MODULE 6: Summary

Lecturer: Salma Aliyu Umar

What is SUMMARY?
 The OED defines summary as ‘a brief statement or
account of the main points of something’. This could
be a paragraph from your notes, a chapter from your
textbook or even an entire book.
 If you are asked to summarise something, it means:
 writing down concise, short, to the point overview of a
text.
 to take large texts and reduce them so that only the
main elements are made available.
 “an objective or neutral non-evaluative report on the
content of a source” (Rovira, 2019, p.29).
A summary is supposed to:
 Extract information from a larger text without
losing the initial idea of the text being summarised
 Condense information and shorten it
 Only include what is in the original text and
 The person doing the summary must always use
his/her own words to summarise the text
Important Steps in writing a good
summary:
 Read the text thoroughly: to understand a text and
summarise it appropriately you need to read it thoroughly.
 There are three basis steps to reading a text for the purpose
of summary:
➢ Scan the text you intend to summarise quickly from the
beginning to the end making mental notes of the main
points,
➢ Read the text slowly and take notes of the main points,
➢ Skim through the text again to confirm the points you
have made.
The Precis
 Etymology: the word précis comes from the
French word précis meaning ‘precise’, ‘clear’, ‘to
the point’
 The OED defines a précis as ‘a summary or
abstract of a text or speech’
 A précis is also defined as ‘a concise and lucid
summary of a text’ (Evans, 2019,p.1)
 A précis is, simply put a summary of any
written piece such as an article, book, novel etc
A Précis:
• is an objective view of the written piece which is
being summarised,
 this means that there is no need for deep critical
analysis in the précis
 Is generally short, but the length depends on the
original text
 Unlike a summary, a précis requires a title
Steps Involved in writing a précis
 Read the Text: This involves a careful reading of the
text. In fact, you need to read the text several times to
grasp the idea it is trying to portray. In the process of
reading, you should take notes of important points.
 Structure the Précis by outlining (explained in the
next slide) and writing the précis
 Revise, edit and proofread
 Read again to ensure that it is objective: this means
that you need to make sure that your personal opinion
does not make its way into the final draft
Writing a Précis: Outlining
 In writing, an outline is a brief general description
of the components of a larger piece of writing
 In writing a précis, one should begin with an
outline
 An outline allows you to structure the précis in a
way that all the relevant points appear in the final
draft
Format of A précis
 A précis should contain:
 A title
 the name of the author of the article or book,
 the original title of the material,
 the main idea of the article or text,
 how the author arrived at the idea (or results as the
may be)
 the author’s conclusion
Important points
 a ‘rhetorical verb’ should outline the author’s main idea or
purpose (for example ‘In the article, Umar ‘asserts’, ‘holds’,
‘argues’ followed by ‘that’)
❖ Umar asserts that...’
 A précis should be:
❖ Clear
❖ Objective
❖ Coherent
❖ Concise
❖ Correct (which means it has to remain true to the original
text
Differences between Précis and
Summary
Summary Précis
Does not require a title Requires a title
Covers all of the main points in a text Contains only the most important
points; it is like a miniature version of
the original text
does not need a conclusion Needs a conclusion
End of Presentation
Thank you