CHALIMBANA UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCES

STUDENT NAME : CONSTANCE MWINDILILA

STUDENT NO. : 2104139072
YEAR : SECOND (2ND)
CELL NO : +260978 567108
PROGRAM : BACHELORS OF EDUCATION (BED) SECONDARY
COURSE : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY
COURSE CODE : ELE 2303
LECTUER : MRS. IDAH LUNGU

ASSIGNMENT QUESTION
In not more than five pages, discuss the components of a strong summary and how you are going
to teach to a grade 10 class

DUE DATE: 03/07/2023

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Text summarizations has been defined as “the process of distilling the most important
information from a source (or sources) to produce an abridged version for a particular user (or
users) and task (or tasks)” (Mani & Maybury, 1999). This definition includes three elements:
first, a summary is a condensed version that contains important information; second, a summary
can be generated for a single document or a set of documents (the latter is called multi-document
summarization); and, third, a summary should be user-and task-oriented. Taking into account the
possible uses that a summary may serve, it can be indicative by pointing out the topics, which
have been addressed in the text, or informative by covering as much as possible, important
content and/or critical information that offers a critique of the source. Hence, the intention and
coverage of summaries can be different depending on tasks. Even for the same tasks, various
people may have different opinions on what pieces of information are interesting and important.
However, the prevalent form of summaries that we usually encounter is the generic summary
that targets a wide range of readers. Until recently, user-sensitive (or user-centered)
summarization has become an increasingly active research area which focuses on how individual
differences affect a user’s judgment on what should be included in a summary (Elhadad, 2004).
A summary provides the reader with an overall comprehension of a larger body of work in a
condensed, concise format. A work of literature, media, or history can be understood on a
fundamental level with the help of a summary that has been written effectively. A summary is a
sentence or paragraph-long snippet of the primary literature or kind of writing. It may also be
used to describe the storyline of a novel or a television program, as well as an academic thesis
and the reasons that support it. The objective of a summary is to offer readers a succinct
overview of significant details or intriguing information, excluding any expression of the
author’s opinion in the process. The abstract of a scientific study, a description of the narrative of
a movie, or a synopsis of a novel are all examples of summaries, which provide a concise
overview of the most important aspects of a piece of writing or another type of media. A
summary is a useful tool in many different types of writing. Because the ability to demonstrate
comprehension of the primary ideas presented in a required reading or watching can be
demonstrated through the writing of a summary, a lecturer may ask his students to write a
summary so that he can evaluate how well they have grasped the content. This can be helpful for
school-related activities, like studying for an exam or researching a topic for a paper. However, it

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can also be useful in day-to-day life when you meet literature on themes that you find personal,
professional, and fascinating.
One might also summarize when the broad concepts from a source are crucial to include in his
work, but the specifics presented in the same section as those key ideas are not needed for one to
make his argument. In this case, one would just need to summarize the primary ideas. For
instance, technical materials or in-depth research could go into a great deal more detail than you
are likely to want to support a point that you are making for a general audience. The purpose of a
summary is to provide the reader, who has not seen the presentation or read the material, with an
understanding of what the content is about. It provides an explanation of the paper’s objective or
central concept and a synopsis of the supporting arguments that develop that concept. The reader
will then have a better idea of whether or not they will find it helpful and whether or not they
want to read it (Sakai & Masuyama, 2004).
Writing a good summary requires one to be a good reader. The writer must read the original text,
looking for and marking the main ideas. The reader must also remember that topic sentences and
clincher sentences may help him/her in this endeavor. The writer must remember to place in
quotation marks any direct quotations you use from the original work. The summary condenses
the main ideas of a text so that its readers will understand the gist of the original work. The
summary is written in its author’s own words, but it very carefully retains the intent, tone, and
key ideas of the writer of the original work. A summary is typically one-quarter to one-third the
length of the original and is written in third person. The summary may sometimes quote a
particularly effective word or phrase from the original, which should be placed in quotation
marks. Identify the original work by title and author in the first sentence of the summary. Since it
is the summation of another writer’s ideas, the summary should credit the original source by
identifying its publication information (author, title, genre, where and when it was published and
by whom). This can be done by listing a bibliographic reference for the original work. Follow the
specific instructions for your assignment.
There is a procedure to follow when writing a summary. These procedures may differ, but it is
important to have guidelines in place to construct a good summary. First and foremost, one must
write down the text’s main point in sentence form, identifying the text, the writer, what the writer
does (reports, explores, analyzes, argues), and the most important point the writer makes about
the topic. In one own notes, divide the text into sections, which will be evident according to

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where the writer uses signal phrases and other means to move from one subtopic to another or
from the statement of an idea to the reasons, evidence, and examples that support it. In one or
two sentences, sum up what each of the text’s sections says. That way, one is actually composing
his/her own topic sentence for each major section of the text. As one the concluding lines,
consider combining the sentence stating the writer’s main point (thesis) with the sentences
summarizing each of the text’s major sections (topic sentences). Now you have a first draft of a
summary. Read the draft to see if it makes sense. Add, remove, or change parts as needed.
All in all, a summary is a brief recollection or account of the main points of a piece of writing,
action or event. It typically avoids needless details, remaining short and to the point. There are a
number of techniques to use for summarising, which can help children retain important parts of a
passage of text. Having this skill is ideal for assignment or examination preparation for older
children, but it's also just a useful skill that will make communication more confident and clear.
A summary of a text should include the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of a text. If
one is summarising the events of a book, for example, he would first include the name of the
author and the title of the text, before giving a brief description of the plot, and how the main
character changed over the course of the story. A summary should effectively explain all of this
information in a clear and concise way, taking the most important information and ignoring the
less important details. A summary should also aim to be written in the main words of the author.
It should be able to put across the information without outright copying what is already there,
because otherwise, what would be the point of summarising? (McKeown & Radev, 1995).
The elements of a summary are as follows:
 Conciseness. A summary is all about condensing significant information, which is a
surprisingly complex skill. We have to first know that information, be able to recall it,
and then relay it to others.
 Objectivity. Summaries are not reviews or opinions. If you are writing a summary, stick
to the facts. Not only will it make your writing more trustworthy, but also it will make it
more clear too.
 Good Structure. Even if they are only a few sentences, summaries should be well-
structured. You could start with the most notable information and work down, or
start chronologically and work forward.

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  Accuracy. Even though summaries are an overview, they should still be specific about
the facts. Make sure that any numbers or figures you mention are double-checked!
Summaries are actually a great place to practice editing and proofreading for this reason.
 Independence. A summary should not rely on outside information to work. For example,
when summarising a book, we would approach it as if the reader has never heard of the
book, so the summary can work independently.
Writing a good summary demonstrates that one clearly understand a text and that he/she can
communicate that understanding to his/her readers. A summary can be tricky to write at first
because it is tempting to include too much or too little information. But by following laid down
guidelines, one will be able to summarize texts quickly and successfully for any class or subject.
Some of these guidelines, as illustrated by Mani and Maybury (1999) include the following:

i. Divide and conquer. First off, the writer must skim the text he/she is going to summarize
and divide it into sections. He/she must focus on any headings and subheadings. Also
he/she should look at any bold-faced terms and make sure he/she understands them
before he/she reads.
ii. Read. Now that the writer has prepared, he/she should go ahead and read the selection.
He/she must read straight through. At this point, he/she does not need to stop to look up
anything that gives him/her trouble, just get a feel for the author’s tone, style, and main
idea.
iii. Reread. Rereading should be active reading. Underline topic sentences and key facts.
Label areas that you want to refer to as you write your summary. Also label areas that
should be avoided because the details, though they may be interesting, are too specific.
Identify areas that you do not understand and try to clarify those points. It is really
important that you identify the main points that the author is making to support the
overall main idea of the article or text. Usually you will not include things like statistics
and examples in a summary, so avoid including all that detail. If you are still unclear on
what you are reading and what are the main points you need to include in your summary,
re-read again. You can repeat this step as many times as you need to until you really
understand the text.
iv. One sentence at a time. The writer should now have a firm grasp on the text he/she will
be summarizing. In steps 1–3, he/she divided the piece into sections and located the

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 author’s main ideas and points. Now write down the main idea of each section in one
well-developed sentence. Make sure that what you include in your sentences are key
points, not minor details. Well-developed sentences are not necessarily long, but they are
complete and tell the reader clearly what the idea is. Here, you need to be using your own
words as much as possible and not copying from the original text.

Conclusively, a summary begins with an introductory sentence that states the text's title, author
and main point of the text as you see it. A summary is written in one’s own words. A summary
contains only the ideas of the original text. A summarizer needs not insert any of his own
opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments into a summary. In teaching a grade 10 class,
one ought to be concise, objective, concise, and accurate in order to achieve the intended purpose
needed for a class outcome in as far summarization is concerned. Summaries serve many
purposes for writers and researchers. Primarily, the summary is a useful way for student writers
to learn new information, move new information from short-term to long-term memory, take
research notes, or prepare an overview of a topic or article when the audience will not be reading
the original work(s) for themselves. The summary, sometimes referred to as an abstract by
researchers and scholars, is often included at the beginning of a long article to communicate its
core ideas to the audience before they read the entire text. Summaries are also used in writing
annotated bibliographies, in which a researcher composes a list of bibliographic citations
accompanied by summaries of articles or books on a focused topic.

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Reference List

Elhadad, N. (2004). “User-Sensitive Text Summarization”, AAAI Doctoral Consortium, San

Jose, CA. pp. 987-988.

Maimon, E. P., and Janice H. Peritz (2003). A Writer’s Resource: A Handbook for Writing and
Research. McGraw Hill.

Mani, I. and Maybury, M.T. (1999). Advances in Automatic Text Summarization. The MIT
Press.

McKeown, K. and Radev, D.R. (1995). Generating Summaries from Multiple News Articles. In
Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM SIGIR Conference, pp. 74- 82. Seattle, WA.

O’Hare, F, and Memering, D. (1990). The Writer’s Work: A Guide to Effective Composition.
Prentice Hall.

Sakai, H. and Masuyama, S. (2004). A Multiple-Document Summarization System Introducing

User Interaction for reflecting User’s Summarization Need. Working Notes of NTCIR-4, Tokyo,
2-4 June 2004.