Another key strategy for learning and remembering the ideas in a text is to summarize what you have read. This means rewriting the important parts in a much shorter form, using some words from the text and some of your own words. Summarizing is especially useful for reviewing and memorizing information in textbooks for exams and preparing information or ideas from different sources so you can include them in a report or paper.
Definition
Buckley (2004), in her popular
writing text Fit to Print, defines summarizing as reducing text to one-third or
one-quarter its original size, clearly articulating the author’s meaning, and
retaining main ideas. Diane Hacker (2008), in A Canadian Writer’s Reference,
explains that summarizing involves stating a work’s thesis and main ideas
“simply, briefly, and accurately”.
To summarize is to put in your own words a shortened version of written or spoken material, stating the main points and leaving out everything that is not essential. 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. Fiction and nonfiction texts, media, conversations, meetings, and events can all be summarized.
Purpose of a Summary
- It helps to judge the understanding of an individual
about the given passage.
- Helps to build the comprehending capability of the
students
- Helps curate the
essential components from the passage without causing a confusion
- Help to remember the passage and its important details
i.e helps build memory.
Framework
to Write a Summary
Before
writing a summary, one must ask themselves the following questions:
• What is or are
the main ideas given in the passage?
• What the passage
is about
• What type of
writing it is
• What are the
crucial details and points that support the ideas?
• Are the parts
relevant to the passage?
• What is the
irrelevant information in the passage?
• If you were to
write a headline or heading for the passage in your own words, how would you
begin?
A
summary is always very simple and easy to understand and doesn’t contain
any idioms, metaphors,
sayings and complicated English style. The summary is almost always in the
writer’s own words. However, keywords can be used directly from the passage.
Steps
to Summarize a Passage
• After reading
the passage once, re-read it but slowly.
• As you read the
passage, note down important points and keywords which you can include in your
summary.
• Once your
summary is ready, read it to check its similarity to the original passage
given.
• Summarize each part, paragraph or segment in one to two sentences.
When
summarizing is useful?
Summarizing
is useful in many types of writing and at different points in the writing
process. Summarizing is used to support an argument, provide context for a
paper’s thesis, write literature reviews, and annotate a bibliography. The
benefit of summarizing lies in showing the "big picture," which
allows the reader to contextualize what you are saying. In addition to the
advantages of summarizing for the reader, as a writer you gain a better sense
of where you are going with your writing, which parts need elaboration, and
whether you have comprehended the information you have collected.
You
can summarize:
- Results of studies you are
reporting on
- Methods or approaches others have
taken in an area you are describing
- Various researchers’/authors’
viewpoints on given issues
- Points you have made in an essay at
any juncture or in a conclusion
- Contents of a text you are
reviewing
- Issues peripheral to your paper but
necessary for providing the context for your writing
- Historical events leading to the
event/issue/philosophy you are discussing.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar