The essential skill of summary writing is judging what information is essential and what you can leave
out.
Writing a good summary indicates that you clearly understand a text and that you can make your
readers understand what you are trying to say.
Summary writing is all about being tactful and understanding infortaion.
Step 1: Understand and Digest
Skim the required text and divide it into sections.
Focus of headings and subheadings if any.
Make sure you understand the information given in the text or you will be unable to summarize it.
Step 2: Read
As you have skimmed the text and have gotten an initial idea about the subject of the text.
Go ahead and read the required text.
While reading feel the authors tone, style and main idea.
Step 3: Re-reading
Active reading.
Underline key concepts and important facts given.
Label important facts and unrelated details, this will simplify your work.
Step 4: READY TO WRITE
Once you start writing, take note of these points
Write in the present or past tense
Make sure to include the author and title of the work.
Be concise: a summary should not be equal in length to the original text.
If you must use the words of the author, cite them. Otherwise, USE YOUR OWN WORDS (for example,
instead of “in actual fact”, write “actually”)!
Do not add in your own opinions, ideas, or interpretations into the summary. The purpose of writing a
summary is to accurately represent what the author wanted to say, not to provide a critique.