BASIC OF

SUMMARIZING
WHAT IS SUMMARIZING ?
 As an important skill in critical reading,
summarizing is often used to determine the
essential ideas in a book, article, book chapter,
an article or parts of an article.
 This essential ideas include the gist or main
idea, useful information, or key words or
phrases that help you meet your reading
purpose.
 Summarizing is generally done after reading.
However, it can be done as well as reading a
text
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 example 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 the 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 be 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.
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 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.
FORMATS IN SUMMARIZING
The three formats that you may used in writing summaries
are idea heading, author heading and date heading

1. Idea heading format

- in this format, the summarized idea comes before the
citation example;

 Benchmarking is a useful strategy that has the potential

to help public officials improve the performance of local
services ( Folz, 2004; Amons, 2001). Once the practice of
a particular city is benchmarked, it can be a guidepost
and basis for other counter parts to improve its own.
FORMATS IN SUMMARIZING
2. Author heading format
- in this format the summarized idea comes after the citation. The
authors name/s is/are connected by an appropriate reporting verb.
Example;
The considerable number of users of FB has led educators to utilize
FB for communicating with their students ( Grant, 2008; as cited in
Donmus, 2010). The study of Kabilan, Ahmad and Abidin( 2010)
shows that the student percieved FB as an online environment to
expedite language learning specially English. Donmus(2010)
asserts that educational games on FB fecundate learning process
and makes students learning environment more engaging. As
regards literacy this notion reveals that FB could be used as a tool to
aid individuals execute a range of social acts through social literacy
implementation (ibid). Black stone and hard wood (2012) suggest
the facilitative strength of FB as it elicits greater engagement on
collaboration among students.
FORMATS IN SUMMARIZING

3. Date Heading Format

- In this format, the summarize ideas comes after the
Date when the material was published
- Example;

On the other hand active participation of citizen in

development contributes to a sound and reasonable
government decision, In their (2004) study on the impact of
participatory development approach, Irvin stands bury
argued the participation can be valuable to the participants
and the government in terms of the process and the
outcomes of decision making.
USING REPORTING VERBS IN SUMMARIZING

A reporting verb is a word used to discuss another

persons writings or assertions they are generally used
and corporate the source to the discussion in the text.
To illustrate, see the sample text below. The reporting
verbs are italisized
Example;
Having a syntactically correct sentence is not enough to
create meaning. As Noam Chomsky pointed out that
the sentence can bee perfect in terms of syntax and
still not makes sense. He showed this by coming up
with the famous sentence “colourless green ideas,
sleep furiously”, Chomsky (1957).
USING REPORTING VERBS IN SUMMARIZING

In summarizing you are highly encourage to vary the

verbs you used to make your writing more interesting
and to show importance to watch of your sources.
You can used either the past or the present tense
depending on your meaning. Using the past tense
usually indicate that you view the idea to be out dated
and therefore want to negate it. On the other hand
using thee present tense generally indicate that you
view the idea to be relevant or agreeable.
 THANK YOU
Discussant:
MARY GRACE SAYA
HAZEL ALVARADO
ERICKA MAE SERRANO
MARIFE BATO BULAWAN