1. Summarizing Tips
By Daniela Munca, PhD
American Language Center
April 2010

2. Summarizing like Carving
Michelangelo is said to have created David by "taking a block of marble and
cutting away everything that was
not David."
Writing a summary is a similar process you take a long work, and you cut out as much as possible. The question is, what do you cut?
3. Why teach our students to summarize?
A valuable SKILL used in:
essay writing
presentation making
post-reading activities
Class projects: making a poster, participating in a debate, etc.
4. Why summarize ?
Writing a good summary demonstrates that you:

clearly understand a text

5. can communicate that understanding to your readers

apply your high-thinking skills (analyzing, processing, eliminating, etc)