Reading
Writing a summary
Cut a passage to its essential points and write them out as your own connected sentences.
A summary is not a shorter passage. It is the same passage with everything removed that was there to persuade, illustrate or decorate — and what is left, written out again in your own connected sentences. The hard part is not the writing. It is deciding, line by line, what the passage would still mean without this sentence in it.
What always goes
Examples, however good. Repetitions, however differently worded. Figures of speech. Direct quotations. Statistics used to illustrate a point you have already kept. Anything introduced by for example, for instance, such as or in other words is a signpost saying this can be cut.
What always stays
The main point of each paragraph, in the order the passage made them, joined by enough linking words that a reader who has never seen the original can follow you. A list of points with no joins is a set of notes, not a summary.
Third person, your own words
Write about the passage from outside it: not "I think" and not "you should", but plain third-person statement. Using your own words is not a stylistic preference — it is the only evidence the examiner has that you understood rather than copied.
Compress the phrases
Half the length you need comes from the sentences you drop and half from the phrases you shrink. On a monthly basis becomes monthly. At frequent intervals becomes often. The people who attended the meeting become the attendees. One word for five, over and over, is where a summary finds its room.
Worked example
Summarise: "Street lighting matters more than people think. For instance, a lane near our school was dark for a month and two accidents happened there. In other words, dark streets are dangerous streets."
Cross out the sentence beginning "For instance".
It is an illustration of the point, not the point — and the signpost tells you so.
Try it together
Let us shrink one paragraph together.
The paragraph is: Due to the fact that the well had dried up, a large number of people who live in the village had to fetch water from the canal at this point in time. Each answer is a single word.
1.Replace "In spite of the fact that" with one word.
Have a go
Reduce this phrase to a single word: "in the majority of cases".
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.