English for Academic Purposes I (2021) L08 - Summarising Skills

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L08 – Summarising Skills

In academic writing, summarising is a vital skill, allowing the writer to condense lengthy
sources into a concise form. Like most skills it becomes easier with practice, and this
handout illustrates the basic steps needed to achieve an accurate summary.

When writing your assignments, in order to have sufficient material for you to work with,
you need to read a variety of texts and select information which is relevant to your work.
Once you have identified suitable material, you need to make a number of adjustments
before you can incorporate it into your assignment. A summary, which is basically a
shortened version of a text, is one such adjustment. A summary should contain your chosen
main points from the original text in a condensed manner. It should be written in your own
words and the source must be acknowledged.

Identifying main ideas

Before you begin to write a summary, you must first identify the author’s main ideas. The
main idea is the essence of a piece of writing, or what the author is trying to get across to
the reader.

Some paragraphs contain a topic sentence that tells you the exact main idea that the author
wants you to know. This main idea is often found in the first sentence in a paragraph,
followed by supporting details. But this is not always the case. Some authors prefer to give
the supporting details first and to end with the main idea. Others give some details, the
main idea, and then more details. In some paragraphs, all the information is equally
important and you must summarise the entire paragraph in order to get the main idea. On
the other hand, there are paragraphs that do not directly state the main idea but that
require you to infer the meaning based on the information given.

Task 1 – Finding main ideas

Read the following paragraphs and underline the main ideas.
 In pairs, compare your answers.

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Paragraph 1
The total number of insect species is greater than the total of all other species combined.
About a million insect species are known today, and researchers estimate that at least
twice this many exist (mostly in tropical forests) but have not yet been discovered. Insects
have been prominent on land for the last 400 million years. They have been much less
successful in aquatic environments; there are only about 20,000 species in freshwater
habitats and far fewer in the sea.
Source: Campbell, N.A., Mitchell, L.G., & Reece, J.B. (2000). Biology. Menlo Park, CL: Benjamin/Cummings.
Paragraph 2
Throughout U.S. history, various groups that believed the government would not respond
to their needs have resorted to some form of violence. Analyzing fifty-three U.S. protest
movements, William Gamson (1975) found that 75 percent of the groups that used
violence got what they wanted, compared with only 53 percent of those that were
nonviolent. Violence, it seems, can pay off.
th
Source: Thio, A. (2000). Sociology : A brief introduction. (4 ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Paragraph 3
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the world population has more than tripled.
While most of the phenomenal growth is attributed to modern medicine, better famine
relief, and more sanitary living conditions, one factor is usually ignored. There has been
more food because, during most of the twentieth century, and between 1935 and 1965 in
particular, the farmers of the world have enjoyed a uniquely favourable warm, wet, and
stable climate.
Source: Hancock, O.H. (2001). Reading skills for college students. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Paragraph 4
The average American consumer eats 21 pounds of snack foods in a year, but people in the
West Central part of the country consume the most (24 pounds per person), whereas
those in the Pacific and Southeast regions eat “only” 19 pounds per person. Pretzels are
the most popular snack in the mid-Atlantic area, pork rinds are most likely to be eaten in
the South, and multigrain chips turn up as a favorite in the West. Not surprisingly, the
Hispanic influence in the Southwest has influenced snacking preferences—consumers in
that part of the United States eat about 50 percent more tortilla chips than do people
elsewhere.
th
Source: Solomon, M.R. (2002). Consumer behavior. (5 ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Major and minor details

Apart from the main idea, a paragraph also consists of details that provide more information
in order to make the main idea clearer. There are two types of details:
 Major details directly support the main idea and are essential to understanding the
idea.
 Minor details indirectly support the main idea.
You will probably want to include major details but not minor details in your summary.
Simple lists of sentences that begin with words such as ‘first’, ‘second’, ‘third’ and ‘finally’
are often major details, and you usually can find the main idea just before the first item on
those lists. A simple listing of facts is a common pattern of organisation.
Task 2
Look at paragraphs 1 and 2 on page 2 again. Identify the major and minor details.

***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Identifying main ideas and supporting information
You are going to read a text with the title ‘Isolates or socialites? The social ties of internet
users’. What controversial issue do you expect the text to be about?

Task 3
Read the first two paragraphs of the text on page 4. Then, circle the sentence (a-c) which
summarises the main idea.
Paragraph 1
A The internet gives us access to enormous amounts of information, and also allows us to
buy things without going into shops.
B The Internet makes it possible both to keep in touch with people who live far away and
also to avoid personal contact.
C Railways, the telephone, and the internet are some of the most important
developments in how people communicate.
Paragraph 2
A Through the internet we can keep in contact with people using words, photos, video
clips, and other images.
B Email has had an important effect on social relationships mainly because it is cheap and
because we can reply to emails at some time after we have received them.
C The internet has made it easier to make contact with friends and relatives, so that
relationships between people become closer.

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Isolates or socialites? The social ties of internet users.

(1) The advent of the internet has been one of the biggest developments in the history of
communications technology. Like the railways and the telephone before it, the internet has
helped to make the world a smaller place, making it easier to undertake both business and
pleasure with individuals and organisations located far away. At the same time it has
enabled individuals to acquire from the comfort of their office or front room access to both
a hive of information and a wide range of commercial services, activities that previously
would have necessitated a trip to the high street. Seemingly the internet has both made it
easier to maintain contact with our fellow human beings, especially those who do not live
locally, and, at the same time, reduced the need to engage in social contact with others in
order to conduct the everyday business of commercial or social life. These apparently
divergent features of the internet have resulted in a lively debate about whether its advent
has strengthened or weakened the social bonds and ties between individuals.

(2) The internet makes it much easier to get into contact with individuals who have
similar interests to oneself, irrespective of where they live, thereby making it possible to
create 'virtual communities’. Contact with friends and relatives who live some distance away
can more easily be maintained too – not just using words but also exploiting the ability to
send photos, video clips and scanned images via the internet too. These apparent
consequences derive principally from the opportunity afforded by e-mail to communicate
asynchronously and to do so at no greater cost with someone halfway round the world than
with a neighbour living next door (Hauben & Hauben, 1997; Wellman & Gulia, 1999;
Wellman et al., 2001; Horrigan, 2002).

(3) The internet also makes it easier for people to organise face-to-face meetings rather
than just maintain electronic contact with those living far away. It is worthwhile to note that
face-to-face communication helps develop bonds of trust and reciprocity between
individuals and such bonds help make societies healthier, more caring and more efficient.
The internet can be used to make an appointment to meet a friend in the local pub or to
advertise and encourage people to attend a communal social activity. Moreover, friends
initially made on-line may subsequently be met face to face. In short, the ability to engage in
'on-line' social activity could help to stimulate greater 'off-line' social activity too (Robinson
et al., 2000; Shah et al., 2001; Hampton & Wellman, 2002) - with consequential beneficial
impacts on the stock of social capital.

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(4) On the other hand, 'on-line' activity could serve to displace 'off-line' activity. Those
engaged in a virtual network may spend less time participating in their local social networks.
Even if they are not particularly predisposed to withdraw from face-to-face contact, time
spent on the internet is time not spent doing something else, and one of the activities that
might be displaced is socialising with friends and family (Nie & Erbring, 2000; Nie, 2001).
Similar arguments have been, indeed, previously made about the growth in the second half
of the 20th century of television watching (Steiner, 1963; Putnam, 2000); but whereas
watching television can, in fact, be turned into a communal activity, using a computer is
usually a solitary activity. Indeed, it has been argued that the solitary nature of internet use
may result in people becoming lonely and depressed, thereby undermining their ability to
form or sustain friendships (Kraut et al., 1998).

Group Task – Writing summaries

Get into your group and write a one-sentence summary for paragraph 3 and one
for paragraph 4 in the space below. You have 10 minutes to do so. After that,
your lecturer will invite 2 (or more) groups to show the summaries on the screen
and explain how these summaries are written.

Paragraph 3

Paragraph 4

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Task 4
Read the following paragraph and the two summaries below. In pairs, decide which
summary is better. Give reasons to support your answers.
Technology has significantly changed education at several major turning points in our
history. The first technology was the primitive modes of communication used by
prehistoric people before the development of spoken language. Mime, gestures, grunts,
and drawing of figures in the sand with a stick were methods used to communicate - yes,
even to educate. Even without speech, these prehistoric people were able to teach their
young how to catch animals for food, what animals to avoid, which vegetation was good
to eat and which was poisonous. [adapted from a book by Theodore W. Frick published in 1991]

Summary A
Frick(1991) argued that history has shown that technology affects education deeply. The
earliest form of technology can be found in the communication among prehistoric people
who teach different skills to their young.

Summary B
Frick(1991) argued that technology has greatly changed education at different points in
human history. The first technology was the communication by prehistoric people. Mime,
gesture, grunts and drawing of figures in the sand with a stick were used. These prehistoric
people teach their young how to catch animals for food, etc.

Key features of a summary

* Concise – with only main ideas, and if necessary, major supporting details.

* Accurate – with the ideas clearly expressed, reflecting the author’s emphasis.

* Objective – with only the author’s ideas, not your own opinions or interpretations.

* Coherent – with smooth transitions or connections between sentences.

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Task 5 – Key stages of summary writing
Rearrange the following sentences so that they are in order.
Read the original text carefully and check any new or difficult vocabulary.
Write the summary from your notes, re-organising the structure if needed.
Make notes of key points, paraphrasing where possible.
1 Consider your purpose. It is important to decide why you are summarising.
Mark the key points by underlining or highlighting.
Proofread the summary to ensure it is accurate and nothing important has
been changed or lost.

Task 6
Fill in the blanks with the words in the box below.
major supporting points / minor details / repeated details / main ideas / writer’s opinions
1. A good summary should include ____________________ and ____________________.

2. A good summary should NOT include ____________________, ____________________

or ____________________.
3. Which of the features below characterise a good summary?

Acknowledgement – Material in this lecture handout is adapted from:

Gillet, A., Hammond, A., & Martala, M. (2009). Successful academic writing. New York, NY: Pearson Education.
Hancock, O.H. (2001). Reading skills for college students. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.
Hewings, M. (2012). Cambridge Academic English – Upper intermediate student's book. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
McCormack, J., & Slaght, J. (2012). English for academic study: Extended writing & research skills course book. Reading,
England: Garnet Publishing Ltd.
Mikulecky, B.S., & Jeffries, L. (1996). More reading power: Reading for pleasure, comprehension skills, thinking skills,
reading faster. New York, NY: Addison-Wesley Pub Co.
Pirozzi, R., Starks-Martin, G., & Dziewisz, J.B. (2008). Critical reading, critical thinking: Focusing on contemporary issues.
rd
(3 ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Longman.
Rosen, L.J., & Behrens, L. (1986). Writing papers in college. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Trzeciak, J., & Mackay, S.E. (1994). Study skills for academic writing. Trowbridge: Prentice Hall.