Definition of Summarizing

-It refers to providing an abridged version of the narrative.

-Summarizing is also defined as taking a lot of information and creating a condensed version that covers the main
points.

Summary

Summary or a precis is a synopsis or gist of an entire text.

A summary is a synthesis of the key ideas of a piece of writing, restated in your own words i.e., paraphrased. You may
write a summary as a stand alone assignment or as part of a longer paper. Whenever you summarize, you must be
careful not to copy the exact wording of the original source.

Buckley (2004), in her popular writing text Fit to Print, defines summarizing as reducing text to one-third or one-
quarter its original size, clearly articulating the author’s meaning, and retaining main ideas.

Diane Hacker (2008), in A Canadian Writer’s Reference, explains that summarizing involves stating a work’s thesis
and main ideas “simply, briefly, and accurately” (p. 62).

Summarizing is also an essential skill that is needed in the workplace and in the community. In some cases, writing a
summary is an excellent learning strategy that allows students to monitor their own progress in learning course
material.

Basic Rules:

A. Erase things that don’t matter.

B. Only write down important points.
C. Erase things that repeat.
D. Trade general terms for specific names.
E. Use your own words to write the summary.

Techniques in Summarizing Academic Texts

1. Read the work first to understand the author’s intent. This is a crucial step because an incomplete reading
could lead to an inaccurate summary.
Note: Inaccurate summary is plagiarism.
2. Present information through facts, skills, and concepts in visual formats. You can provide the cause and
effects charts, timeline, and Venn diagrams, templates for outlines, use flow charts or infographics.
3. Know the main points and the supporting details. You can exclude any illustrations, examples, or explanations.
4. Analyze text to save time in thinking what you will do.
5. Think what information you will put in your summary. Be sure to cover the main points and arguments of the
document.
6. Restating the words into different one. You should avoid using the original words of the author instead; use your
own vocabulary but be sure to retain the information.
7. Organize all the idea.
8. Write down all the information in a coherent and precise form. Keep in mind that a summary is a condensed
version of the original paper, so avoid making it long.
9. Represent information through using dimensional constructions in representing concepts, skills or facts.
10. Paraphrase the sentences. Do not use the same words with the author.

Here’s another useful Easy Techniques in Summarizing Academic Texts:

1. Somebody Wanted But So Then. Each word represents a key question related to a text’s essential elements:

Somebody—Who is involved?
Wanted—What did he/she want?
But—What was the problem encountered?
So—How did he/she do to solve the problem?
Then—How did it end?

Example:
• Somebody: Carlos Yulo
• Wanted: He wanted to win in the Gymnastics World Championships.
• But: He almost gave on the respective sport after he got homesick during his first few months in Japan where he
trained.
• So: His mother convinced him to stay in the sport.
• Then: He continued in gymnastics and eventually bagged gold medal in the world championships of men’s
gymnastics.
2. SAAC Method. This method is particularly helpful in learning the format of a summary. This includes the title and
author’s name.

State— The name of the article, book, movie

Assign—The name of the author
Action—What the author is doing (ex. tells, explains)
Complete—Complete the sentence or summary with keywords and important details.

Here is an example of SAAC in action:

State: Managing Covid-19 related Health care Waste

• Assign: Dr. Esperanza Cabral & Paeng Lopez

• Action: Tells

• Complete: Segregating waste should always be observed since there is no established waste treatment process yet
for waste generated in response to COVID-19 virus.

3. 5W’s, 1 H. This technique relies on six crucial questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How. These questions
make it easy to identify important details and main idea. Your summary may not necessarily follow this order as long
as it contains all of this information.

Who is being talked about in the text?

What did he/she do?

When did it happen?

Where did it happen?

Why did he/she do it?

How did he/she do what he/she did?

Example: This is from a research study titled Writing Difficulties and Quality of Academic Essays of Senior High
School Students conducted by Jim Christzer I. Pablo and Ronald Candy S. Lasaten (Ph.D).

 Who? Senior High School students

 What? The difficulties of Senior High School students in writing academic essays and the overall quality of the
academic essays.
 When? 2018 •
 Where? Schools Division of Laoag City
 Why? To determine and analyze the difficulties of Senior High School students in writing academic essays
and to compare the quality of the academic essays of the students from public and private schools
 . How? The study used a research her-made checklist patterned after the criteria set by Jacobs (1981) in
evaluating academic essays and the Standardized Rubric in Evaluating Academic Essay of Jacobs (1981)
enriched by Valdez (2016).

4. First Then Finally. This technique helps summarize events or steps in chronological order or in sequence.

First– What happened first?

Then– What key details took place during the event/action?
Finally– What were the results of the event/action?

Example:
First, everyone panicked upon the government’s announcement on lockdown. Then, people stayed at home and
many lost their jobs. Finally, a lot of non-government organizations protested against the government to lift the
lockdown.

5. Give Me The Gist

When someone asks for "the gist" of a story, they want to know what the story is about. In other words, they want a
summary—not a retelling of every detail. The gist method is just like giving a friend the gist of a story. You can use the
gist method as a fun, quick way to practice summarizing on a regular basis.

Helpful Tips in Summarizing

1. Read the text you are about to summarize over and over again.
2. Identify the main idea of the text you are planning to summarize.
3. Put your feet into your readers’ shoes.
4. Ensure a smooth flow of ideas.
5. Limit your summary to few sentences.
6. Do not forget to proofread your work.
There are time times when we find summarizing similar with paraphrasing and retelling. Though they sound the same,
they are different.

Summaries can be written or spoken where the main purpose is to tell the most important parts like the main ideas
and important details. And it is always shorter than the original.

Retelling stories and events serve as an important purpose in our daily life, and it comes naturally to some.

E.g.: When we tell the jokes we have heard, we are retelling.

Paraphrasing can be done both in writing and in speaking.

In speaking, we paraphrase to make sure we understand someone’s idea.

E.g.: “So, what you’re saying is that, you can’t afford to go on a vacation.”

We also paraphrase to relate information from one person to another.

E.g.: “She said we’d be in trouble if we weren’t here on time every day.”

In writing, we paraphrase to report the information and the best way to do it is to understand the idea and then
describe it. With this, different words will naturally come out. Copying the exact sentence and changing few words is
not paraphrasing.

Summarizing Paraphrasing Retelling

Telling the important part of the text. Saying the same thing, but in Telling a story that you previously
different words. heard or read.
Summaries are shorter than the You can choose how much to Retelling preserves the sequence
original text, but must include certain paraphrase. and important details of a story.
ideas.
Summaries can be written Paraphrasing can be written or Retelling is spoken.
or spoken spoken