A summary 1
1.  A summary
In a summary the most important facts of a text
are given. It is a short form of a longer, original text.
Normally it is between 20–25 % of the length of the
original text. The text must be written precisely
and clearly.
1 Understanding the text
a) Read the text.
Hello, I’m your personal travel
adviser. Can I persuade you to get
on your bike?
Ben Webster
The doorbell will be ringing unexpectedly in millions of
homes from next year as an army of government-funded
“travel advisers” tries to persuade people to switch from
driving to walking, cycling and public transport. If you
are out, they will keep coming back and will call up to
ten times, even in the evenings or at weekends. They
will ask you about your travel habits and will offer advice
tailored to your journeys, including maps for walking
and bus timetables. If you appear unconvinced, they will
offer incentives such as discounts at local bike shops and
outdoor stores and free pedometers to measure how far you
are walking.
The initiative is part of the Government’s Sustainable
Transport Strategy, announced yesterday. It rejects the
idea that congestion can be eliminated by investing
billions of pounds in building more roads and railways.
Instead, it favours smaller schemes that aim to change
behaviour and attitudes. Trials costing a total of £ 10
million in Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester found
that car journeys fell by about 11 per cent after travel
advisers visited every home. Cycling increased by at least
25 per cent, walking by 17 per cent and trips on public
transport by 13 per cent.
A study by the Department for Transport found that
the biggest challenge faced by the advisers was
overcoming initial suspicion on the doorstep. It said: “Door-
to-door contact is often associated with double-glazing sales
and therefore is not always particularly well received.”
In Worcester, former bus drivers have been employed as
advisers because they are deemed more convincing when
trying to sell the benefits of leaving the car at home.
* TfL = Transport for London
© Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2009. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
ISBN: 978-3-12-547207-7
TIP
Before you write:
1. Read the text several times in order to understand it
correctly.
2.  Work with each paragraph separately.
3. Look up unknown words in your dictionary.
4.  Underline the most important aspects.
Theresa Villiers, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said:
“I’m not sure that sending nannyish inspectors round to
people’s houses is the right way forward. There’s no point
telling people about a local train if it is so overcrowded that
they can’t squeeze on to it.”
A bus service has been running close to the home of Karl
and Ping Roche and their daughter Phoebe for several
years. But until recently they had no idea where it went.
The Roches are among thousands in Sutton, Surrey, who
were visited by a travel adviser seeking to change their
habits with a little gentle persuasion and a lot of maps
and timetables. Mr Roche, 37, who works for IBM, said:
“The doorbell rang and a man on the doorstep asked if I
wanted advice on making local journeys.” After getting
advice about cycle and bus routes, the couple bought
bicycles and a child seat for Phoebe, 2. “We used to use
the car every day but now it’s only once or twice a week,”
Mr Roche said.
Two thirds of those contacted under the Transport
for London-funded scheme showed interest in learn-
ing about other forms of transport. Ben Plowden, TfL’s*
director of travel demand management, said: “Often
people have not used buses since their youth. All they need
is information about routes, times and fares.”
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 1 A summary

b) A good first step for a summary is a mind map. Write down what the different groups of people say,
think or do.

traffic adivsers

everyday people

government

h c) There is another way to structure a text for a summary: Write a fact sheet with the help of
“wh”-questions and list the important points. This will make it easier to sum up the text in your
own words.

1. What is the aim of the British government?

2. What does the government want to do to achieve its aim?

3. What specific methods are used to achieve this aim?

4. What criticism of the project is there?

5. What are the side effects of using the car less often?

© Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2009. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Fördern! – Englisch
4 ISBN: 978-3-12-547207-7 Schreiben 9/10
 A summary 1
h 2 Writing an introduction
Write an introduction for your summary and include the following information:
• text type (here: newspaper article)
• title (here: Hello, I’m your personal travel adviser. Can I persuade you to get on your bike?)
• author (here: Ken Webster)
• place (here: Great Britain)
• time (here: today’s society)
• person(s) (here: British government, people, traffic advisers)
• things that happen (here: government wants people to use their car less often, reduce traffic jams,
fight environmental pollution)

3 What’s the word?

Find the right words to complete the text. The lines tell you how many letters the word has.

Tourism and the environment

A day in the country should be an opportunity to enjoy

its beauty.  _ _ _  tourism is endangering the

environment more and more. There are now 12 national

parks  _ _  England and Wales covering about 10 per cent

of the area. Much of the land is privately owned but the

government  _ _ _  local authorities pay a lot of money 

_ _  preserve the natural beauty.

The Lake District is the largest national park and popular  _ _ _ _  walkers, canoeists, swimmers and climbers.

Visitors are welcome, but too  _ _ _ _  visitors can cause a lot of damage.

In the summer  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  of people use the footpaths  _ _ _ _ _ _  the countryside. Often the grassy surface

is damaged and  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _  it can be dangerous to walk on. In addition to  _ _ _ _ , many roads in the park

are extremely narrow, and farmers complain that traffic makes it difficult  _ _ _  them to do their work. Because

there are  _ _ _  enough car parks, many tourists park their cars in areas  _ _ _ _ _  parking is not permitted.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _  of the number of people using lake shores for picnics, some of the vegetation  _ _ _ _ _ _  the lake is

being destroyed.  _ _ _ _  can be bad for wild animals which build their nests  _ _ _ _ _  the shores. The rubbish

which tourists leave behind also causes  _ _ _ _ _ _ _  to suffocate.

There are now conflicts  _ _ _ _ _ _ _  those who see tourism as creating wealth and jobs (in cafés, restaurants,

hotels and industries, such as arts and crafts) in the Lake District, and those  _ _ _  complain that large numbers

of visitors damage the  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _.

© Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2009. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Fördern! – Englisch
ISBN: 978-3-12-547207-7 Schreiben 9/10 5
 1 A summary

h 4 Writing the main part and the ending TIP

a) To write the main part and the ending of your
summary, you need your notes from exercise 1 b)
or c). Write complete sentences. Make sure that
the information you give is in logical order so that
your readers understand what the text is about.
b) Show your summary to a classmate. Ask him / her
for his / her opinion. Share your ideas and try to
improve your texts.
How to summarize a text:
1. Use the simple present.
2.  Change direct speech into indirect speech.
3.  Follow the order of the paragraphs in the text.
4. Only summarize facts, don’t add any personal
comments or interpretations.
5. Use your own words wherever possible, work with
word families and conjunctions, change the structure
of the sentences.
6. Try to shorten the text with the help of shorter
expressions. Remember to watch the word limit.
7. Read your summary again: Is it short and precise?
Can anybody who hasn’t read the text understand
the most important aspects?

Checklist

Meine Zusammenfassung …

 ist im simple present geschrieben.

 ist ca. 20 % kürzer als der Ausgangstext.
 hat eine Einleitung und einen Schlusssatz.
 hat die wichtigsten Punkte des Ausgangstextes
zusammengefasst und die w-Fragen beantwortet.
 benutzt Synonyme und andere Satzkonstruktionen
als der Ausgangstext.
 verwandelt direkte Rede in indirekte Rede.
 verbindet Sätze durch Konjunktionen.
 ist auf Rechtschreib- und Grammatikfehler
überprüft.

© Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2009. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Fördern! – Englisch
6 ISBN: 978-3-12-547207-7 Schreiben 9/10
 A reading journal 2

2.  A reading journal

If you are reading a novel, a drama, etc. and want to present it to your class, then keeping a reading
journal is one of the best ways of exploring a piece of writing. Thus you can take in every detail, every
description and avoid hasty analysis.

h 1 Writing an outline
Choose a story or a book. Then write a summary of each chapter or scene (no longer than one paragraph).
Remember to answer the wh-questions: who? what? when? where? why?

h 2 Descriptions, thoughts and observations

Write each heading on a separate page. Make notes for each of them as you read through the book.

1. Questions (what I ask myself about characters, events, etc.)

2. What this reminds me of (my own experience, other texts, ideas)

3. Description of characters and events

4. Guesses (how you think the story and / or the characters will develop and why)

5. Comments on how the story is being told / the action is being shown (words, phrases,
whole passages that make an impression, motifs the author keeps using)

TIP
Here are some criteria to help you comment on how the story is written:

ordinary style more formal / elaborated in style

vocabulary •  easy vocabulary • high-level vocabulary (synonyms, opposites,
•  short forms (don’t; he’s) word families)
•  long forms (do not, he is)
sentence structure •  simple / basic grammar • elaborate grammar (passive voice, gerund,
•  short sentences etc.)
•  long sentences
style •  colloquial/informal English •  written from an observer’s perspective
•  you write as if talking to somebody • narrator is not directly involved and keeps a
certain distance
• metaphors are used (e. g. ‘She has a heart of
stone.’)
•  (rhetorical) questions are used

© Ernst Klett Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart 2009. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Fördern! – Englisch
ISBN: 978-3-12-547207-7 Schreiben 9/10 7