Week 2
- 1. Using Information: getting to the point • Describe and explain methods for identifying key points in a source • Implement techniques for note- making and summarising • Write a summary from a piece of text
- 2. Summarising your information • So, you have all heard some summaries and prepared your own. • How did you do it? • Why is summarising an important skill at university?
- 3. Why you should summarise your reading Avoiding plagiarism. Demonstrates your understanding of what you have read. It shows you have ‘got to the point’ of the reading. Provides evidence for your own points.
- 4. In small groups, discuss which is the best summary of the extract you have been given. Why do you think it is the best one? Why? COVID-19 has shown that compliance depends on psychological filters. We are not always rationale when dealing with information and psychology has shown we can be biased, so “COVID-19 impacts the elderly and those with pre-existing health conditions most severely” could be interpreted by many young people as meaning they are safe. This could be due to the ‘affect heuristic’, which enables us to problem solve and reach decisions quickly but using emotion and not logic. Even when new data from authorities came in, they ignored it. This is called ‘psychological numbing’. Young people’s responses to COVID- 19 can illustrate biased reasoning, or ‘psychological numbing’. The ‘affect heuristic’ means many may have emotionally, rather than rationally, responded to early reports that the virus was serious for the elderly and unwell. They therefore took fewer safety measures because their brains read the information as meaning the young were immune, despite emerging evidence that they are equally at risk (Beattie and McGuire, 2020).
- 5. So, a good summary ... • Is shorter than the original • Highlights the key point • It may refer to the most important evidence used by the author • Doesn’t repeat too many of the words from the original • References the author and the year it was written
- 6. The best way to write good summaries is to make good notes with active reading • Note-taking is writing down what you read, as close to word-for- word as possible. Can be passive and makes summarising more difficult. • Note-making is selective and has a stronger purpose. and individual; You ask questions and create your own notes. It is a more active process and makes summarising easier and more effective.
- 7. The best way to write good summaries is to make good notes with active reading Keep talking to yourself and step away from the words. Ask: What is being said? What does it mean? Are my questions being answered? Is it important? How can I use it? How does it compare to other sources?
- 8. One effective method is… Read through a section of the text without writing down or highlighting anything. Write down 3-5 key words that come to mind after reading (e.g. specific terms, a key finding). Write your notes directly from these key words. Keep asking yourself key questions before deciding what to write: is this what I need to know? How will I use it? Refer back to the original. You may need to add a little more detail.
- 9. • Using the article by Holt on what our eyes say while we’re wearing face masks, try this technique out. • Compare your notes with the person next to you. Are they the same, or are they different? Why?
- 10. Now you have some good notes, you can write a summary of the article • In small groups, use all your notes to write a brief summary of the article • Once you have written it, stick it up on the wall.
- 11. Online activities for this week • Complete the Active Reading Quiz (Canvas) • Complete the Academic Writing Quiz (Canvas) Find these in Quizzes. • Continue with your blog.
- 12. Homework • Find an up to date article (magazine, newspaper) or podcast on Psychology. • Bring a summary of it next week. Think about how you can use today’s class to help you improve on your summary for this week. • If you’re unable to do this, please don’t miss the class in case you’re asked to summarise – just let me know at the start.
Editor's Notes
- #2: 10 minutes - Get straight into the ‘show and tell’ – remind them of what we expected them to do and ask 2/3 to share their summaries with the class. Some questioning about why they chose that article/podcast could be used as a way of getting the students to recap on last week’s class.
- #3: 5 - 10 mins - Get them talking about this in pairs for a couple of minutes before whole group feedback. Get some basic responses to the questions to get them thinking about what we mean by summarising as part of their feedback on how they think they achieve it and why it is important – this is to just open up some conversation to establish their current levels of knowledge and start depending their knowledge
- #4: 2-3 mins - Each of these could be explained a little further but ideally they will just reinforce the previous discussion. This can lead into the next slide by linking it through a ‘so what is a good summary’
- #5: 10 mins (5 mins activity and 5 mins feedback) – They have a handout with the extract and these on. Use this to get them to elicit what makes a good summary (key idea, more own words, no pointless quoting, shifting the order of things etc)– acknowledge that this is tricky and it’s meant to be challenging. There should be time in this session to give it an extra 5 minutes of the discussion is becoming fruitful. Make sure they comment on the use of a reference to refer back to their online task last week.
- #7: 5 – 10 mins - Remind them this means their reading also needs to be selective and that books and articles are not written around your assignments. –refer back to last week. Stress too that making notes is an essential skill for studying and why. Talk to them about how they need to read with the question in mind. What is your assignment task actually asking you to do and show you know? This is also an opportunity to open up a conversation about their current note-making/taking practices – how active are they? The final point is to emphasise that they need to be constantly asking themselves question and to try not to cling on to the actual words the author uses but to concentrate on their meaning.
- #8: 5 – 10 mins - Remind them this means their reading also needs to be selective and that books and articles are not written around your assignments. –refer back to last week. Stress too that making notes is an essential skill for studying and why. Talk to them about how they need to read with the question in mind. What is your assignment task actually asking you to do and show you know? This is also an opportunity to open up a conversation about their current note-making/taking practices – how active are they? The final point is to emphasise that they need to be constantly asking themselves question and to try not to cling on to the actual words the author uses but to concentrate on their meaning.
- #9: 15 mins including activity and some feedback (how did they find this method?) Emphasise that this is only ONE method but it is one that will help them to grasp the basic process of good note-making (focusing on key information and on thinking about what they are reading and not just copying out)even if they develop their own (eg highlighting and annotating the actual text)– they’ll get to learn about more in their online task.
- #10: 15 mins including activity and some feedback (how did they find this method?) Give them a very short and accessible article, maybe some grey literature. An example from the previous week could be used for some continuity. Emphasise that this is only ONE method but it is one that will help them to grasp the basic process of good note-making (focusing on key information and on thinking about what they are reading and not just copying out) even if they develop their own (eg highlighting and annotating the actual text)– they’ll get to learn about more in their online task.
- #11: 10 - 15 mins –They can use the flip chart paper to work on this as a group so that they are talking about and sharing their ideas to bring a little peer work. Once they are all stuck up on the wall, get the students to move about, reviewing them. Ask them to choose the one they think is best and why. They shouldn’t have put their names on them! You can then ask the ‘winners’ to identify themselves. You can also comment on them after reviewing them all, highlighting the good aspects in each but also offering some advice as a plenary.
- #12: 5 mins. This could be a good point to make any comments on their online work from last week, e.g. well done on your blogs so far; email etiquette etc.