ILS Session 5 Summarising and paraphrasing Objectives Participate

ILS Session 5: Summarising and paraphrasing

Objectives Participate in a team challenge! n Examine good tips for note taking n Try out a series of note taking techniques n Create a code book. n

Team challenge n n n In your groups nominate a person to be a viewer and a summariser. The rest of you line up one at a time. The viewer will view an item at the front of the class for 15 seconds, they will need to be thinking about how they can describe what they see to the first person in the line. The message gets passed down the line to the summariser who has to recreate what they have heard. The viewer has 5 tries to pass the message down to the summariser.

Show your picture n How could you have sent the message clearer down the line in the time available? n What would have been the best strategies for summarising the information?

Good tips for summarising n n n n Don’t write down everything! Concentrate on the meat. Use key words or very short sentences. Think a minute about your material before you start making notes - don’t take notes just to be taking notes! Create your own code and abbreviations, e. g. “weakness” is always abbreviated to Don’t worry about missing a point. Leave space and try to pick up the material you miss later Shortly after making your notes, go back and rework Use symbols to call attention to important words: underline, CAPS, circle, box, *, !, ?

Putting it into practice - model An obvious weakness of the study is its lack of ecological validity. The situation in which the participants had to sleep was unusual and could have affected their sleep patterns. Also the nature of the method of waking participants may have affected their ability to recall their dream. A further problem with the study was the sample size. The sample size was small and only included 2 females so we could argue that the results were biased towards the dream pattern of men rather than women. Subsequent studies have found that there are large differences between individuals in the reports of dreaming during REM. Subsequent studies have not supported Dement and Kleitman’s findings that there is a relationship between eye movements and what the person is dreaming about. However the method was very tightly controlled. For example the researchers were able to control the location, sleeping time and the participants use of stimulants.

Your turn n n The first reports of Hans are when he was 3 years old when he developed an active interest in his ‘widdler’ (penis), and also those of other people. For example on one occasion he asked ‘Mummy, have you got a widdler too? ’ Throughout this time, the main theme of his fantasies and dreams was widdlers and widdling. When he was about three years and six months old his mother told him not to touch his widdler or else she would call the doctor to come and cut it off. Around the same time, Hans’ mother gave birth to his sister Hanna, and Hans expressed jealousy towards her though this disappeared after a few months. Hans had considerable interest in other children, especially girls, and formed emotional attachments with them.

Be careful. . . n Today’s session is mostly focused on making notes in class and in your own study time for your own information abbreviations and note form will not be suitable for homework’s or exams and tests.

Create your own summarising code n Using your code log book start filling in some of the abbreviations and codes that you may use in your writing.