ways on how to summarize academic texts

1. Summarizing
Techniques
English for Academic & Professional
Purposes

2. At the end of this module:
Identify
various
summarizing
techniques
Apply any or a
combination of
these
techniques in a
well-written
summary.

3. Summary
Summary is a direct to the point
narrative or re-telling of a much
longer material, either a story, an
essay or any body of knowledge.

4. Summary
In writing a summary, you
focus on the most
important statements of
the original statements of
the original passage and
eliminate the less
important material.
In all cases, the summary
must be written in
readable prose that
reflects the essential
meaning of the original

5. Purposes of Making a
Summary
•To help you understand the main
points and structure of the author’s
argument
•To convey understanding to others
•To present background information
quickly; or
•To refer to another writer’s ideas
while making your own original
statement.

6. Forms of a Summary
Informative
Summary
Descriptive
Summary

7. Forms of a Summary
Informative Summary –
adopts the tone of the
original full text, simply
presenting the
information it contains
in shorter form.
It does not mention the
author and the title of
the piece but rather gets
right down to the
content. Thus, it can
present more
information compactly

8. Forms of a Summary
Example of an informative summary:
Declaration of Independence:
“When people declare themselves
independent of their political ties, they
should give reasons. Governments are
formed to protect equality and rights,
including life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. If the government does not
do this, people can change the
government.”

9. Forms of a Summary
Descriptive Summary –
adopts a more distant
perspective, describing the
original text rather than
directly presenting the
information it contains.
Descriptive summaries
give a more nearly
complete picture of the
structure of the original.
They also establish a
certain distance between
the writer of the summary
and the writer of the

10. Forms of a Summary
Example descriptive summary of the
Declaration of Independence:
“Jefferson opens the Declaration of
Independence by stating that a country
declaring independence needs to give its
reasons. He goes on to discuss the
purposes of government in protecting
individual rights and the legitimacy of
change if the government does not live up
to its obligations.”

11. Steps in Writing a Summary
Step 1: Read the original
text carefully.
To rewrite a longer piece
in short form, you must
first understand the
piece you are working
with. Begin by reading
the piece carefully,
making sure you absorb
the full meaning.

12. Steps in Writing a Summary
Step 2: Choose the
material for the
summary.
Once you understand the
piece you are
summarizing, you must
decide which parts you
are going to include in
the summary and which
you are going to leave

13. Steps in Writing a Summary
Step 3: Decide whether your summary will
be informative or descriptive.
▪ Informative Summary – adopts the
tone of the original full text, simply
presenting the information it
contains in shorter form.
▪ Descriptive Summary – adopts a more
distant perspective, describing the
original text rather than directly

14. Steps in Writing a Summary
Step 4: Rewrite the
material in concise,
coherent sentences or
paragraphs.
The key to writing an
effective summary is
combining the material
you chose to include into
concise, coherent
sentences and

15. Steps in Writing a Summary
Step 5: Identify the source
of the text.
In your finished draft of
the summary, be sure to
identify the source of the
original material in a
heading, an introductory
phrase, or a footnote.

16. Methods for Choosing the
Material for a Summary
Selection
and Deletion
Note-taking
Miniaturizing

17. Method 1: Selection and
Deletion
Because a summary
moves quickly
through the main
points of the original,
you need to focus on
the most important
ideas and details and
leave out the less
important material.

18. Method 1: Selection and
Deletion
Look for keywords to
identify those that
express substantial
information or make
major statements.

19. Method 1: Selection and
Deletion
Cross out digressions,
repetitions,
nonessential
background
information, extended
examples, interest-
provoking anecdotes,
and other minor
supporting details.

20. Method 1: Selection and
Deletion
This method of choosing
material works best
where there are direct
statements of main
ideas, accompanied by
much detailed
elaboration, wordy
examples, digression or
other clearly less
important material.

21. Method 2: Note Taking
Taking note on the key
ideas for each of the
sections of the original
reveals the logic of
ideas in the whole
piece and the
connections among
them.

22. Method 2: Note Taking
As you write down the
key idea for each
paragraph or so of the
original, you will be
concerned more with
large chunks of
meaning than with
specific details.

23. Method 2: Note Taking
As you look over your
notes, you may notice
that each paragraph has
its own meaning, which
is related to the
meaning of the
paragraph before or
after it. You will
become aware of the
whole piece as a series
of ideas, one following

24. Method 2: Note Taking
This method may be
useful when the
development of a
complex idea in the
piece is treated in
many subsections. The
notes serve as an
outline to the flow of
the author’s thought.

25. Method 3: Miniaturizing
As you read through
the original, pay
attention to the various
parts of the structure:
the order of ideas, their
relative lengths, and
their relationships.

26. Method 3: Miniaturizing
As in note-taking
method, you should
jot down the main
ideas and key
statements of the
original, but you
should also try to keep
the size of your notes
in rough proportion to
the size of the

27. Method 3: Miniaturizing
Follow the logic of one
idea flowing from
another and re-create
the transitions and
structure of the original.

28. Method 3: Miniaturizing
Generally, this method
is appropriate for
more complex and
subtly argued
originals, whose parts
fit together in unusual
ways or in ways that
are difficult to follow.

29. Guidelines in Summarizing
1. Clarify the reason for summarizing
before reading.
2. Read the material first while noting
important details.
3. If you can write on the material, encircle
the key ideas and important details.
4. If you cannot write on the material, note
down the key ideas and important details
on your notebook, you may use a bulleted
format.

30. Guidelines in Summarizing
5. Without consulting the original text,
connect the bulleted information you wrote
down.
6. Re-write this bulleted information in
your own words. Stick to the ideas the
details are presenting.
7. Write the sentences in a paragraph form.
8. Compare your summary to that of the original text for checking of accuracy.

31. Guidelines in Summarizing
9. Create citations and references by using any of the following formats:
•a. Idea Heading Format – Summary comes
before the citation.
•b. Author Heading Format – The author’s
name/s comes/come first that the summary.
•c. Date Heading Format – The summary comes
before the date when the original material was
published.
10. You may create your own title or copy the original one.

32. The Summary Length
The relative length of any summary is
not a fixed proportion. The
compactness of the style of the
original, the compactness of the
summary writer’s style, and the
purpose of the summary all help
determine how short the summary will
be.