Find the Best Summary

Summary

Let's Review...

• A SUMMARY is a shortened version of something that has been said or written.

• Summaries contain only the main points.

• We summarize because it is much easier to summarize a story when telling it than to mention every detail that happened.

A SUMMARY...

• Only includes the essential key points

• is brief

• leaves out dates, details, and numbers that are not important for understanding

• Follows a regular paragraph structure (introduction, body, conclusion)

• is sequential (follows the order of the original)

NO!

• No quotes

• No opinions

• No dates/numbers (unless they are important to understanding)

• No personal pronouns (I, you, we...)

Multiple Select

Which of the following are NOT in a summary?

• Key ideas

• opinions

• Dates that are important to understanding

• personal pronouns

• unimportant details

Open Ended

In your own words, what is a summary?

Read the following text.

The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table, revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this singular sight was looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from

glancing upward every minute or so.

Multiple Choice

What is the best summary of the text?

• The men's eyes were drawn upward to the apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table.

• In the quiet room, they gathered around a table that had a body hovering above it; yet only one person was looking at it.

• The men were attending a meeting about an unconscious human.

• None of the people seated underneath this singular sight was looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly

  below it.

Read the following text.

There was a boy in her room. Cath looked up at the number painted on the door, then down at the room assignment in her hand.

Pound Hall, 913.

This was definitely room 913, but maybe it wasn’t Pound Hall. All these dormitories looked alike, like public housing towers for the elderly. Maybe Cath should try to catch her dad before he brought up the rest of her boxes. “You must be Cather,” the boy said, grinning and holding out his hand.

“Cath,” she said, feeling a panicky jump in her stomach. She ignored his hand. (She was holding a box anyway, what did he expect from her?) This was a mistake; this had to be a mistake. She knew that Pound was a co-ed dorm. Is there such a thing as co-ed rooms?

Multiple Choice

What is the best summary of the text?

• Hoping it was a mistake; Cath looks at the boy in her new dorm room. Then he introduces himself and she realizes it’s no mistake.

• Cath’s new roommate is a boy so she decides to go and live in another dorm.

• This was definitely room 913, but maybe it wasn’t Pound Hall, all these dormitories looked alike, like public housing towers for the elderly.

• Cath is forced to live in a co-ed dorm, even though it makes her uncomfortable.