A summary, as compared to a paraphrase, is always much shorter that the original text.
When you write a summary, you limit yourself to giving your readers only the main idea/argument of an article or chapter of a book.
To write a good summary, keep the following points in mind.
- Read the original carefully ensuring that you understand the extract.
- Mention the author (and date) at the beginning of the summary and add again if you need to remind the reader that you are summarising another person’s ideas.
- State the author's main idea without distorting those ideas or adding your own.
- State the author's most important supporting evidence or sub-points without distorting them. Do not include details.
- Use your own wording. If there is a phrase in the original text that is especially striking, interesting, or controversial, or really cannot be changed without distorting its meaning, use the author's exact words. Make sure however that you put quotation marks around them if you do.
- Don't include your own ideas or comments (editorial remarks). The summary should include only the author's ideas.
Original text
“Migrants don't cost jobs”
by Peter Boyle (The Bulletin December,1998)
If recent polls are to be believed, a majority of Australians are in favour of stopping immigration at least in the short term. According to a November 2-3 AGB-McNair Poll, 62% are in favour of a "short term freeze", and a Bulletin Morgan Poll of October 22-23 found 66% in favour of "stopping immigration in the short term". While neither poll sought out the reasons for this anti-immigration sentiment, studies of earlier polls suggest that the main reason is a fear that immigration might be causing, or at least exacerbating, unemployment.
Widespread as this belief may be, it is totally false. Immigration is not causing the current levels of unemployment, nor making it worse. Indeed, economic studies indicate that cutting immigration now may actually worsen unemployment.
However, it is a fact that unemployment has grown dramatically in Australia (and all other industrialised countries) since the 1970s. With each recession since then unemployment has shot up to new highs. During the last recession (1990-1992) it passed the 10% mark. Even more disturbingly, with the "recoveries" following each recession, the unemployment rate refused to fall back by as much as it had previously risen. Thus today, well into the current "recovery", the unemployment rate is still 8.8%. And as the unemployment rate has ratcheted up so has the anti-immigration sentiment.
In the 1960s, polls showed that less than 20% of Australians believed that immigration was too high. In the 1970s, when unemployment began to rise, the polls showed that figure rise to 40-45%. In the 1980s, it was up to 50-60% and this has obviously increased recently. Yet over the same period, immigration (as a percentage of the population) was declining from a high in the late 1940s.
In addition, several detailed econometric studies by the (now dissolved) federal Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research and individual academics have established that immigration has a positive impact on the economy.
These studies explained that immigrants contributed to both demand and supply in the economy. They contribute to demand because they need housing, clothing, food and other goods and services to establish themselves in a new country. The studies estimate that, on average, an immigrant family creates, through adding to demand, four new jobs over the first four years of their life here.
On the supply side immigrants contribute their labour and any savings and assets they bring with them. Obviously, richer immigrants have more assets, but even this is dwarfed by immigrants' contribution through their labour. In this sense they "take" jobs, but the report says that, on balance, they create more jobs than they take. Thus, cutting immigration today would actually increase the unemployment rate slightly.
However, anti-immigration lobbies point to the higher unemployment rates suffered by recent immigrants especially those from non-English speaking backgrounds and refugees from wars or countries in severe economic crisis, as "proof" that cutting immigration can reduce unemployment.
Superficially, this argument appears to make sense, but it doesn't. Unemployed immigrants add to demand and create jobs (for others), even if they come with few assets and require social security support – which they may be denied under new discriminatory laws which ban most immigrants from receiving social security payments for their first two years in Australia. The studies found that on the whole, the initial cost to government from immigration (for social security, health and other services) is more than repaid in taxes collected from immigrants. Indeed, Australian governments "save" by escaping the cost of bringing up and educating immigrants who arrive as adults.
Coalition government cuts to the social security entitlements of recent immigrants and to special migrant education programs only worsen the plight of some of the main victims of unemployment. The cuts prolong their unemployment while giving credibility to the myth that immigration causes unemployment. The previous Labor government also encouraged anti-immigration sentiments by cutting immigration quotas, attacking the rights of refugees and reducing the rights of recent migrants.
So if immigration is not the cause of growing unemployment, it must be asked, what is?
Summary
Boyle (1998) argues that here is no evidence to support the belief that immigration is the cause of an increasing unemployment rate. In fact, quite the contrary to this, migrants contribute in positive ways to the economy through supply and demand. This claim is supported by studies done by the Federal Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population research. While anti-immigration lobby groups cite evidence of high unemployment rates amongst particular groups of migrants as proof that immigration is causing unemployment, Boyle claims that this is misleading. He says such evidence ignores the fact that studies have shown that migrants generally more than repay any initial government assistance through payment of taxes and that even the unemployed create demand. Moreover, government cuts in assistance to migrants only exacerbate this situation possibly increasing the length of periods of unemployment and adding to the myth that migrants cause unemployment.
