Summarizing

Summarizing

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;

• Preparing information or ideas from different sources so you can include them in a report or paper.

Summarizing a Passage

When summarizing a passage, the first step is to write a one-sentence summary of each

paragraph. Then you can combine the sentences to write a summary of the whole passage.
Step 1. Summarizing a paragraph:

• Write a single, complete sentence that is much shorter than the paragraph.

• Include the main idea and supporting facts and ideas.

• In the summary sentence, follow the same pattern of organization as in the paragraph.

• Do not add any facts, ideas, or opinions that are not in the paragraph.

Note: The topic sentence or main idea sentence can sometimes serve as the summary

sentence, but it often needs to be changed to include important details found in the

paragraph.

Example:

Read the paragraph and mark the text to show the main idea, the pattern of organization, and the

supporting facts and ideas. Then read the summary sentence that contains the most important

ideas in the paragraph.

Water shortage

In developing countries, poor people have suffered the most from shortages of clean water. There are several reasons for this. First, in many developing countries, the majority of houses in poor villages and urban slums are not yet served by a piped water system. People living in these places often have to walk many miles to find water and carry it home in jugs and plastic containers. Second, these people usually have few alternatives to the piped water supply. There may be water closer by in rivers or lakes, but this is often dangerously polluted. In some areas, street vendors sell water by the liter, but they often charge extremely high prices for water that is not always safe to drink.

Main idea:

Poor people in developing countries have suffered the most from shortages of clean water for several reasons.

Pattern of organization: Listing

Supporting facts and ideas:

People in poor villages and urban slums are usually not served by a piped water system.

These people have few other sources of fresh water.

Summary sentence:

Poor people in developing countries suffer the most from shortages of clean water because their homes do not have piped in water and they have few other sources of water.