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Summary writing is the process of reading a text, identifying the main ideas
and then writing the important ideas in many fewer words. A summary should be
brief and include only important ideas or information from the text. Summaries
should not include examples or repetitions. Summarizing helps you understand
and remember information you read. Below are some basic guidelines to follow
when writing a good summary.
Use these strategies when summarizing a text. For long texts apply the steps
for each section.
- Find the most important information that tells what the paragraph or group
of paragraphs is about.
- Use this information to write a topic sentence.
- Find 2 -- 3 main ideas and important details that support your topic
sentence and show how they are related.
- Keep the ideas and facts in a logical order that expands on your
topic sentence.
- Combine several main ideas into a single sentence.
- Substitute a general term for lists of items or events.
- Do not include unimportant or minor details.
- Do not repeat information.
- Write the summary in your own words -- do not copy information directly
from the text.
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