Learn how to make a summary It is essential from the moment you start school, you go through university until you get to your working life, since learning to do it well will help you solve the learning of texts that are too long, but …
How to make a summary and what it is for
If they asked you to learn how to make a summary you may be wondering why I have to do it? What is it for, because these are the reasons why you should learn to do it:
- After reading a long text, if you want to transmit it, you could not transmit it in a perfect way if you do not make a summary, because it helps you transmit a text quickly and briefly.
- If someone asks you to report on a text you have just read because they need to be informed but they cannot wait and they need it in a short time, you can inform them from a summary that does not necessarily need to be written, because in your mind you can summarize everything you have read and convey it in your own words.
- When at school or university and even at work they ask you to read an article or a book and study it and then expose everything you have read, the summary comes into play because it is from it that people will be able to capture the main ideas.
- An example is the newspapers with the first pages where you can read a summary of the articles that you will find developed in their entirety on the successive pages.
- Thanks to the summaries published by the newspapers, the reader can quickly receive the news and if it is of interest you will reach the page where it is fully developed.
- Many websites also present their articles with a summary on the main page so that you as a visitor can evaluate if that article is of interest to you, after which by clicking on Read more, you can read the entire article in depth.
Step by step how to make a summary
You already know that the summary is a text transformed into a shorter one but that preserves the main ideas and secondary ideas, leaves them aside, but how to make a summary?
Step 1: First of all, you must read the complete text paying attention to understand its ideas, which will allow you to analyze the paragraphs and sentences that can be deleted without losing meaning, so it is important that you recognize the main and secondary ideas and you will detect the themes that are developed throughout the complete text with its subtopics.
You will also identify the structure of the complete text and how it is organized, how it is composed, what is its introduction, what is its core or development and what is its outcome or end. You will also have to identify argumentation, hypotheses and conclusions if you are reading an expository text and identify what type of text it is, since it can be descriptive or argumentative and from this you will identify its parts.
Step 2: Margin notes, are the ones that you will place in the margin of the paragraphs that you identify with the developed topics.
Step 3: Highlight by underlining the fundamental information to distinguish what is the most important from what you can ignore in your abstract but that the full text needs it.
Step 4: Make a content outline with a graphic that organizes the main ideas, the secondary ideas, and then reflect on the relationship between the two types of ideas.
In this way you will have carried out all the fundamental processes on the full text, which will give you place to start the writing of the abstract in a correct and coherent way to the full text.
Step 5: Make a generalization of terms, for example if the full text speaks of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday you can generalize it with “business days” If it continues with Saturday and Sunday you can generalize it with “days of the week”
Step 6: Respecting the maximum length that was requested, begin to chain the parts that you have highlighted as the important ones, giving meaning to each paragraph.
Step 7: Make a comprehensive reading on the summary that you have finished, noting that all the main ideas of the full text were reflected in the summary.
Step 8: You will have done the summary correctly if when reading it you could realize the place and time or moment in which the topic is developed, if you could realize about the secondary topics, if you read the main and secondary ideas relating and if you could realize that the conclusion of the abstract is the same as that of the full text.
How to do an executive summary
The executive summary is not just part of your business plan but the first tool for you to sell.
It can be a long text but so concise that it will be short and explanatory enough so that whoever reads it does it until the end.
The executive summary is visual, it attracts the reader’s attention when they scan it because this way they instantly realize what your project is about.
It is usually a type of summary that is given to people with little time to read it carefully. They will not stop to read each of the sentences that you could write with great care. They are the typical professionals who know how to read diagonally therefore:
- Start by thinking of a very well structured title and a subtitle to insert into the text.
- Make the most important concepts and ideas bold and use italics.
- Get a lot of ideas into your mind so you can divide and prioritize them.
- Analyze all the concepts that you must say in your summary and present the most powerful arguments. Do not repeat concepts, just make the reader can interpret the summary with a speed reading from which they can understand your objective.
- Practice with your friends and family, ask them to read your quick summary and give you feedback on what they understood.
- Then ask them to take a slower reading and confirm if they understood your business, to tell you what it is about, how it will be oriented, how it will generate profits.
- Do not be discouraged if when presenting your executive summary you did not obtain the result you expected, because you will not always achieve it in the first attempt, because if you are rejected, look for another model that suits your personality and your project.
In fact, the executive summary is an important part as a business document, it is the first thing that the reader will see and the last thing you will write because it is a brief information that gives an idea about the conception of your project.
What is a summary and what is it for?
A summary summarizes in an abbreviated but understandable way the main ideas of a book, text or article and serves to:
- Get an improved written expression.
- Improve concentration while studying.
- It is the best for the study and preparation of a specific subject.
How does a summary?
- After reading the main text understanding it, put aside secondary ideas, repetitive ideas and phrases that can be eliminated.
- Replace phrases or words with general terms.
Remember that making a summary is not presenting an outline but presenting the original abbreviated text.