Introduction
The summary is a text frequently present in educational settings,
confusing conceptualization and whose realization reviews multifaceted characteristics.
Many teachers at the primary, secondary and even tertiary level
They check daily that their students do not know how to summarize a text.
The preparation of the summary in the classroom is frequently
stripped of the communicative context that this practice usually has in the
extracurricular area. Instruction usually focuses on determining the
steps to follow: read the text carefully, underline the main ideas,
place the corresponding keywords next to each paragraph and, for
Lastly, rewrite those main ideas. These steps are usually used in
indiscriminately with any type of text: stories, news
journalistic or expository texts are treated in the same way when
to produce the respective summaries.
The summary is approached in a privileged way as a technique of
study but, paradoxically, it is usually presented as an isolated activity or
detached from the notions of social or natural sciences that are intended
teach. A fact that confirms this assessment is that it appears as
Language content in school textbooks and are the teachers of this
area those who are in charge of the exclusive responsibility for its teaching.
This prevents us from noticing the enormous conceptual complexity that the task of
summarize texts belonging to specific domains of knowledge.