1. Using Information: getting to
the point
Describe and explain methods for
identifying key points in a source
Implement techniques for note-making
and summarising
Write a summary from a piece of text
2. Summarising your information
• So, you have all heard some summaries and prepared your own.
• How did you do it?
• Why is summarising an important
skill at university?
3. Why you should summarise your reading
• Avoiding plagiarism.
• Demonstrates your understanding of what you have read.
• It shows you have ‘got to the point’ of the reading.
• Provides evidence for your own points.
4. In small groups, discuss which is the best summary of this extract from one of
the articles we used last week. Why do you think it is the best one?
The future of artificial intelligence (AI) is
appealing because it responds to the
fundamental need of small business owners to
navigate the uncertain world of their businesses
on their own terms and plan accordingly. Yet
there are potential risks of AI for small
businesses as large businesses may take control
of them through having access to large amounts
of data. Future regulation needs to ensure that
there is open access to data streams to power
better insights for small businesses and other
sectors. For example, the UK has implemented
Open Banking, a policy that clarifies that
customers, including small business owners,
own their banking data and allows them to
grant third parties access to this data to create
innovative new products and services.
The development of AI could have positive and
negative effects on small businesses. It can
help them plan affectively for the future but
this can only happen if they keep control of
their own data and choose who has access to
it, as with the UK’s Open Banking policy (Mills,
2019).
The future of AI is attractive for small
business owners who want to control their
business on their own terms. However, there
are risks if large businesses use it to access
data that could lead to them taking control.
An Open Banking policy has been
implemented in the UK as an example of
how to avoid this.
5. So a good summary….
• Is significantly shorter than the original
• Highlights the key point being made
• It may refer to the most important evidence used by the author
• Doesn’t repeat too many of the words from the original
• References the author and the year it was written
6. The best way to write good summaries is to make
good notes with active reading
• Note-taking is writing down what you read, as close to word-for-word as possible. Can be
passive and makes summarising and paraphrasing more difficult.
• Note-making is selective, purposeful and individual; it requires you to ask questions and
create your own notes. It is a more active process and makes summarising and
paraphrasing easier and more effective.
• Keep talking to yourself and step away from the words
What is being said?
What does it mean?
Are my questions being answered?
Is it important?
How can I use it?
How does it compare to other sources?
7. One effective method is…
• Read through a section of the text without
writing down or highlighting anything.
• Write down 3-5 key words that come to mind
after reading (e.g. specific terms, a key finding).
• Write your notes directly from these key words.
• Keep asking yourself key questions before
deciding what to write: is this what I need to
know? How will I use it?
• Refer back to the original. You may need to add
a little more detail.
Using the article that you have
been given, try this technique out.
Compare your notes with the
person next to you. Are they the
same, or are they different? Why?
8. Now you have some good notes, you can
write a summary of the article
• In small groups, use all your notes to write a
brief summary of the article
• Once you have written it, stick it up on the
wall.
9. Online activities for this week
1. Complete the Active Reading Quiz
(Canvas)
2. Complete the Academic Writing Quiz
(Canvas)
Find these either in Quizzes or by the link
in Weekly Resources (Week 3).
3. Week 3’s entry on your blog
10. Homework
Again, find an up to date article (magazine, newspaper) or
podcast on anything related to Business that you think is
interesting.
Bring a summary of it next week. Think about how you can use
today’s class to help you improve on your summary for this
week.
If you’re unable to do this, please don’t miss the class in case
you’re asked to summarise – just let me know at the start.
Editor's Notes
10 minutes - Get straight into the ‘show and tell’ – remind them of what we expected them to do and ask 2/3 to share their summaries with the class. Some questioning about why they chose that article/podcast could be used as a way of getting the students to recap on last week’s class.
5 - 10 mins - Get them talking about this in pairs for a couple of minutes before whole group feedback. Get some basic responses to the questions to get them thinking about what we mean by summarising as part of their feedback on how they think they achieve it and why it is important – this is to just open up some conversation to establish their current levels of knowledge and start depending their knowledge
2-3 mins - Each of these could be explained a little further but ideally they will just reinforce the previous discussion. This can lead into the next slide by linking it through a ‘so what is a good summary’
10 mins (5 mins activity and 5 mins feedback) – They have a handout with these on. Use this to get them to elicit what makes a good summary (key idea (eg no 2 doesn’t include why Open Banking is a good policy), more own words etc)– acknowledge that this is tricky and it’s meant to be challenging. There should be time in this session to give it an extra 5 minutes of the discussion is becoming fruitful. Make sure they comment on the use of a reference to refer back to their online task last week.
2-3 mins – should hopefully just need to use this to validate and reinforce their earlier comments.
5 – 10 mins - Remind them this means their reading also needs to be selective and that books and articles are not written around your assignments. –refer back to last week. Stress too that making notes is an essential skill for studying and why.
Talk to them about how they need to read with the question in mind. What is your assignment task actually asking you to do and show you know? This is also an opportunity to open up a conversation about their current note-making/taking practices – how active are they? The final point is to emphasise that they need to be constantly asking themselves question and to try not to cling on to the actual words the author uses but to concentrate on their meaning.
15 mins including activity and some feedback (how did they find this method?) Emphasise that this is only ONE method but it is one that will help them to grasp the basic process of good note-making (focusing on key information and on thinking about what they are reading and not just copying out)even if they develop their own (eg highlighting and annotating the actual text)– they’ll get to learn about more in their online task.
10 - 15 mins - They can use the flip chart paper to work on this as a group so that they are talking about and sharing their ideas to bring a little peer work. Once they are all up on the wall (I’ll get you some blue tack), get the students to move about, reviewing them. Ask them to choose the one they think is best and why. They shouldn’t have put their names on them! You can then ask the ‘winners’ to identify themselves. You can also comment on them after reviewing them all, highlighting the good aspects in each but also offering some advice as a plenary.
5 mins. This could be a good point to make any comments on their online work from last week, e.g. well done on your blogs so far; email etiquette etc.
5 mins. Final 20 mins or so available to see students.
