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How To Summarize A Text

The document provides guidance on how to summarize a text in 3 steps or less. It begins with defining a summary and its purpose of presenting a synthesis of the original text's main ideas. It then outlines the steps to create a good summary: (1) read and understand the original text, (2) separate main and secondary ideas, and (3) write the summary using your own words. Finally, it discusses elements of a summary such as the title, synthesis of ideas, and bibliographic sources and provides recommendations like following a logical order and avoiding literal fragments.

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25 views18 pages

How To Summarize A Text

The document provides guidance on how to summarize a text in 3 steps or less. It begins with defining a summary and its purpose of presenting a synthesis of the original text's main ideas. It then outlines the steps to create a good summary: (1) read and understand the original text, (2) separate main and secondary ideas, and (3) write the summary using your own words. Finally, it discusses elements of a summary such as the title, synthesis of ideas, and bibliographic sources and provides recommendations like following a logical order and avoiding literal fragments.

Uploaded by

dewifirdayanti3
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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How to

Summarize a text?
Table of contents
01 What is a text summary?

02 Steps to make a summary

03 Elements of a summary

04 Some recommendations...
01

What is a text
summary?
What is a text summary?

Definition Purpose What you need


The summary of a text is a Present a synthesis of the Take the most important
piece of writing of an contents that the author of the elements of a main theme and
informative nature. original text transmitted discard all those points that
through the writing. serve as a complement,
decoration or filler.
02
Steps to make a
good summary
Steps to make a good summary
Read and understand the original text:
01 If you want to make a good summary, you must make sure you
understand every detail about the original topic. It is necessary to
read the content to be summarized slowly in order to identify the
main and secondary ideas.

Separate main ideas from secondary


02 ideas and complements:
After reading the text, it is necessary to separate the main ideas,
secondary ideas and complements in each paragraph. A highlighter
can be used for this purpose.
Transcribe the separate ideas:
03 After classifying the different ideas within the original document,
you should proceed to transcribe them to a blank sheet of paper,
trying to form coherent paragraphs with them.

Writing the summary


04 Once the most important points of the text have been organized, a
new text is written using them. It is highly recommended that the
latter is done using your own words.
Refine the summary:
Once the summary is structured, it will be necessary to read it a few
05 times to make sure that it provides all the desired information. At
this point, you can make any adjustments you consider necessary.

Add a title to the summary


Finally, a title should be given to the summary. In addition, it is
06 advisable to indicate the source from which the information is
obtained, providing data such as the title, author and publisher of
the original document.
Elements of a
03 summary
Elements of a summary
● A summary is composed of different elements that give
shape and coherence to the ideas expressed in the text.
● When considering how to summarize, it is necessary to
know the importance and function of summaries.
Elements of a summary

The title of the The synthesis of Bibliographic


summary ideas sources
The title is one of the most The summary itself. The In this section the data of the
important elements of the organized and coherent sources used to extract the
summary. It will let the reader synthesis of the most important information will be indicated.
know the topic to be covered points extracted from the Such as web pages, books,
in the paper. document used as a source. papers, documents, among
others.
04
Some
recommendations
Some recommendations
Follow an order:
If you want your summary to make sense, the ideas in it must follow a
logical order. Otherwise, the text will be very difficult to understand.
In general, it is recommended that the text be structured from the
general to the specific.

Avoid using literal fragments of the


original text:
Summaries should be written in your own words, making use of key
points or ideas extracted from the original text, and classified as main
or secondary.
Some recommendations
Do not write in first person
The first person is used to express an opinion. However, summaries seek
to explain a topic in a synthesized form, not to express an opinion about
it. Therefore, it is recommended to use the third person.

Avoid past tense verbs:


Past tense verbs are often used to narrate a text. However, during a
summary, you want to explain it. Because of this, it is necessary to use
only verbs in the present tense.
Some recommendations
Do not use adjective clauses:
This kind of clauses do not add valuable content to the summary and may
increase its length more than desired. At the same time, it is relatively
easy to replace them with adjectives.

Do not copy verbatim quotations:


Even if the original text includes quotations, these should not be
incorporated into the summary. Only the main idea of the quotation
should be captured and structured with your own words.
Some recommendations
Avoid listing:
Enumerations should be replaced by general ideas that encompass
the elements to be named.
Instead of "Maria bought apples, pineapples, strawberries...", you can
say: "Maria bought fruits".
Remember…

En u
s es ⇆ m
From general Use t
h ir Cl au i v es g en er at i o n
to specific perso d ad j ec
t eral s
i d ea ⇆
n s

Use ow
n
words
Use of a highlighter
Present tense verbs
Thanks
Do you have any questions?

[email protected]

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