Summarising a Text

طریقہ، مرحلہ وار

1. 1

   Read the whole text before writing anything

   you cannot identify the main idea from the first paragraph

   Main ideas often become clear only at the end. Summarising as you read produces a summary weighted towards the opening, which is usually where the least important material sits.

2. 2

   Find the main idea of each paragraph

   one sentence per paragraph, in your own words

   Most paragraphs have a single point with supporting material around it. Reducing each to one sentence produces a skeleton of the whole text, and that skeleton is most of the summary already.

3. 3

   Cut examples, repetition and detail

   'for example', 'in other words', statistics, anecdotes

   These support the argument rather than being the argument. A summary keeps the claim and drops the evidence, which is precisely what makes it shorter than the original.

4. 4

   Write in your own words

   rephrase rather than copy

   Copying phrases from the original is not summarising, and it is marked down. Rephrasing also demonstrates comprehension in a way that reproduction cannot, which is why the task is set.

5. 5

   Check nothing important is missing or added

   compare your summary against the original's main claims

   A summary must be accurate as well as brief. Adding your own opinion is the most common error — a summary reports what the text says, not what you think about it.

Telling the point from the support

The core skill is separating what a paragraph claims from what it offers in support. Signal phrases help: 'for example', 'such as', 'for instance' and 'to illustrate' all introduce support, and everything after them is usually cuttable.

A useful test is whether removing a sentence would change what the text argues. If it would only make the argument less vivid or less well evidenced, it is detail and belongs out of the summary.

• Read the whole text first
• One sentence per paragraph
• Cut examples, statistics and repetition
• Rephrase — do not copy
• Report the text's view, not your own

A summary contains no opinion

Adding your own view is the most frequent error and it is heavily penalised, because it makes the summary an unreliable report of the source. If the text argues something you disagree with, the summary still says what the text argues.

Where a task asks for both summary and response, keep them in separate paragraphs and signal the shift clearly. Blending them leaves the reader unable to tell which claims belong to whom.

Why summarising is worth practising

It is the clearest available test of comprehension. A student who has genuinely understood a text can compress it; one who has not will either copy phrases or omit the actual argument, and both failures are visible immediately.

It also underpins other work. Essay writing, research and revision notes all depend on extracting main ideas, and students who summarise well tend to write better essays for exactly that reason.

How we teach summarising

We use a word limit, always, and enforce it. Without one students produce something close to the original length, which avoids the compression that is the entire point of the exercise.

We also ask for the one-sentence-per-paragraph skeleton before the finished summary. It makes the structure visible and it shows us immediately whether a student is finding main ideas or collecting whatever appeared first.