summarizing
A summary is a short statement that gives the main points or ideas of something that has been said or written. We summarize all the time, especially when talking about movies, TV shows, and books. We do it when we want to talk about what we watch, what we listen to, and what we read. In a summary, it's important to tell only the most important ideas. Everything else is extra, and doesn't matter. *Remember*
Don't include your opinion! It is just a retelling of the facts!
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How can you find important information in a text?
punctuation titles and subtitles |
Here are some strategies to help you summarize:
When you read a text, underline important words, vocabulary, and main ideas. Don't underline anything else. Find the main idea of each paragraph, and underline it. After you've finished underlining, turn over the paper (or on a new paper), and try to create a summary paragraph of what you can remember of the key ideas in the piece of writing. NO LOOKING! You should only look back at your underlining when you have reached a point where you can't remember something. You can go back and forth between writing the summary and checking your underlining, until you remember and write down the important ideas in the article.
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Write a summary, and then write a shorter one, and then, an even shorter one. Use your notes/underlining to keep revising and changing your written piece until only the most important and key information stays. You can start off with a half page, then try to get it down to a paragraph, then two or three sentences, and then finally, a single sentence. |
Pretend you are a newspaper editor. You have to use the key words or ideas to identify only Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Also, practice making newspaper headlines (titles) for different things that you read. Pretend you are trying to sell something, and you want to put an advertisement in the newspaper to let people know about it. Each word costs 1 RMB to put in the newspaper. You can only spend 25 RMB or less. This means you can only use 25 words in your ad.
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