Example of a Stand-Alone Summary:

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Read the following summary:

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This work is the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. In the passage, there is a boat called The Nellie, waiting at rest in the sea. The setting is somewhere in Europe since it is near the river Thames. The air is dark and gloomy. The captain is well liked and very nautical in appearance. The idea of gloom is repeated many times.

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Next, read the passage below. Notice how the summary only includes the most important details and how the summary is about 1/4 of the length of the passage.

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The passage below comes from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. (Click here for link to full text)

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The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

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The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters ofcanvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth. The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

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