Academia de San Lorenzo Dema-ala Inc.

Tialo, Sto. Cristo, City of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan

LESSON #3
Subject: English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Name: ________________________________________
Teacher: Mrs. Mary Grace A. Castellon

LEARNING CONTENT: Techniques in Summarizing Academic Texts

REFERENCE/S: DIWA Senior High School Series
LEARNING TARGET
1.1. Determines the structure of a specific academic text
1.2. Differentiates language used in academic texts from various disciplines
1.3. Explains the specific ideas contained in various academic texts .

LEARNING CONCEPT
Writing a Summary or a Précis

A summary or a precis is a synopsis or digest of the essence of an entire text. Usually, a

summary is included in reviews (as in a review of a book or an academic text) or a literary
critique (as in a summary of a short story or a novel). When summarizing, make sure that you
capture all the major points of a text, leaving out details which may confuse the readers.

Summarizing is an important skill because it helps you

• deepen your understanding of the text;
• learn to identify relevant information or key ideas;
• combine details or examples that support the main idea/s;
• concentrate on the gist or main idea and key words presented in the text; and,
• capture the key ideas in the text and put them together clearly and concisely.

What is not summarizing? You are not summarizing when you

• write down everything
• write down ideas from text word-for-word;
• write down incoherent and irrelevant ideas;
• write down ideas that are not stated in the text; or
• write down a summary that has the same length or is longer than the original text.

Guidelines in Summarizing

1. Clarify your purpose before you read.

2. Read the text and understand the meaning. Do not stop reading until you understand the
message conveyed by the author. Locate the gist or main idea of the text, which can usually
be found either at the beginning, in the middle, or in the end.

3. Select and underline or circle the key ideas and phrases while reading; another strategy is
to annotate the text.
4. Write all the key ideas and phrases you identified on the margins or on your notebook in a
bullet or outline form.

5. Without looking at the text, identify the connections of these key ideas and phrases using a
concept map.

6. List your ideas in sentence form in a concept map. Practice personal hygiene protocols at
all times

7. Combine the sentences into a paragraph. Use appropriate transitional devices to improve
cohesion.

8. Ensure that you do not copy a single sentence from the original text.

9. Refrain from adding comments about the text. Stick to the ideas it presents.

10. Edit the draft of your summary by eliminating redundant ideas.

11. Compare your output with the original text to ensure accuracy.

12. Record the details of the original source (author’s name/s, date of publication, title,
publisher, place of publishing, and URL [if online]). It is not necessary to indicate the page
number/s of the original text in citing sources in summaries.

13. Format your summary properly. When you combine your summaries in a paragraph, use
different formats to show variety in writing.

Mrs. Mary Grace A. Castellon

Prepared by