Summarize:

In a quick free write, describe the academic journey of the article, listing the steps taken from starting point to concluding results, describing methodology and the form of the study undertaken.There is no need to be too specific; that's what the actual summary will be for. When you're first getting started, it's helpful to turn your filter off and just quickly write out what you remember from the article. These will help you discover the main points necessary to summarize. You might refer to these as the main supporting ideas, or sections, of the article. While these may be marked clearly with subheadings, they may require more work to uncover. Anything that's a major point used to support the main argument of the author needs to be present in the summary.  Depending on the research, you may want to describe the theoretical background of the research, or the assumptions of the researchers. In scientific writing, it's important to clearly summarize the hypotheses the researchers outlined before undertaking the research, as well as the procedures used in following through with the project. Summarize briefly any statistical results and include a rudimentary interpretation of the data for your summary. In humanities articles, it's usually good to summarize the fundamental assumptions and the school of thought from which the author comes, as well as the examples and the ideas presented throughout the article. Make sure all the major keywords that are used in the article make it into your summary. It's important that you fully examine the meanings of these more complicated terms so that your summary reader can grasp the content as you move forward with the summary. Any words or terms that the author coins need to be included and discussed in your summary. Journal summaries don't need to be anywhere close to the length of the articles themselves. The purpose of the summary is to provide a condensed but separate description of the research, either for use for the primary research collector, or to help you redigest the information at a later date in the research process. As a general rule of thumb, you can probably make one paragraph per main point, ending up with no more than 500-1000 words, for most academic articles. For most journal summaries, you'll be writing several short paragraphs that summarize each separate portion of the journal article.
Write down a brief description of the research. Decide what aspects of the article are most important. Identify key vocabulary to use in the summary. Aim to keep it brief.