Summarizing

Vocabulary

If a text gives you a list of important vocabulary in it's preview, or your teacher provides vocabulary prior to a unit of study, use these vocabulary words as important information that should be included in your summary.

Keeping

Keep only the important information: main idea and key notes.

Summarizing is:

Keeping Deleting Paraphrasing

Deleting

Do not include supporting details in your summary.

Summarizing is a powerful reading strategy.

...It increases comprehension and retention of information.

"Summaries are about the author's arguments and details;

...They are not the place for personal opinions or judgments.

When you summarize,

...You restate the most important information of a text, using your own words.

A summary can be completed in writing,

...but also orally.

One of the most important parts of summarizing is paraphrasing - which is....

...putting important information into your own words.

Summarizing Tricks

Text features vocabulary topic sentences Reporters' notes (who, what, where, why, how) Graphic Organizers

Text Features

Text features such as titles, subtitles, bold, color, margin notes, etc. are clues to a text's most important information -- information you may want to include in your summary.

Paraphrasing

Use your own words!!!

Topic Sentence

When reading a short text, identify the topic sentence in each paragraph. A topic sentence holds the most important information in a paragraph. Therefore, a summary can be written simply by paraphrasing the topic sentences into your own words.