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Summary Writing 101

Identifying the main idea

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Class objectives

Students should be able to:

🠶 Define summary writing skills.
🠶 Differentiate between essential and non-essential information- main idea and supporting
detail (Editing).

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4 Why Summarize?

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5 Wait what happened?

🠶 The main idea is the repeated concept or idea that the writer wants the reader to
understand about a topic.
🠶 It is the writer’s ideology.
🠶 Can be stated directly (explicit) or indirectly (inferred).

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6 Tips for identifying essential
🠶 Substitute non-essentials/supporting details with
and non essential info one word.
🠶 Non-essentials are RAIOES:
🠶 Repetition and long winded statements
🠶 Anecdotes
🠶 Illustrations
🠶 Opinions
🠶 Examples
🠶 Statistics
*While these are new information they are only
extensions of the writers thought.
https://caribexams.org/cxce_p2tps

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7 Omit Repetition

“The prolonged shortage of rain affected adversely and badly animals’ health and strength and
even human activity and movement.”

The repetition of the conjunction “and” as well as the use of punctuation marks that are
used for lists or adding information (colons, commas etc) are indicators of repetition.
Additionally, the use of multiple and or similar words which are used to describe one
action, situation, thing or person… is repetition.

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8 Omitting Repetition

“The prolonged shortage of rain affected adversely and badly animals’ health and strength and
even human activity and movement.”

↓ ↓
“the drought seriously affected animals’ health and man’s activity.”

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9 Long winded speech/anecdotes/ verbal tics

🠶 The lady’s house flooded while her family was sleeping. The flooding destroyed her house and the items
within.
🠶 Verbal Tics are words that are transferred from speech to writing but do not add meaningful information
such as:
🠶 Kind of , Actually, Particular, Really, Certain, Basically, Like (American version)
For example,
“Productivity actually depends on certain factors that basically involves psychology more than any particular
technology.”

↓ ↓

“Productivity depends more on psychology than on technology.”

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10 Differentiate Fact from Opinion

🠶 Fact
🠶 Things that are proven.
🠶 Things that have occurred/ history.
🠶 Things that can be supported with evidence.

Opinions:
🠶 Not proven.
🠶 Believed to have occurred.
🠶 Does not support evidence.

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11 Omitting opinions

🠶 Opinion “World war I was the cause of the spread of the Spanish flu which killed more
people than the war itself.”

↓ ↓

🠶 Fact “Many people died after the Spanish Flu spread from country to country after World
war I. The flu killed more people than the war itself.”

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12 Illustrations

My father was one who looked on the bright side of like.

↓ ↓

My father was optimistic.

“The congestion of traffic spread from the streets to the roads, lanes and narrows alleys of the town and this
frustrated many people. They were upset by this traffic problem.”
↓ ↓

“The traffic congestion throughout the town affected many people.”

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13 Omitting examples

“All the decorations at the party such as balloons, streamers and posters, were destroyed when
the stormy winds blew in a rage.”
These examples drag the point on. However they do provide new and essential details to
present the author’s point. Therefore, in cases like these we omit the examples but we can
use one word in place of many such as, “party decorations”.

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14 Omitting examples

“All the decorations at the party such as balloons, streamers and posters, were destroyed when
the stormy winds blew in a rage.”

↓ ↓

“Stormy winds destroyed the party decorations.”

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15 Omitting Statistics

🠶 Cristiano Ronaldo has played 144 games more than Lionel Messi in his entire career and has
scored only 28 goals more than the Argentinian. Also, Leo Messi has given 70 assists more
than Cristiano Ronaldo in his entire career, making a total of 989 goals generated in 856
games (1.16 goals generated by game). Meanwhile, Cristiano Ronaldo has generated 947
goals in 1000 games, for a total of 0.95 goals generated by game in his entire career.
🠶 Adding goals and assists we can affirm that, in his entire career, Messi has generated 42
goals more than Ronaldo, despite having played 144 matches less. Uefa.com
🠶 ↓ ↓

🠶 According to Uefa, Lionel Messi is statistically a better football player than Cristiano
Ronaldo better player.

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16 Questions???

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Student Assessment

🠶 Read the following sentences carefully to determine what information is essential and non
essential. Re-write the sentences to reflect essential information only.
1. The dumbbell I bought in PriceSmart was small in size, round in shape, yellow in colour and
heavy in weight.”
2. Actually, since I been on lock-down, all I really want to do is watch the television and eat ice-
cream every second of the day.
3. You will be fascinated by the main tints and hues of the hibiscus, the white, pink and mauve of
the queen of flowers, the cobalt-blue of the morning glory and the rich crimson of the sweet
William.
4. Your new tools for class include, laptops, internet, handout, text books, pen and notebooks are to
be kept close in preparation for class.
5. The rebels were accused of mischievously defacing public property.

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