Summarizing Reading 1 What is summary A summary

Summarizing Reading 1

What is summary? • A summary is a brief overview of an entire discussion or argument. You might summarize a whole research paper or conversation in a single paragraph, for example, or with a series of bullet points, using your own words and style. • Summarizing is the retelling of the important parts of a passage in a much shorter form.

Why summarize? • To make sure you have understood something • To explain the sense of a passage to someone else • To review texts for examinations

What does a good summary include? • A good summary includes the main ideas and the major supporting points • A good summary does not include minor details, repeated details, or the reader's opinions.

Summarizing Sentence Taking out the unnecessary words. Use summary words to take the place of groups of words about the same topic. Keep only the words which tell the main point of the sentence. Example: The tall cowboy put the saddle on his horse, untied him from the fence, waved good-bye and rode off into the sunset Summary: The cowboy left

How to Write Summary Statements • Underline important information and write key words in margin. • Record ideas using a two-column note-taking system. Record questions you have about the text concepts in the left column and answers you find in the reading in the right column. • Identify how concepts relate to what you already know. • Add examples and detail.

For longer, overall summary projects that capture an entire reading, consider these guidelines for writing a summary: • A summary should contain the main thesis or standpoint of the text, restated in your own words. (To do this, first find thesis statement in the original text. ) • A summary is written in your own words. It contains few or no quotes. • A summary is always shorter than the original text, often about 1/3 as long as the original. It is the ultimate fat-free writing. An article or paper may be summarized in a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs. A book may be summarized in an article or a short paper. A very large book may be summarized in a smaller book. • A summary should contain all the major points of the original text, and should ignore most of the fine details, examples, illustrations or explanations. • The backbone of any summary is formed by crucial details (key names, dates, events, words and numbers). A summary must never rely on vague generalities. • If you quote anything from the original text, even an unusual word or a catchy phrase, you need to put whatever you quote in quotation marks (” “). • A summary must contain only the ideas of the original text. Do not insert any of your own opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments into a summary.

Summarizing paragraphs • Read the paragraph all the way through to be sure you understand it • Check to see if the paragraph contains a topic sentence. If the paragraph has a topic sentence, you can use the topic sentence as the summary • If the topic sentence is not a good statement of the main idea, write a summary which states the main idea • Take out unnecessary words

Summarizing short passages • Step 1 read the passage all the way through • Step 2 go back to the beginning and underline the topic sentence in each paragraph. If you cannot find a topic sentence, write a short summary of the paragraph. • Step 3 put the sentence from the paragraphs together. connect them with signal words or other connecting words.

Summarizing longer passages • Step 1. Read the passage all the way through • Step 2. Go back to the beginning and number the paragraphs in the text. • Step 3. Divide the text into parts. Notice which paragraphs focus on the same idea. • Step 4. For each part, write a sentence which summarizes all the paragraphs in it • Step 5. Tie all of those sentences together to form a summary, using signal words and other function words

EXERCISES • Exercise 1, page 167 -168 • Exercise 3, page 170 -171 • Exercise 6, page 172 -173