A summary paper's purpose is to answer the unknown.  A majority of the writing in your higher education experience will be this type of paper.  The goal of the paper is to instruct your reader in a particular topic and, in the process, learn more about a subject through research and understanding.

If you have described a movie to a friend who hasn’t seen it yet or explained to a classmate what he missed last class, then you have likely summarized before. Writing a summary, we take the ideas of another person, choose the most important ones, and put them into our own words so that our reader can have a good idea of what the original text is about. A summary, therefore, is another person’s ideas put into your own words.

The length of a summary may vary; for example, the summary of a book may be several pages long while the summary for an article may be one paragraph. The length of your summary often depends on the length of the work you are summarizing and the assignment details.

This paper style is useful in learning basic research skills.  By wanting to answer a question, you will learn valuable skills that can help you better analyze sources of information and present information in a clear and concise manner.