Name : Berkah Hasudungan Nasution

Reg. Num : 21178003

Subject : Academic Writing

How to Summarize a Text

Summarizing is a skill. Not everyone is able to carefully and precisely make a summary
of the reading material they read. Because in essence the result of summarizing is a reproduction
of another work. It is the ability to speak in other languages that sometimes sets everyone apart
in summarizing. Or, accuracy in revealing the essence of the reading

Making a summary has certain characteristics. The characteristics of the summary are as
follows.

• Revealing the small form of an essay.

• Reproduce what the author said.

• Maintaining the sequence of ideas that build the figure of the essay.

• Compilers of summaries are bound by the arrangement, content, and point of view of the
author.

• The sentences are short and in line with the original author's sentence.

Purpose of Making Summary

An essay has a main theme or topic. The main theme or topic is then developed into a
series of essay sections consisting of paragraphs. Then, each paragraph has a theme or main idea
that supports the main theme or topic of the essay. To understand the meaning of an essay or
book, the reader must be able to understand the theme or main idea contained in each paragraph
that makes up the whole essay or book. The main theme or main idea can be found at the
beginning, end, or beginning, and end of the paragraph or it may be implied.

Steps to Make a Summary

Here are the steps in making a summary, namely:

• Read the original script.

If necessary, repeated several times to get a general impression of the essay as a whole. The
author also needs to know the author's intent and the author's point of view.

• Note down the main idea.

 Recording was done with a purpose. First, for the purpose of security to make it easier for the
author when re-examining whether the points noted are important or not. These two records will
also be the basis for further processing. The most important purpose of this note is that without
the binding of the original text, the author begins to rewrite to rearrange to compile a summary
using the points that have been noted.

• Perform reproduction.

It should be noted that with the above notes, he must compose a clear discourse that can be
accepted by common sense and at the same time re-describe the contents of the original essay.

• Additional terms.

Also Read Articles That May Be Related: Definition of Conjunctions and their Kinds,
Functions and Examples

There are several things that need to be considered so that the summary is accepted as a
good writing, namely:

a. It is better to use a single sentence in compiling a summary rather than a compound

sentence, a compound sentence shows that there are two or more parallel ideas. If the
sentence is compound, check again whether it is not possible to make a single sentence.

b. If possible, condense sentences into phrases, phrases into words. Likewise, a long series
of ideas should be replaced with only one central idea.

c. The number of paragraphs depends on the size of the summary and the number of main
topics to be included in the summary. Paragraphs containing illustrations, examples,
descriptions and so on can be omitted, except those deemed important.

d. Where possible all adverbs or adjectives are removed, sometimes an adjective or adverb
is retained to explain the general idea implied in the adverb or adjective sequence
contained in the text.

Benefits of Making a Summary

The benefits of making a summary include:

• By summarizing we can make it easier to read the important content.

• By summarizing we can remember more easily.

• Better understand after we summarize so it is not easy to forget.