Writing Your Summary of Capabilities

Hi, and welcome back to our course, Build Your Professional ePortfolio in English. In this particular lesson, we’re going to write a summary of your capabilities, which is a description of who you are and what you have accomplished professionally. This summary can be used as a short biography for the About Me section of a portfolio, or as the first section of your LinkedIn Profile. The summary of your capabilities is a common part of most resumes and can be a great add to your ePortfolio page. Your summary should consist of three parts, an introduction of you, your accomplishments, and you skills. Let’s look a little closer at each of these parts and how to write them effectively. The first part of your summary is the introduction. This should be one to two sentences containing what you do, what your goal is right now, and your unique qualities. This part will give viewers a quick overview and a general impression of who you are as a professional. In the first sentence, start with your job title and your years of experience. For example, you could write, I am an accountant with 5 years of experience. I’m a teacher with 8 years of experience. Then, you will write your current goal. For example, I am seeking employment, or I’m looking for new opportunities in the field. You’ll notice in both examples, we use the be verb followed by main verb in the ing form. In other words, both sentences are written in the present progressive tense. So, we’ve looked at two short sentences so far. But to make your writing look a little more sophisticated, let’s combine them into one. The easiest way to do that is by using a comma and the word and. Your new sentence should look like this. I’m an accountant with five years of experience, and I’m seeking new opportunities in the field. Let’s say you’re a graphic artist and want to connect with others. Which would be the best choice for your first sentence? Now, let’s write a sentence that contains two essential qualities you have. Qualities are normally expressed by using adjectives. So to write this sentence, select two adjectives that best describe you. For example, my friends and colleagues, co-workers, probably would say, I’m a caring and dedicated professional. What would your friends or colleagues say about you? Try to complete this sentence with adjectives that best describe your professional qualities. That’s it for introduction. Let’s move on to the second part of your summary where you’ll highlight your accomplishments or things you did. In this part, you will write two to three sentences that include details of what you did and completed. For example, if you’re a carpenter you may write, I built custom kitchen cabinets. And if you’re a researcher, you might write, I composed a scientific article. For these sentences, you want to use past tense, so these are things you all ready did. Here are some verbs you can use to describe your accomplishments. To make sentences longer and more descriptive, you can add information about the client, the place, and the time. To add the client, use for plus person or persons. I built custom kitchen cabinets for 12 clients. Cities and countries normally take the preposition in, so you can include the location like this, I built custom kitchen cabinets for 12 clients in New York. Finally, add the year by writing the preposition in. Then, we would have, I built custom kitchen cabinets for 12 clients in New York in 2005. Let’s take the example of a biologist who has three major accomplishments. This is what his or her sentences may look like. I received the Dalton Stephens Scholarship for Excellence in biology in 2003. I managed 8 people for DE Lab in San Diego in 2009. I restructured the lab for ABC Hospital in Boston in 2004. To connect these sentences to the paragraph and make them sound more unified, you can add a few words to connect your ideas such as first, second, or third, or a transition words such as also, in addition, or finally. All put together, it can look something like this. First, I received the Dalton Stephens Scholarship for Excellence in biology in 2003. Additionally, I managed 8 people for DE lab in San Diego in 2009. Finally, I restructured the lab for ABC Hospital in Boston in 2013. Now that you know how to write your greatest accomplishments, we are going to talk about the final part of your summary of capabilities, which is to include a sentence with any other additional skills. This sentence is going to close your summary and present a list of skills that are relevant to your area of expertise. For example, your closing sentence could look like this, my skills include computer programming and web design. Or, I am skilled in computer programming and web design. If you want to include language skills, level of proficiency can be given in three main levels, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. You can write the name of the language followed by the proficiency level in parentheses like this. How would you complete this sentence with your skills? That’s it for the summary writing process. Make sure to check out the additional resources I’ve added to this lesson. So let’s review. In this lesson, we’ve learned how to write an effective summary for your ePortfolio. Your summary should consist of three parts, which includes an introduction of you, your accomplishments, and your skills. We’ve also looked at some different types of sentences using two different types of verb tenses and using appropriate vocabulary for each part. In our next lesson, we’re going to learn how to write captions for your ePortfolio work samples. I’ll see you then.