esson 4:
L
Summarizing
Variety of Academic
Texts
English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Uses various techniques in
Learning summarizing a variety of academic
Objectives texts. CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Ia-c-5
SUMMARIZING
is how we take larger selections
of text and reduce them to their
bare
essentials: the gist, the key
ideas, the main points that are
worth noting and remembering.
SUMMARY
Webster's calls a summary the
"general idea in brief form"; it's the
distillation,
condensation, or reduction of a
larger work into its primary notions.
Basic Rules:
A. Erase things that don’t matter. Delete trivial
material that is unnecessary to understanding.
B. Erase things that repeat. Delete redundant
material. In note taking, time and space is
precious. If a word or phrase says basically the
same thing you have already written down, then
don’t write it again!
Basic Rules:
C. Trade, general terms for specific names.
Substitute superordinate terms for lists
(e.g., flowers for daisies, tulips for roses). Focus on the
big picture. Long, technical lists are hard to remember.
If one word will give you the meaning, then less is
more.
Basic Rules:
D. Use your own words to write the summary.
Write the summary using your own
words but make sure to retain the main points.
TECHNIQUES
1. Somebody Wanted But So.
The strategy helps students generalize, recognize cause and
effect relationships, and find main ideas.
Little Red Riding Hood wanted to take cookies
to her sick grandmother, but she encountered a
wolf. He got to her grandmother’s house first and
pretended to be the old woman. He was going to
eat Little Red Riding Hood, but she realized what
he was doing and ran away, crying for help. A
woodsman heard the girl’s cries and saved her
from the wolf.
2. SAAC Method.
This method is particularly helpful in summarizing any
kind of text.
SAAC is an acronym for “State, Assign, Action,
Complete.” Each word in the acronym refers to a
specific element that should be included in the
summary.
COMPLETE
STATE ACTION (complete the
ASSIGN
(the name of the (what the author is sentence or
(the name of the
article, book, or doing (example: summary with
author) tells, explains) keywords and
story)
important details)
what happens
when a
“The Boy Aesop shepherd boy
Who (a Greek tells repeatedly lies
Cried Wolf” to the villagers
storyteller) about
seeing a wolf
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf," by Aesop (a
Greek storyteller), tells what happens
when a shepherd boy repeatedly lies to the
villagers about seeing a wolf. After a
while, they ignore his false cries. Then,
when a wolf really does attack, they don’t
come to help him.
3. 5 W's, 1 H.
This technique relies on six crucial questions: who,
what, when where, why, and how.
These questions make it easy to identify the main
character, important details, and main idea.
Why did the How did
Who is the Where did main the main
What did When did
story the story character character
they do? the action
about? happen? do what do what
take place?
s/he did? s/he did?
He raced When isn’t The
The
a specified
tortoise tortoise
The quick, in this An old was tired of kept up
story, so
tortoise boastful it’s not country hearing the his
hare and hare boast slow but
important road about his steady
won. in this
case. speed. pace.
4. First Then Finally. This technique helps students
summarize events in chronological
order.
First: What happened first? Include the main character
and main event/action.
Then: What key details took place during the
event/action?
Finally: What were the results of the event/action?
First, Goldilocks entered the bears' home
while they were gone. Then, she ate their
food, sat in their chairs, and slept in their
beds. Finally, she woke up to find the
bears watching her, so she jumped up and
ran away.
5. Give Me the Gist.
This type of techniques
is like giving a friend
the gist of a story. In
other words, they want
a summary – not a
retelling of every
detail.
Thank You!
happy writing!
