SUMMARY

What do you understand by Summary?

Summary is a brief account of a given text (passage/story/poem/novel). For example, suppose you
watched a movie last night and the next day, when you meet your friend, he/she asks you what it was
about. You are not going to narrate the entire 2-hour movie, but you’ll also make sure that whatever
information you give to your friend is sufficient enough to understand it. So, you’ll tell the story in brief;
underlining the main or key elements. This is known as summary.

How to write a summary?

1. Closely read and understand the given text. 2. Try to find out the important points which can give a
gist of the text and note them down. 3. Write these points in your own language (in a paragraph)—do
not copy the exact sentences/phrases from the original text. 4. Compare your points with the original
text and see if you have covered all the important ones and if there are certain points which can be
excluded while keeping the idea intact, eliminate them. 5. If you think that certain word from the
original text is important to be included in the summary, you can use it in quotes (“abc”). However, if
you do not use quotes, it would be Plagiarism which, in simple words, means Stealing.

PARAPHRASING

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing means rephrasing ideas and thoughts of someone else into your own language. The
process remains the same as summary; the only difference is that it is more detailed than a summary.
For instance, summary of a short text is to be written in about 50-80 words, while paraphrasing is
around 100-140 words. It gives you the liberty to write a detailed version of something by using more
number of words. Your ideas get more elaborated in paraphrasing.

How to write a paraphrase?

The process involved is the same as summary. Only difference is that of length.

KEY POINTS:

• Know the purpose of writing • Avoid Plagiarism • Do not repeat information • The first line should
introduce what the text is about • Follow the same order of thoughts as the text • Keep the language
simple, catchy and easy to understand • Check for grammar and spellings

NOTE MAKING
What is Note Making?

Note making is noting down important points of a text or a lecture for your future reference. For
instance, you are sitting in the class and the teaching is giving a lecture on certain topic; you would not
have time to write down everything told by your teacher, but you can quickly jot down relevant points
from the lecture. These notes will be helpful when you’ll revise the topic again.

How to make Notes?

There is no specific method of note making; everyone has their own way of making their notes. The
main idea behind it is that you can understand them. Notes are even briefer than a summary. You can
use table, headings, underlining, highlighting, keywords, abbreviations etc for making your notes. Your
notes should be clear enough to be understood by you when you refer them later on.