SUMMARY
WRITING
5Th SEMESTER
What is Summary?
■A summary is a brief overview of an
entire discussion or argument.
■Summarizing is when you take a lot of
information and create a condensed
version that covers the main points.
■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
Purposes of Writing Summary:
■ It helps to judge the understanding of an
individual about the given passage.
■ It also helps to build the comprehending capability
of the students
■ It helps curate (carefully gather or collect) the
essential components from the passage without
causing a confusion
■ Helps to remember the passage and its important
details i.e helps builds 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
■ It’s tone
■What type of writing it is.
Continued…
■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?
Steps for summarizing
■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.
How to Summarize a Paragraph
■ To Summarize a Paragraph one should read the
paragraph twice; isolate the topic sentence; if it conveys
reliably the meaning of the paragraph, consider it your
summary.
■ Underlining key phrases and looking for any crucial
distinctions or contrasts which form the framework of
the paragraph you will get a proper summary of the
article.
■ And the last important idea but not least is writing your
own summarizing sentence which makes use of those
key phrases or distinctions.
How to Summarize an Article
■ Ask yourself why the article was written and who
is the intended audience.
■ Consider the author's background. Does he have a
special bias or point of view?
■ Compare the opening and closing paragraphs.
■ Read the entire article more than once, if
necessary.
■ Underline key or repeated words and phrases.
Continued…
■ Distinguish the author's main idea from details
which support that idea or are repetitions and
variations on the same theme.
■ Draft a several-sentence summary which defines
the author's main idea broadly enough to account
for most of the supporting material introduced.
Patient Medical Summary Report:
A good medical summary will include two
components: 1) log of all medications and 2) record of
past and present medical conditions. Information covered
in these components will include:
■ Contact information for doctors, pharmacy, therapists,
dentist – anyone involved in their medical care
■ Current diagnosis
■ Medications and dosages including prescribed, over the
counter, herbal, etc.
■ Allergies to medications, food, environment, etc.
■ All health issues and treatment plans
■ Latest test results such as blood pressure or cholesterol
Continued…
■ Past medical issues
■ Major surgeries with dates
■ Family medical history
Characteristics of a Good
Summary:
■ Can be understood without the reference to the
original text.
■ It only contains the important ideas and
information from the text.
■ It is brief without any unnecessary details.
■ Is a readable unified whole.
