This study aimed to investigate English summary writing of Korean low-level college students. All subjects were categorized as having low-level English ability from the college placement test. The two experiments were carried out under the same conditions and the English texts employed had the same reading levels. Data gathered from 80 English summary writings were analyzed in terms of the idea units on five importance levels, and the use of summary protocols. According to the result, firstly, the subjects in this study were able to choose the most important idea units from the text. However, they had difficulty choosing idea units which had the inclusion of major details and moderate important information that should appear in the summary. Second, the most frequently used scale for summary protocol in this experiment was 1a, which is given to the idea unit that subjects replicate one or more ideas from the original text, indicating that the subjects were heavily dependent on the source text. These findings suggest that Korean low-level college students are hardly aware of what a proper summary is and how to write it. This would therefore indicative that they need level-appropriate instruction and practice to help develop their skills.