A Summary is the cream of any piece of writing that draws reader’s interest to explore whole story which is given in that book. Before writing summary, it is important to know how to deal with this back cover piece of art nicely. A summary should contain all of the special edges of story yet hiding the real plot and conclusion to maintain reader’s curiosity level. So at the same time you have to give a whole picture, while hiding the real suspense and the ending.

As far as the marketing/promotion is concerned, summary plays a vital role as it can either increase or decrease the chances of being sold to the one who has shown a bit of interest in it. When a person picks up a book reading its title, he moves towards the summary page straight forwardly to get an idea about it and t this point you have to introduce the main characters, plot, and interesting events of story while maintaining the magic of feeling and curiosity. In short, that little one page text should be strong enough to force the reader to buy that specific book.

The Basics of a Summary:

There are three key points you must keep in mind while writing a summary.

1. It should be written in present tense. It is a strict rule you must follow while writing a summary
2. It’s written in a form as if it is told by a third person.
3. Never reveal conclusion as it is used to add cliffhangers and teasers to heighten the interest level of reader.

Summary is somewhere confused with synopsis but it is quite different from that. A synopsis is detailed and it is geared towards drawing a publisher or agent to pick that book to publish whether summary is shorter and it forces reader to take a ride through the whole story.

Things to avoid composing summary:

As we have mentioned before that promotional summary is second important part of your book right after the title. The Book cover will appeal reader and after picking it up, he will move directly to the page where its synopsis is written. So you have to be very careful while composing it. Avoid the mistakes which are mentioned below to make your summary perfect and more appealing.

1. Don’t use difficult words. Use comprehensible vocabulary which every reader can get easily. It is not always possible to target highly qualified readers so you have to use simple yet interesting tone with easy vocabulary.
2. Strictly avoid grammatical mistakes and errors. Summary should be totally free from such mistakes. If your summary has some mistakes, it will spoil the image of your whole book as well. So please compose carefully and proofread many times to make it perfect.
3. Avoid repeating things. Neither you have so much space for summary nor will the reader spend so much time going through it so never repeat things.
4. Avoid putting vague details as it will confuse the reader and he will never buy such book. Make things clear, short and interesting keeping the suspense maintained.

Why one should write a summary?

A summary is powerful tool that can do various good things for you. First of all it helps you to gather and compose the thoughts that drove you to write that book, story or novel. Secondly, it gives you a solid one paragraph that contains major content of your plot to discuss it with someone who is interested to discuss about it. Furthermore, a back cover summery adds a value to writer’s storyline and its characters and it pulls a readers interest to explore it in detail.

It is therefore suggested for the writers to compose this part of their book by themselves and not to leave it to editors or composers because as much as you are into the soul of your piece of writing, no one else can be. Only you can create those cliffhangers and teasers effectively to draw readers towards your creative writing.

All graduate students have unpleasant things to say about literature review. The process is not very exciting. When you are done with the literature review and move on to collecting the data and research, there is never enough time update literature review. If you stop searching for frequent articles and journals doesn’t mean the research world stopped publishing. In the time it takes for you to complete the research, articles will be published and you will eventually have to go back to the daunting task of updating the research. Here are some efficient strategies for keeping up with the never-ending literature review when it’s not your number one priority. These efficient tips will also help you in the real world after graduation. So, here we go:

Related Articles to your Thesis

It’s important to track search terms in the process of literature review process. When you are busy with other parts of the thesis, it’s good to set up automatic searches. It allows you to enter keywords and you receive an email regarding all the latest papers with your standard keywords. If your search engine doesn’t support the feature of weekly emails, then try out Scopus and PubMed. The biggest advantage of tracking search terms is that you will get the most of the up to date research.

Articles not directly related to your study

The above strategy that we discussed is limited to searching related articles and general methods with different techniques. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds for journals related to your field of study. If you are not connected to the university server, then you can read all the abstracts in the Table of Contents. They don’t change very often however; you need to figure out a way to check the ones from the press. They are updated frequently. You can use Google Reader or the Pulse app on iPad for browsing. Another technique is to find a listserv related to your main topic.

Media Coverage

We generally give priority to scholarly work, it’s good to track all the major headlines related to your work. They can be valuable in guiding you how the general public perceive your field. Skygrid for iPad is a great way to start. It lets you enter keywords and you can receive article headlines. This isn’t the most perfect app because search results are often too broad; you will get the basic idea. Articles from different news outlets will come your way and you will get to know what’s trending. Keeping up with Twitter feeds also helps in covering media grounds for research.

No matter what tricks or tricks you use to keep your literature review updated, remember two things: don’t check it too often because you have other tasks too and try to automate the searches as much as possible. Following these simple guidelines you can the literature review process less painful as you reach the finish line!

Books are the most trustworthy and amazing partners in the world. We all should learn from our mistakes, but great are the people who learn from others mistakes. Books help us extract messages and lessons that we could learn without making any mistakes.

They say you become what you read and if you wish to build a successful company where you get to call all the shots, you might want to start following some specific books.

Here are some of our top recommendations for this season:

1. “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand

Some of the well-known entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban, a self-made billionaire and Charlie O’Donnell, partner of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures recommend this book to every entrepreneur.

It sums up entrepreneurial passion better than any other book. The real question is not who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

2. “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker

Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon made his senior managers in the company read this book for the all-day book club. It is among the three books that he recommended his managers to read.

In this book, Druker helped to visualize ideas about today’s management in the workplace. For example, it was pointed out that the employers and managers should work together towards common goals.

The Effective Management is the best book that explores decision making habits and time management that helps business executives to be productive and helps the organization to move forward.

3. “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton Christensen

Another book that Jeff Bezzos had his senior managers read was The Innovator’s Dilemma. It is one of the most influential books of all time related to business.  It is also of the top pick of many VCs and founders all over the world.

In this book, Christensen discloses why large companies act like a dinosaurs. He also proposed solutions in this book. Thus, entrepreneurs must give it a read as one of those how to books to beat large companies as competitors in their own markets and industries.

The book does not revolve around one single idea. However, it does focus largely on a misused phrase “disruptive technology”.

4. “Business Adventures” by John Brooks

This book is a collection of stories based in New York by John Brooks. It is Bill Gates all-time favorite business book since 1991.

Bill Gates says that the book is all about strengths and weaknesses in the challenging business world. However, all the circumstances are still relevant regardless of the time and age.

5. “Benjamin Franklin” by Walter Isaacson

Benjamin Franklin is an all-time favorite book of the Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk. He shares that Franklin, the main character in the book started from nothing and became an entrepreneur. He was just a runaway kid and turned his life around.

We all go through that time when it comes down to surviving comprehensive writing exams. Once the studies for comprehensive exams are over, it gets worse. A lot of us fear writing so it seems like a terrifying idea. Here are a few tips that will help you in surviving comprehensive writing exam.

So there are things you must do before the exam and some during the exam. We have break down of the things you should do before and after the exam.

 Before the Exam

• Organize the notes

Organize the notes in a manner that explain everything to you. It should make sense and should be organized in the correct order. You can use color tags to relate the concepts, authors and themes together. Always make sure that the notes are on your finger tips to find the information quickly. The color tags will help you remember where the notes were written or stored. Let’s say you wrote a couple of concepts in the red color section. Think of all the key points that you remember jotting down in the red section. The label will help you find the information.

• Keep everything you need with you

When you sit for the exam, make sure you have everything. Keep all the writing tools, notes, water and snacks with you. These are some standard things that will be required to write the comprehensive exam. However, if you are writing from the comfort of your own home, create a comfortable spot in your room. Minimize the distractions as much as possible to keep your focus on writing only. If you work with music then update the playlist with your favorite songs. Keep tea, coffee or water at arm’s length to keep you alive.

During the exam

• Write down the Basic Terms, Dates, Concepts and Authors

This step is really important when you are writing without any notes. Before you look at the question, write all the relevant information to keep it at the top of your mind.

• Read the Exam Carefully

This particular step is crucial if you have to choose the question. Underline the terms as you read the paper and make sure you understand all the things asked in the question. The key question usually lies in the end so read the whole thing.

As you read the question, think of a rough idea to answer each question. Take mental notes about the sources you will use, what theories and concepts would answer the question. It will help you fill gaps. You will be able to tell if you are missing something or all the concepts are allocated accordingly and how long can you spend in giving a response.

• Draft your Answers

Before you actually start writing, take some time to plan how you will answer the question. Sketch out an answer with arguments and thesis statements.

• Meta-Cognitive and Sign Posting

Now it’s time to draft your answers and the 5 paragraph structure will help you out. Start with an introduction paragraph and then write the rest of your answer. Use a lot of sign posting and try to be meta-cognitive in your answer. Take each paragraph to tell what every section will do and why. If your thoughts change slightly, go back and change it.

Use the first sentence as a mini introduction for each paragraph and tie it with the thesis statement and highlight what you are going to do in each paragraph. This entire plan acts as a road map to help you focus on a topic if you are running out of time.

Don’t lose hope on the amount of information out there on your topic. Literature research may seem like a lot of information that will make you drown in quicksand. Getting through this chunk of information is indeed a huge task but if you plan it, you can get rid of that problem, one bit at a time.

To help you get through all that information in small sizes, we have compiled an easy plan for you to follow.

Step 1: What do you want to find out?

Do you have a research question ready or are you looking for information to make your research question strong? Before you start reading all the relevant information, make up your mind about what you are researching for. If you are at the stage of exploring a topic or a subject, then state the purpose of your research as “understanding the basic ideas of topic ABC”. If you are looking for opposing theories on the effect of event A on event B, then write it down clearly.

Having a clear perspective and goal will help you find the right information at this step of the research. You will begin to notice that reading for different goals for your research will help you focus on various aspects of publication.

Step 2: How much time do you have on your hands?

You can spend the whole day or just 20 minutes on the entire paper. If you really want to manage your time in the best possible way, then give you work a structure. Plan the work by giving yourself deadlines.

Once you are aware how much time do you have on your hands, start planning. If you have a month for the entire research, take 1.5 weeks to go through the essentials, 1 week to explore the sidelines of your research and 1 week to write a literature review.

Step 3: Study the essentials

Identify the key publications of your study. A good way to start is to find an authentic and a detailed review paper or a report. Start the topic by chewing on the references on that paper or report.

To understand the basics of the new subject, you need to spend some time on it. Understand the basic equations and principles of that study. All this will require sitting down, noting down important points and slowly working your way through all the relevant material. The process will be similar to a student going through a difficult chapter of a textbook. You may find yourself spending too much time on the some papers. However, they will build the foundation of your research along with further readings.

Step 4: Speed through the Sidelines

Separate all the papers that you find interesting, give additional insights but are not relevant to the field of study. Note that these papers are not of lesser importance, you can’t skip the side information. You have to understand all the concepts spend less time in order to understand all the elements.

The key is to go through everything in a quick manner. It will be like speed-reading through everything. Train the eyes to look at a group of words rather than looking at a single word at a time.

Step 5: Archive what you read

Reading is important but finding that paper and looking for more information is a vital aspect in controlling the large chunk of information over the time.

You can keep a digital archive or archive hard copies. Arrange your document in such a way that you are able to find those papers even after three years.

Step 6: Keep an eye on the outcome

Don’t rely on information and results available when you first researching on a topic. What appeared to be the truth yesterday may not remain the same with today’s results. Develop a strategy to keep your research updated in order to maintain the best outcome. Subscribe to the publication updates of the relevant journals and set up RSS feed on relevant keywords.