the criteria listed below (a
detailed feedback sheet will be provided).
• Organisation (clear and sensible structuring; use of appropriate subheadings)
• Accuracy (including a correct summary of relevant descriptive & statistical results)
• Originality (use of own words; original presentation of method and/or results;
creative re-structuring of original text)
• Level of detail (inclusion of relevant detail only)
• Presentation & Style (being clear and to the point; http://www.400190.com/thesis_sample/2012/0227/1066.html explaining key technical terms;
clarity & appropriateness of graphs/tables)
• Exemplification (use of suitable illustrative examples where appropriate)
• Linguistic Awareness (correct use of linguistic terminology)
• Psycholinguistic Awareness (understanding of relevant psycholinguistic issues and
concepts)