Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. Summarising Sources
2. Techniques for Identifying Main Ideas
3. Steps for Writing a Summary
It refers to the writer and/or the title of the work in a formal way
It presents the writer’s idea objectively without your interpretation or
opinion
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2. TECHNIQUES FOR IDENTIFYING MAIN IDEAS
One of the challenges in summarising is that you must choose which information to
include, keeping in mind the principles of being complete and objective. You can
choose one of the two techniques that follow to help you identify the main ideas in an
article.
2. With a highlighter, mark each idea in the article that you believe is important.
Often, although not always, you will find that each paragraph has a key
sentence. It is often the first or last sentence in a paragraph.
Look for key words that are repeated throughout the article. These repeated
words and phrases will help you identify main ideas.
If you find that you have highlighted most or all of the sentences in a paragraph,
you may be highlighting supporting details rather than main ideas.
If so, go back and underline only the main ideas in the sentences that you
highlighted.
3. When your highlighting is done, read each sentence again to make sure you
understand the ideas.
4. Then you can use the chunking method to paraphrase the highlighted sentences.
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TECHNIQUE 2: SUMMARY GRID
Sometimes it is helpful to lay out your notes in a visual way. Using a grid is one
way to help organise the information in an article.
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3. STEPS FOR WRITING A SUMMARY
2. Describe the main ideas in your own words. This may be one or
more paragraphs, depending on the purpose of your summary.
You can choose how you want to arrange the information in your introduction. Below
are two possible styles of writing a summary:
Example:
Pinker (2010) claims that both lab research and actual experience show that people
are incapable of doing several things at once; as an example of this fact, he
mentions the frequent sight of a person driving dangerously while using a cell phone.
Author’s name (year of publication) writes about (article topic) in (his/her/their) article
(article title). The second sentence is the summary of the article.
Example:
Pinker (2010) writes about the fallacy of multitasking in his article “Mind over Mass
Media”. He says that both lab research and actual experience show that people are
incapable of doing several things at once; as an example, he highlights the frequent
sight of a person driving dangerously while using a cell phone.
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EXERCISE 1
Read the excerpt below and summarise Warner’s idea on Writing Successfully in a
University. Add an in-text citation according to the APA style.
Source : Article
To write successfully in a university, students need to have a sense of what the final
product should look and sound like. If possible read model assignments, or if these
are not available, study the way in which journal articles have been written in their
field of study. These articles maybe lengthy and some may be based on research
rather than discussion issues, but from them they will get a sense of how academic
writing ‘sounds’, that is, its tone and how respected writers in their field assemble
information. This will enable the students to build their writing skills.
Warner (2011) writes about methods to have successful writing in university in his
article “ Academic Writing: A Guide to Writing in a University Context”. According to
him, university learners should possess a prediction on how our final work appear to
be. He argues that learners can acknowledge the outline of academic writing by
reading more journal articles.
Warner suggest that for university students to write effectively ,they need to understand the
style of academic writing and how esteemed writiers organize ideas .They also need to read
good sample assignments and journal articles as well as how journal articles are written.
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EXERCISE 2
Read the excerpt below and write a summary on The Toxic Danger of New Cars.
Add an in-text citation according to the APA style.
Evidence was therefore carefully gathered and analysed. The results revealed that
the very smell of a new car that captivates the new owner contains high levels of
toxic emissions. What is even more alarming is the fact that these toxic emissions
are present in cars even after 6 months or longer of leaving the showroom. The
study also revealed that drivers were becoming ill when they drove their new cars.
The toxic emissions contain many chemicals such as benzene that can cause
cancer and lung failure.
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EXERCISE 3
Read the excerpt below and write a summary on The Impact of Cultural Diversity
in the Workplace. Add an in-text citation according to the APA style.
Cultural diversity in the workplace has grown as a trend over the passage of time
with the increase of globalisation in the world. A positive effect of cultural diversity in
the workplace is that employees belonging to different cultures usually have
different ways of thinking and can thus analyse a matter at hand from a variety of
perspectives. This is hard to achieve when employees belonging to the same
culture are asked to analyse the same matter. Employees coming from different
cultures have different experiences which can be beneficial by providing the
organisation with a sound and vast knowledge base. For example, a study
conducted on the impact and scope of cultural diversity in organisations in the UAE
showed that most of the workers agreed that group work with culturally diverse
people helps to overcome cultural differences through shared experiences when
working within a team.
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