HOW TO

SUMMARIZE

Library GI School

What is a summary?  A summary is the presentation of a general idea in brief form about a text, a book or an article. The most important thing in a summary is, to choose the right and main ideas and not re-write the same text again.Summarizing is more than retelling; it involves analyzing information, distinguishing important from unimportant elements and translating large chunks of information into a few short cohesive sentences. 

Library GI School

Why Is It Important?

•Summarizing allows both students and teachers to monitor comprehension of material.•Summarizing  helps  students  understand  the organizational structure of lessons or texts.•Summarizing  is  a  skill  at which most  adults must be proficient to be successful.

How to make a summary? To make a summary it is important to know if is for personal use or to let another people know the content of a specific text. 

To make a very good summary you have to do the following: 

Library GI School

Library GI School

1. CHOOSE THE MAIN IDEAS To do this is very important to: • Read very slowly the text to find the main idea.•Underline the most important ideas.•Mark the secondary ideas and key words  

Library GI School

2. TAKE NOTE and TAKE OFF •The notes you take in your first reading, will help you to know the topic of the book; then you have to complete it with the ideas you find in a second reading. • Cross out sentences that are not necessary or that are redundant to help you pull out what is crucial to the message of the piece.

  

3. LOOK FOR KEY WORDS

•Mark key words and phrases and jot down notes about the main idea.•Look for signal words such as therefore, in conclusion, or in summary. 

Library GI School

Library GI School

4. RE-WRITE THE INFORMATION YOU CHOOSE

In a summary, the chosen ideas can’t go the same way as in the original text. Those ideas must be reduce to the maximum but without losing sense.

Library GI School

5. LINK THE INFORMATION The ideas you reduce, must be organize in your summary. Generally is rather better to put the ideas in the same order as in the original text and connect one with another according to the original relation.  

Here  is  an  easy  way  to  begin  a  summary:  In  "[name of article]" [author] states . . . . [State the main point of the article first.] For example:  In  "Computer  Chess"*  Hans  Berliner  states  that  the CYBER  170  series  computer  can  perform  well  in  a  chess tournament.Cite  the  source  with  correct  bibliographic form.*Berliner, H.J. (1981). Computer Chess. Nature, 274(567), 745-748.[ author. article title. journal title. vol(number)/month: pages. ] 

Library GI School

So when you write a summary: State the main point first. Emphasize the main stages of though. State the article’s conclusion. Summarize rather than give a table of contents. 

Library GI School

Example:Wrong: This article covers the topic of measuring the extent of global deforestation. The article discusses reasons for concern, the technique, the results, and the project’s current goal.Right:According to the author of “Seeing the Forest,” the extent of global deforestation was difficult to measure until satellite remote sensing techniques were applied. Measuring the extent of global deforestation is important because of concerns about global warming and species extinctions. The technique compares old infrared LANDSAT images with new images. The authors conclude the method is accurate and cost effective.  

Read more on TeacherVision: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/skill-builder/reading-comprehension/48785.html#ixzz1ZAROdkDA

Library GI School