Writing a Summary

Information about the guidelines

To cite these guidelines: Marsden, E., Andringa, S., Alferink, I., Bolibaugh, C., Collins, L., Dudley, A., Jackson, C., Kasprowicz, R., O’Reilly, D., & Plonsky, L. (2024) Guidelines for Writing and Open Accessible Summary (3rd ed.). https:///oasis-help.

Last updated: 19/12/2024

If you would like to download these guidelines, we recommend printing this page as a pdf.

Please note: The previous (2nd) edition of the guidelines can be found here.

Index of information for contributors and users

Information for all summary writers

Uploading OASIS summaries to the database

From early January 2025, individuals will be able to upload their own summaries to OASIS. When that service becomes fully live, individuals will be able to simply enter information about the summary and original article and then generate their summary, within the interface, using the new summary creator tool. Videos of signed summaries can also be uploaded within the interface.

What should I do if I want to share the summary with others first? (e.g., co-authors, my course instructor, a journal editor, and/or author of the original article)

EITHER: You can use the summary creator on our self-service submission interface when drafting your summary to ensure the correct formatting and length. Your work will be automatically saved. You can download a PDF of a draft to send to others. Then, you can come back and edit it, as needed, and submit. You will find your draft on the my overview page when logged in.

OR: You can draft your summary on an offline template, share and work on it with others, and then submit it using the summary creator. Templates are available in the following formats:

To access the google doc templates: Open the Google document with the OASIS template that you want to use. Navigate to File -> Make a copy. DO NOT REQUEST EDIT ACCESS! Please note: you will not be able to edit the version that you see online. You must make your own copy.

If you experience any difficulties, please contact oasis@oasis-database.org.

If you wish, you can still use the templates and send your word version to oasis-database.org for them to submit on your behalf. This service will remain until 28th February 2024 (inclusive).

Principles underlying OASIS summaries

The principles underlying Open Accessible Summaries are to:

  • Summarise articles from journals that focus on language-related topics. The journals must be on the Social Science Citation Index, the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, or the Science Citation Index Expanded. This can be checked on the Clarivate Master Journal list. At present, OASIS does not accept articles from journals on the Emerging Sources Citation Index. There are no date restrictions: The articles can be as old or as recent as you like. They can include empirical, conceptual, or review articles.
  • Use non-technical language.
  • Provide enough context—within the scope of a single page—to let interested readers know the extent to which a given summary might be relevant to their own context.
  • Stay faithful to the study so that the original researcher(s)/author(s) would also be happy with the summary (if they are not writing the summary). Researchers usually aim to not overstate their findings and often couch them through hedging and caveats, for example. In other words, the accessible summaries should stick to the study and its findings, without exaggerating implications.
  • Provide sufficient information to raise awareness about and spark interest in language-related research. For research that focuses on language-related professions (e.g., language education, speech and language therapy), the aim is to help practitioners and policy-makers reflect on their own contexts and practices in ways that can contribute to more informed decisions. The goal is not necessarily to provide concrete advice.

Content and structure of OASIS summaries

Please use the following subheadings when drafting your summary. Your summary must follow this format and not exceed one page to be eligible for upload to OASIS.

1. Title for the summary

This should not necessarily be identical to the actual article title, but rather a short title that perhaps captures a primary finding or goal of the study. Consider, where appropriate, not mentioning a specific language in the title to allow for the potential for research to be relevant to languages beyond those under investigation in the summarised study.

2. What this study is about and why it is important

Include: (1) a statement about why it is important to have the knowledge that was sought in the study, (2) a very short description of the broad approach taken to doing the research, and (3) a short statement summarizing key outcome(s) or finding(s).

3. What the researchers did

  • Provide information about the method of the study here.
  • Use bullets for each relevant piece of information.
  • Focus on information that helps readers outside academia contextualise the study.
  • Leave out information that is technical and very detailed.
  • Avoid jargon about research design, methods, or analysis.

Remember: As the original articles have gone through peer review, we can be sufficiently confident that the methods were rigorous, at least for the purposes of the summary. The summaries can therefore focus instead on the study’s purpose, context, design, materials, and findings, without needing to justify complex designs, constructs, methods, or measures.

3. What the researchers found

  • Describe the main findings of the study in simple terms.
  • Use bullet points to list key findings.
  • Use a logical order that groups findings into easily understandable ‘chunks’.
  • Avoid reference to statistics and statistical terms.

4. Things to consider

  • Interpret the major finding(s) and state key implications or conclusions, but without over-generalizing.
  • Discuss what the findings of the study may mean, without over-generalizing.
  • You could perhaps discuss: possible explanations for ‘odd’ findings, possible avenues for future investigation, potential limitations of the study.
  • You can also pose questions considering ways in which the study might relate to a likely reader’s own context.
  • You can use bullet points.

To help you write your accessible summary, we have prepared a powerpoint presentation, with an annotated example summary. We also have two summaries that have been written by the OASIS team as examples:

The usefulness of giving grammar rules for accuracy in a free writing task

Who knows more words: bilingual or monolingual children?

See here for guidance on uploading your summary.

Style and language requirements of OASIS summaries

  • Please try to ask a non-expert to read and comment on your summary whenever possible.
  • Use language appropriate for an educated (with a bachelor’s [undergraduate] degree) but non-expert audience that could include (1) interested language teachers, in primary through to university sectors, probably without a master's; (2) teacher educators, who may sometimes have graduate-level training; and/or (3) other interested parties including researchers, language testing professionals, policy makers, parents, media, etc. Thus, try to include sufficient information to make the summary of interest to a variety of readers and to enable readers to evaluate the relevance of a given study for themselves.
  • Avoid using technical terms and jargon wherever possible. For example: ‘output-based practice’ → ‘production practice’, or ‘writing or speaking practice’; ‘implicit’ → ‘without awareness’; ‘metalinguistic’ → ‘technical terms to describe language itself’; ‘intervention/exposure/treatment’ → ‘instruction’ or ‘teaching’; ‘pre- and post-test’ → ‘before and after the instruction’. Avoid the term ‘significant’, in any of its meanings, to avoid confusion with ‘statistical significance’, which is not a non-technical concept.
  • Define any potentially unfamiliar terms very early on in the summary. You can include a ‘Definitions’ box if you wish. However, bear in mind this will use up space.
  • Keep an international audience in mind, especially when referring to educational stages or qualifications. For example, use the term ‘university’ rather than ‘college’; ‘high school’ can mean different things in different places; give ages instead of, or as well as, school classes, semesters, years, or courses; and give international language proficiency levels where available. Use the term ‘learners’ instead of ‘students’ to refer to participants in a study about learning, to avoid confusion with ‘students’ at the university level.
  • Avoid describing the research in terms of Yes/No questions (e.g., Can learners…? Do teachers…?). Try to use “to what extent” or “how” kind of questions. This is especially important in the context of accessible summaries so as to avoid the implication that research can provide a ‘quick fix’ to a problem.
  • Write the summary using the past tense, throughout. This can reduce any unwarranted generalisation of findings to other contexts. For example:
    • results showed that
    • the main factor explaining xxx was probably
    • learners improved
  • Use determiners (like ‘these’, ‘the’, ‘our’) to emphasise the ‘particular’. For example:
    • these learners made gains of approximately x compared to the comparison group
    • the teachers expressed concerns about ...

Using artificial intelligence to write an OASIS summary

OASIS is aware of developments in artificial intelligence (AI) regarding content creation and we recognise that AI-based apps might be useful tools to facilitate accessible summary writing. While we encourage the use of AI-based apps in summary writing, OASIS requires that any summary has been checked by a human for nuance, coherence, accuracy, and faithfulness to the original article.

The following statement can be found on the About page:

‘AI-based applications may be used in the summary writing process. Any uploaded summaries will have been checked by a human for accuracy, coherence, and faithfulness to the original article. OASIS is aware that this is an area in which best practice is evolving. We will continue to review our practices and will update our guidelines in line with developments in the wider community’.

Information for authors from journals that are collaborating with OASIS

A number of journals require or invite their authors to write an accessible summary of their publication. The procedure for each journal varies. Please follow the instructions your journal has sent you.

Before writing your summary, please read the guidelines provided in the information for all summary writers section above. This section includes information about:

Information for authors from other journals

If your publication appeared in a journal that is not a collaborating journal, you can still submit an accessible summary. OASIS accepts summaries from other journals provided that:

  1. they are about a language-related topic;
  2. they appear in a journal listed on the Social Science Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, or Science Citation Index Expanded (SSCI, A&HCI, or SCIE, not Emerging Sources); and
  3. they follow the the guidelines provided in the information for all summary writers section above. This section includes information about:

Writing summaries as coursework (students)

OASIS accepts summaries written by people who are not the original authors. However, the process has some extra steps.

  1. Picking an article to write a summary of:

    • First check that a summary is not already available on the website.
    • Avoid choosing papers from recent or live editions of Collaborating Journals. These journals are asking all their authors to write summaries, and so it is likely we already have a summary of these articles, even if it sometimes takes a little while to appear online. Summaries of earlier articles from these journals would be welcome.
    • Check that the article appeared in a journal listed on the Social Science Citation Index, Arts and Humanities Citation Index, or Science Citation Index Expanded (SSCI, A&HCI, or SCIE, not Emerging Sources)
    • If you are writing an accessible summary as coursework, then please also follow your course instructor's guidance on choosing an article.

  2. Writing your summary

  3. Contacting the original authors

It is our policy to contact the authors of the original publication and give them the opportunity to approve and/or edit the summary. We provide an email template and two follow up templates (follow up 1 and follow up 2) you can use. Please cc your course instructor and the OASIS database in the email. If after two follow ups you have not received a response, please proceed to upload the summary.

  1. Upload your summary to the OASIS database.

For guidance on how to upload your summary, please see the following subsection: uploading OASIS summaries to the database.

Writing summaries as coursework (instructors)

A number of course instructors have used writing accessible summaries of research articles as coursework for postgraduate courses on language-related topics. Student summaries can be published on OASIS provided that:

  1. the article you are summarising is on a language-related topic

  2. the original article appeared in a journal listed on the Social Science Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, or Science Citation Index Expanded (SSCI, A&HCI, or SCIE, not Emerging Sources)

  3. the summary follows the guidelines provided in the information for all summary writers section above. This section includes information about:

  4. the original authors have been contacted for their approval and/or edits

Students can find information on picking an article and writing a summary in the writing summaries as coursework (students) section above.

If you are considering using OASIS for coursework, please let us know at oasis@oasis-database.org.

OASIS summaries in other languages

OASIS strives to be a multilingual resource. We accept summaries in languages other than English and translations of summaries already held on the database.

If you are writing a summary in a language other than English or translating your own summary:

  1. Please look at the list below to see if a template is already available in your language. If so, please use it to write your summary or translation. If not, please translate your own headings and send us these heading at oasis@oasis-database.org. We will add them to the list for other people to use.

  2. We recommend you ask someone to proofread your summary or translation.

  3. Please upload the final version of your summary to the OASIS database. For guidance on how to upload your summary to the database, please see the following subsection: uploading OASIS summaries to the database.

If you are writing a summary of someone else's article in a language other than English or translating someone else’s summary:

  1. Please look at the list below to see if a template is already available in your language. If so, please use it to write your summary or translation. If not, please translate your own headings and send us these heading at oasis@oasis-database.org. We will add them to the list for other people to use.

  2. Please ask someone to check your summary or translation. The checker needs to be someone who can assess the language, the faithfulness of the translation, and the original publication if necessary. They preferably have a PhD or some relevant research experience. Please send them your summary along with the original article or the translation along with the original summary and the original article.

  3. Please upload the final version of your summary to the OASIS database. For guidance, please see uploading OASIS summaries to the database. If relevant, please also include the name of the translator and checker.

To use the templates below, please follow the instructions listed below:

  1. Open the Google document with the OASIS template that you want to use.
  2. Navigate to File -> Make a copy. DO NOT REQUEST EDIT ACCESS! Please note that you will not be able to edit the version that you see online. You must make your own copy.
  3. Write a summary following the guidelines provided in the information for all summary writers section above. This section includes information about:
  4. Upload the summary directly to the OASIS database. For guidance, please see uploading OASIS summaries to the database.

We follow APA guidelines for citing translations. Here is an example:

Brekelmans, G. (2022). 外国語の音を聞き分けを学ぶとき、さまざまな人の声を聞くことは有効か？(H. Saito, Trans.). OASIS Summary of Brekelmans et al. (2022) in Journal of Memory and Language.

Michel, M., Appel, C. & Cipitria, S. (2022). Alineación léxica y sintáctica en conversación en segunda lengua. (M. Michel, C. Appel, & S. Cipitria, Trans.). OASIS Summary of Michel, Appel, & Cipitria (2022) in System.

Warren, L. K. & Sato, M. (2024). Multilingüismo y native speakerism en las políticas lingüísticas de revistas académicas: Las revistas tienen el poder de generar un cambio. (L.K. Warren & M. Sato Trans.) OASIS Summary of Warren & Sato (2024) in Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

Templates and headings

Arabic template

Arabic template (headings-only)

Catalan template (headings-only)

Chinese template

Chinese template (headings-only)

Dutch template (headings-only)

French template

French template (headings-only)

German template

German template (headings-only)

Hebrew template

Italian template (headings-only)

Japanese template (headings-only)

Korean template (headings-only)

Spanish template (headings-only)

Turkish template (headings-only)

Vietnamese template (headings-only)

Ideas for using OASIS summaries

This article in TESOL Connections includes some practical suggestions for how to include OASIS summaries in your practice. The article is aimed at English language teachers, but the workflow can easily be adapted for other areas.

Information for journal editors

OASIS currently has 20 collaborating journals (see the full list), seven of which require all their authors to write an OASIS summary of their accepted article. Other journals encourage their authors to do so as well.

OASIS invites other peer-reviewed journals on the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Arts & Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI), or the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) to join us in making research findings in language-related areas more accessible. Our current selection of journals is skewed towards applied linguistics, but OASIS’ intended scope is wide and includes language-related research broadly interpreted.

For more information on the process and how to present the initiative to an editorial board see the materials for editors.

If you would like your journal to join OASIS or if you have any queries, then please contact us at oasis@oasis-database.org.

Information for supporting or collaborating organisations

OASIS has a steady supply of new summaries through our association with a number of academic journals and we add 8-12 new summaries each week. Foreign Language Annals, Language Learning, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, TESOL Quarterly, The Modern Language Journal, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching (opt out policy), and Language Teaching Research (opt out policy) all require all their authors to write an OASIS summary of any accepted paper and many other journals encourage their authors to do so as well. See our full list of collaborating journals.

Now OASIS needs the support of professional organisations to spread the word about the rich resource we have created.

We ask our supporting and collaborating organisations to do the following to help us with dissemination and visibility:

  • Put OASIS as a resource on the organisation's website.
  • Include an item about OASIS in your organisation's newsletter. We are happy to provide text.
  • Encourage your organisation's members to sign up to our (customizable) weekly email with links to all new summaries.
  • Follow us on X/Twitter or Bluesky.
  • Provide us with a short statement of support to put on our website.

We are also interested in discussing funding opportunities and are open to collaborating on projects and exploring other ways to reach new audiences. For example, we are keen to work with other groups (e.g., projects, initiatives, associations) who would like to create or select their own ‘Collection’ of OASIS summaries. These partners would then curate this Collection on OASIS, using, growing, and annotating it for their own purposes.

If your organisation is interested in supporting OASIS and / or collaborating with us or if you have any queries, then please contact us at oasis@oasis-database.org.

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