Reading: comprehension
Note-making and summarising
Turn a passage into short notes under headings, and write a summary that keeps the meaning in far fewer words.
Notes and summaries both squeeze a long passage into a short one, and they do it in opposite ways. Notes break the passage apart into headings and short phrases. A summary puts it back together as a few flowing sentences of your own. Both keep the meaning; neither keeps the words.
Notes are phrases, not sentences
Causes of soil erosion — rain, wind, farming. No verb, no articles, no full stop. A note is written for you to read later, not for anyone else, so grammar can go.
Notes have a shape
One heading that covers the whole passage, then sub-headings, then points under each. The shape is doing half the work: it shows which idea belongs under which, without your having to write a word explaining it.
Short forms are welcome
govt. for government, & for and, e.g. for for example, etc. for and so on, info for information. Use any short form you will still recognise a week later, and use the same ones every time.
A summary is about a third as long
Roughly one third of the original is the usual target. It is written in complete sentences, in your own words, and it keeps only the main ideas and the reasons behind them. Examples, descriptions and repetitions all go.
Neither one takes your opinion
Whether you found the passage interesting is not in the passage. Notes and summaries both report what the writer said, and nothing you thought about it.
Have a play
A page of notes, with every line drawn as a block. Find out what each line is, and notice how far along the page each one begins.
Tap any part of the picture.
Worked example
Make a note from: "Bamboo grows faster than almost any other plant, and it is used to build houses, weave baskets and make paper."
Find what the sentence is about: bamboo. That is the heading.
A heading is the one word or phrase everything else hangs from.
Try it together
Let us turn one sentence into a note.
The sentence is: "The tiger, which is the largest member of the cat family, hunts alone and rests for most of the day."
1.Notes leave out the words that carry no facts. Should the note keep the words "which is"? Answer yes or no.
Have a go
Which is the better note for "The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived on Earth"?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.