Essay Skills: How to Summarise To summarise (verb) - give a brief statement of the main points of (something).

1What is summarising?Summarising involves taking the main ideas from a piece of text and rewriting them in your own words. A summary is significantly shorter than the original text and tends to give an overview of a topic area.

Why summarise?Summarising is an important academic skill you will need to master. It helps you to reduce a large text into a few key, memorable phrases. This is crucial for when you are taking notes and researching for an essay.

It enables you to put another writers ideas into your own words.It trains your mind to search for the important information and exclude irrelevant points.

Step One:Highlight the key phrases and words

For a text,read, mark,andannotatethe original. (For a lecture, work with the notes you took.)

highlight the topic sentence

highlight key points/key words/phrases

highlight the concluding sentence

outline each paragraph in the marginStep Two:Make notes on the key ideas of the sectionTake notes on the following:

the source (author--first/last name, title, date of publication, volume number, place of publication, publisher, URL, etc.)

the main idea of the original (paraphrased)

the major supporting points (in outline form)

major supporting explanations (e.g. reasons/causes or effects)

Step Three:Writing your summary introduction.The opening to your summary paragraph will consist of 5 key points.

Source title

Author

Year of publication

Reporting verb

Main idea of the entire sourceExample

In the book Lives on the Boundary (1) Mike Rose (2) (1989) (3) presents (4) the case of Marita, an underprepared college student who faces accusations of plagiarism from a graduate student. (5)

arguestaterefute the claimsuggestcriticiseclaimreportargue againstrecommendcontendexplainmaintaindiscussinsistillustratepositobservepresentsExamples of reporting verbsThese are important for referring to the academic work of others. ExampleIn the book Lives on the Boundary Mike Rose (1989) presents the case of Marita, an underprepared college student who faces accusations of plagiarism from a graduate student. Rose recalls Maritas own story which begins with the assignment prompt and ends with her submitting a sporadically quoted document filled with encyclopaedia entries. In between, she shared snippets a restrictive family culture and accounts of a high school of low expectations. The author concludes the case study with a critique of the long time English essay traditions which intimidate and exclude individuals of limited background and experiences. Step Four:Divide your text into manageable chunksExample

In the book Lives on the Boundary Mike Rose (1989) presents the case of Marita, an underprepared college student who faces accusations of plagiarism from a graduate student.

Rose recalls Maritas own story which begins with the assignment prompt and ends with her submitting a sporadically quoted document filled with encyclopaedia entries. In between, she shared snippets a restrictive family culture and accounts of a high school of low expectations.

The author concludes the case study with a critique of the long time English essay traditions which intimidate and exclude individuals of limited background and experiences. College student faces plagiarism charges.

Marita shares her story.

Rose reflects on college academic demands.