Summary Writing

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Summary Writing - Table of Contents
Introduction
The Press File
The Bill Text
The Bill Summary Sheet
The Writing Process
Summary Checks
FAQs
Resources
Final Note

This page contains information about how to prepare for a bill, read and analyze a bill, write concise summaries in the Vote Smart format, and achieve our goal of publishing accurate, accessible, and unbiased information. This page will be your main resource while writing summaries for the first few weeks, and you should refer back to it whenever you have any uncertainty regarding the process.
Use the links in the table of contents to jump down to any section, and click the header name to jump back up to the table of contents.


Introduction


Overview of the Process

As a summary writer, you will be responsible for creating the main content of a live summary. When writing your original summary, you will have many tools to use to effectively summarize a bill. This includes a copy of the bill text, a press file of relevant articles, and previous Key Votes on similar topics that are already staff checked and live on our website. You will write your original summary on a bill summary sheet, which is a Google doc the original summary writer will create from a template. After you have finished working on the summary, input your name and date on the applicable entry on the Bill Report and update your "In Progress" Status so a staff member can check your entry.

What You Will Need

When working on a bill summary you should have the following resources open and available: Other Useful pages include:

Sample Bill Summary Process

This link provides a rudimentary, visual step-by-step guide to creating a bill summary: Sample


The Press File

The press file is a major source of research for determining why a Key Vote is important, what issue position is at stake (e.g.: abortion, taxes, healthcare), and which provisions should be covered in your summary. Although you will come into contact with the press file first, keep in mind that you are summarizing the bill text and that the press file will only serve as your guide and not your ultimate source.
In some cases, press files will contain many articles, resulting in a rather lengthy document. Although reading each article may seem repetitive, it is important that you get a full picture of what voters have already been told about the legislation, because this is the information that the general public will be most interested in and looking to learn more about. The press file will be a strong guideline for the minimum information which your summary should cover. Our general rule of thumb is "if it's in the press file, it's in our summary." If you have a compelling reason why you think a provision mentioned in the press file doesn’t merit inclusion in your summary, ask a staff member about it.

Getting Information from the Press File

Follow this link to learn how to locate information in the press file and know how to incorporate this information in your summary:

Plagiarism

When utilizing the press file for assistance in writing the summary, it is extremely important that you avoid plagiarism. Do not duplicate the language of the press. Your summaries must be original, meaning the language of your summary must be authored by you and you alone. Even copying four or five words out of the press, depending on the phrasing, could be considered plagiarism. Please be extra careful and cautious about this. Also, remember that the information in the press is not always completely accurate. We have found that the press will relatively often get their facts wrong, and report that the bill does something that it may not actually do, or at least not in the same manner. You should use the press file as a guide in determining what provisions of the bill to include in the summary, but always be sure to rely only on the bill text itself when stating what a particular section does. In contrast to the press file, language from the bill text can be utilized in your summary word-for-word and is not considered plagiarism because it is a public document.


The Bill Text

It is your responsibility to provide a clear, accurate, and nonpartisan representation of the actual bill text. After reviewing the press file, you will read the bill text. Always keep in mind that you are summarizing the bill text itself, and that all other tips and tools mentioned on this wiki page are there to help you accomplish that task. All of the provisions in your summary will be part of the actual bill text. This is important to keep in mind because a press file might have errors. For example, the press file might state that a department is required to do something, when the bill text states that it "may" do so. Reading and understanding the bill text itself is key to your ability to summarize it. Keep in mind that though the bill text is your source, the aim is to write as plainly as possible.

Each bill will vary in its length and complexity, as well as in appearance. Each state will have its own way of putting together the bill text and denoting existing law, stricken law, and new law. Some bill texts will have a key for this information at the bottom of the first page, but most will not. If you are confused about how to interpret the bill text, please ask a staff member.

You will notice that the bill text contains many more provisions than are mentioned in the Press File. When faced with this, you might ask yourself: Which provisions should I summarize? They all look important! In this scenario, it is important to keep in mind two things when deciding whether to include or exclude a provision from your summary:

The Bill Summary Sheet

The bill summary sheet is the internal document where you will write your summary and record important information about that vote stage. The original summary writer is always responsible for creating the original bill summary sheet and filling in all the required fields. Each selected Key Vote will need to have its own unique bill summary sheet for it, even if the votes are on the same bill text. For example, Key Votes for the Senate Passage with Amendment and House Concurrence stages of a bill would have the same press file and summary highlights, since they are based on the same bill text. However, each vote would have its own bill summary sheet.

Preparing the Bill Summary Sheet


To prepare the bill summary sheet, you will refer to the basic information on the Bill Report and the bill history in the bill folder. You will learn more about using the information from the Bill Report when learning how to enter and record votes on our website.


The Writing Process

This section will cover how to create the highlights that form your bill summary. Each topic below contains important information about how to create a summary that is consistent with the Vote Smart style and that contains relevant, readable, and non-partisan details of what a bill actually does. Your summary should answer all the questions that a voter would likely ask about a piece of legislation (including the who, what, where, when, and why). It should not be exhaustive, but rather concise, and contain as little technical jargon as possible. While there are certain prescribed steps and formatting that you must follow, each writer will have their own way of presenting this information and deciding how much specific detail is necessary. Navigating this gray area is a skill that you will develop over time.

Title & Synopsis

Each summary writer must review the title and synopsis of the bill, which is created during the vote entry stage. These parts of the bill summary are extremely important, as they present the dominant underlying action the bill is taking. The title and synopsis created during the vote entry stage is preliminary and based on a brief amount of time spent on the press file and bill text. As a summary writer, you will be in the best position to create an accurate and descriptive title and synopsis. It is often helpful to go back and review these elements once you have created the rest of the bill summary and are most familiar with the bill. Please read through the links below to thoroughly understand how to craft a title and synopsis.



Structure of Highlights

Your summary will be made up of a title, synopsis, and bullet-point type highlights. Very simple legislation will sometimes only require a detailed synopsis line. Use the guidelines below to construct your highlights.

Basic Formatting Rules


Content Guidelines & Resources

While the key details should remain the same, each writer will have a different approach to summarizing a given bill. Some provisions will be easy to understand and to identify as significant, while others will require reviewing the press file, existing code, or other research materials in more depth. Use the tools and guidelines below to form the content of your summary and learn how to work on specific types of bills.

Summary Checks

Vote Smart's mission to provide accurate, clear, unbiased information is the basis for our check process, and it should be at the forefront of your mind when working on summary checks. Each individual who works on a bill summary has a responsibility to ensure that everything we produce for the public meets this standard.

Process & Storage

The check must be performed by a staff member who did not write the summary, after which the summary is ready to be released live. For further information, refer to the releasing votes and summaries guide. The staff member also must do a quick check for presentation on the live website after releasing the summary live.

Goals

As stated earlier, a summary check should go through the exact same research and writing steps that are used for creating an original summary. A summary check should be approached with the same gravity and attention to detail as is given to an original summary. However, there are some special notes to keep in mind when performing a summary check:
  1. The primary goal for a summary check is to make sure that the current version is accurate, nonpartisan, follows all required Vote Smart formatting, and includes all the relevant information mentioned in the press file once it is confirmed to also be in the bill text. This also means that if any confirmed provisions mentioned in the press file are not included, they must be added during the check.
  2. The secondary goal for a summary check is to make the summary as clear, concise, and accessible as possible. Keep in mind that each writer will have their own way of getting across the meaning of the bill, and that many versions will meet the basic goals of a summary. However, as an editor you should not be afraid to make changes to make the content of the summary clearer and more concise. The process of each person differs, and the previous writer may have missed something in one area which you can improve upon.

Tips & Guidelines

Summary checks must be performed as if you were writing the summary yourself. You should check the information that was included in the summary at every step of the summary writing process, including, but not limited to, the following:

Although a summary check requires a check of every step in the process, priority is given to those first three factors:
Feel free to mark up the previous version's bill summary sheet in order to note areas you want to change or fix.

FAQs

Check out our Frequently Asked Questions page for help on formatting, grammar, and common questions not otherwise covered by this page.

Resources

Vote Entering Guide
Writing Tips
Common Bill Titles
BillSummarySheetTerms
Contact Information for State Legislatures
Roll Call Numbers
Legislative Glossaries
Legislative Process Training Guide
Policy Concepts
Statutes, Constitutions, and Legislative Rules
Key Votes Categories
Category Idioms and Examples



FINAL NOTE

As we stated at the beginning of this page, you will find yourself on this page everyday as you work on bill summaries. While there is a lot to keep track of, know that you are expected to look back at this document and that your focus when using it should be to remember where to find the information that you need.

Finally, our emphasis is always going to be on the quality of the work produced, rather than the quantity. Furthermore, know that complexity and length will vary from bill to bill. This will cause the appearance that some are working faster than others, when in reality the bill itself determines the amount of time that should be spent summarizing it. We encourage you to take your time on each bill and each provision that you work on.
















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