SUMMARIZING

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 PREPARING TO WRITE A SUMMARY

Summarizing a text is distilling its essential

concepts in a paragraph or two. Typically, a
summary has two goals:
1.to reproduce the key ideas and points of a
text, and
2.to express these concepts and ideas with
precise and specific language.
You must be ready to choose which parts of
the text to include and which parts to
exclude in your summary.

When reading a text, there are two

techniques you can use in order to prepare:
1. previewing
2. skimming and scanning
PREVIEWING
● Set your goals in reading any academic text
early on, especially when 6.53 you plan to
summarize it later on for research or study
purposes. This will allow you to be more
focused and to pay more attention to the
parts of the text that are important for your
purposes.
● Before you read a text in earnest,
try the previewing technique first to
better orient yourself to what you
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need from the text you are about to

dive into.
Steps you can follow for previewing:
1.Don’t skip the title! It is usually written to orient
the reader and provide a hint as to what the
central concepts of the text will be.
2.Consider the subject matter: Have you read
about this topic before? What prior information
about it do you already have, or what can you
guess?
3.Who is the author of the text? Is additional
information about the author available in any part
of the text? What do you already know about him
or her?
4.Where was this text originally published? Who
might be the audience for this kind of text?
What could the audience expect to find in the
text?
5.When was this text originally published? Is there
a connection between the time period it was
written in and the field of study it was published
in? Were there any important events or significant
trends during the time the text was written or
published?
6.What seems to be the general progression of
ideas in the chapter titles or headings that
section the article?
7.Why has your professor assigned this text?
Where does it fit into the course or subject as a
whole? What sort of facts and ideas are you
expected to remember from this reading?
Skimming and Scanning
● By first skimming through a text, you can
get an idea of its overall logical progression.
● Skimming can also help you determine which
parts of the text need your utmost attention
to achieve your purposes for reading the text.
● Listed in the next slides are steps you
can take when skimming, but they can
be modified or adjusted to your comfort.
1.Before skimming, make use of the previewing
techniques from the previous subsection.
2.Then, carefully read the introductory
paragraph. Try to predict the direction of the
coming explanations, arguments, and examples.
3.Carefully read the first one or two sentences of
each paragraph, as well as the concluding
sentence or sentences.
4.In between the opening and closing sentences,
keep your eyes moving. Your goal is to take in
the overarching concepts and overall picture or
pattern of the text.
5.Carefully read the concluding paragraph or
paragraphs. What might the author’s overall
purpose be? Keep in mind that you may be
mistaken, so be ready and willing to modify
your answer if needed.
6.Finally, return to the beginning and do a
more focused reading of the text. Be
more mindful of what you might have
missed in your skimming and try to
understand them thoroughly.
● Skimming is effective in getting a quick grasp of what the
paper is about without reading through it carefully.
● Each paragraph in a paper has its own main ideas,
usually as its first or last sentence.
● You can start connecting the dots and guess how the
paper would defend its thesis.
PREPARING TO WRITE A SUMMARY

Title: Muling Mag-abang sa Kundiman:

Revisiting Edgar Samar’s Poetry

In recent years, many students, and even

quite a number of adults and parents, have
come to know the name of Edgar Samar.

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PREPARING TO WRITE A SUMMARY

However, it is a lesser-known fact that

Edgar Samar has been very prolific in the
Philippine literary scene since as early as 2002.

For 13 years, Edgar Samar has been a

successful fictionist and poet.

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PREPARING TO WRITE A SUMMARY

In recent years, asking who Edgar Samar is

in the Philippines would, more often than not,
result in people being familiar with the name.

To delve more into the poetic works of

Edgar Samar, two of his poems will be
presented in this paper.
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PREPARING TO WRITE A SUMMARY

These are what you would read while still

skimming the paper before reading it more closely.
What might the topic of the paper be, judging
from your skimming?

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Scanning is similar to skimming,
except you should have a more
focused purpose.
 What is included in a summary?
1.Title and Author
2.Author’s Thesis
3.Subsections/Subtopics
4.Omit specific examples
5.Avoid opinions
6.Be careful not to plagiarize the
author’s words
Example:

In his paper “Global Implications of

Patent Law Variation,” Koji Suzuki (1991)
says that the world’s patent laws have a lot
of inconsistencies, and that this can be a
severe problem. In the majority of countries
in the world, the first to file for a patent is
given the patent ownership.
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 However, in the United States, patent
ownership is given to the inventor directly.
In light of this, the patent ownership can
change depending on the country. While the
existence of multiple possible patent
ownerships can cause economic problems,
the international tension that it creates is a
bigger problem.
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 The United States violates the Paris
Convention on Industrial Properties by not
recognizing patent ownership in other
countries and has prompted the World
Intellectual Properties Organization (WIPO)
to ask the United States to review its
existing patent law principles.
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Explanation
● In this summary, the author and the
title of the text are already present in
the first sentence.
● The thesis is also immediately given,
providing a clear guide on how the
rest of the summary can be written.
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Explanation
● It provides an overview of what else
the original text might be talking
about.
● The summary then talks about the
important details in the text,
excluding any additional examples
and personal opinions.
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