Stages in making a summary

Identify the main ideas

• Leave out anecdotes – stories which add to the interest of the text but are not crucial.

• Consider whether to include examples

• If you include them, how much detail is needed?

Make notes on the text

• Laura is teaching you how to make notes. Use the systems she gives you

• When you have made notes, put the original text away.

• Do not plagiarise. Reference your work properly and PARAPHRASE!!

Different words

• Find synonyms but be careful

• Use a thesaurus

• Check your choice of synonym in a dictionary to check usage unless you are certain of it

Change the voice

• Active to passive:

• Some workers accept jobs of lower status

• Jobs of lower status are accepted by some workers

Change the voice

• Passive to active:

• Neighbourhoods that are populated mainly by other ethnic groups …….

• Neighbourhoods where, on the whole, other ethnic groups live……..

Change the word class

• Their experiences are different from….

• Their experiences differ from

• Nor is the USA creating factory jobs…

• The creation of factory jobs is …

• They feel resentment towards…

• They resent…

• They are resentful of…

Change the order of ideas

• Cause – Result: Economic hardship in Europe led to mass emigration to the USA

• Result – Cause: Mass emigration to the USA was caused by economic hardship

Technical language

• Don’t change the technical language– Cardiovascular disease– Immigration– High blood pressure– The Internet– Oxygen!

An example

• New immigrants are also like those of a hundred years ago in their willingness to make sacrifices.

• In addition, readiness to suffer hardship is a characteristic of new immigrants, just as it was of immigrants a century ago

Give a reference!

• You are summarising someone else’s ideas. Whose?

• According to Pakenham (1998),….

• Pakenham (1998) suggests that……

• As Pakenham (1998) observes, …..

• Pakenham (1998) explains that …

• In Pakenham’s view (1998), ….