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I need some alternatives to introduce summarization on the final paragraph of non-technical chapters or longer blog articles. Known terms like summary often sound a bit technical to me...

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2 Answers

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A few more examples, some of which are highly informal:

  • The short version is ...
  • Essentially, ...
  • In essence, ...
  • To make a long story short, ...
  • The point [to take away from this] is ...
  • In review: ... (esp. before organized text, like a bulleted list)
  • So, what do we know? ... (good for writing that is educational or technical, but also informal)

Edit:

  • To recap, ...
  • To rehash: ...
  • To wrap things up, ...
  • So, going back over [the main points] ...
  • Looking at what we've covered [so far] ...
  • [At this point,] we have established that ...

The wordier ones can obviously be varied: "Going back over ..." could just as easily be "Let's go back over ..." or "Now, to go back over ..." and so on. It all depends on how formal, personal, and serious you want to be.

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@ROFL dont worry according to my last question latin anyway is a foreign language here writers.stackexchange.com/questions/3439/… your examples look like from a list, want to share? ;) – Hauser Jul 26 '11 at 18:53
I would if I had one. I just came up with these myself. Although I suppose the entire point of Stack Exchange is creating such lists, really. =) – Argumentum ad Stultitiam Jul 26 '11 at 19:07
checkmate! ding ding ding... – Hauser Jul 26 '11 at 19:12
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@Hauser: Your other question was migrated because it was about writing style. Also, Latin is a foreign language. – simchona♦ Jul 26 '11 at 20:30
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@Hauser: You asked whether it was "good style" to include English. This doesn't ask whether or not English speakers know Latin; it asks whether you can throw it in there and have good writing style. You asked "what do you do", which isn't really in the scope of EL&U. We can't write your paper for you. – simchona♦ Jul 26 '11 at 21:13
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up vote 3 down vote
  • In sum
  • In a word
  • To sum up
  • In short
  • Briefly

You can encapsulate the body of the work in a brief summation.

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+1 but imho some of your examples also make the reader to suppose the following summarization will be short ;) Thats what i like about the nutshell example. You can write a full A4 paragraph after it (briefly, in a word, in short dont work here imho so well) Sry but this just came into my mind after reading your answer, should i edit my question concerning this? thx – Hauser Jul 26 '11 at 17:06
Not all of these would work for all cases, no. Depends on your text and your format. Just some more arrows for your quiver. – The Raven Jul 26 '11 at 17:17
@Hauser, I don't understand how "in a nutshell" would not make the reader suppose that the summarization would be short. Summarizations are supposed to be short (relative to the source material) regardless of how you introduce them. – Hellion Jul 26 '11 at 18:22
@Hellion briefly means short itself, same as in A WORD, nutshell is a object. I know it is very subtly and subjective nuances, but for non-technical summarizations and esp. introduction/transition argumentum examples sound more aesthetical TO ME. Probably a matter of taste – Hauser Jul 26 '11 at 18:30
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@Hauser - In short is relative. If you are summarizing a 300 page book in 2 pages that the expectation of in short. In a word is much diffrent. That is relating a concept to a single entity. In a word, War and Peace is LONG. A summary is a standard writing technique. I think you are looking for something more specific but have asked a the question in a way that is as likely to find a good answer for you as a random selection from a thesaurus. – Chad Jul 26 '11 at 19:04
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