Summary Writing

A summary is a short explanation of the source material, highlighting the important points while excluding a vivid detail. Summary writing allows us to give a brief description of a text; therefore, it is an important skill to learn. While writing a summary, we can better understand and analyse the topic we read and watch. Summary writing depends upon the type of source material. A summary makes our work easier and helps us identify what we want to read and watch.

Importance of Summary Writing

Summary writing is an essential skill because it teaches us to discern crucial points from the documents and text. Summarising a text helps in improving reading skills. It also helps in improving our vocabulary. Summary writing is needed to summarise the purpose of the text so that the readers can select their preferences. It gives them an overview of the source material. 

  It also helps in comprehension skills. It enables the students to understand the critical points to read to answer the questions correctly. The summary is written concisely and accurately. It helps in improving brevity, conciseness and professionalism as well as comprehensive skills.

How to Write a Summary?

We can divide the whole process into four simple steps to make it easier to understand.

1. Reading and Overseeing the Source Material

This is the first step that should be taken to write a good summary. The summary should not be copied. It is important to read the text thoroughly to understand what we need to write. When we write a book report or a summary of a long documentary, we often tend to skip some essential parts. But we should go through the text carefully to ensure we do not miss any essential points.

2. Noting all the Important Points

This is the most crucial step in writing a summary. We need to be careful in adding only the key points. The list of all the essential facts can vary depending upon the length of the summary. When writing a lengthy document, we can divide it into different sections, highlight key points for each section, and then combine each one later. The key points should not be mixed with our personal preferences and should highlight only the essential points.

3. Write a Summary in Simple Words

A summary should be first written with the help of all the key points we have listed in the previous stage. It is better to write it in chronological order to make it easier to understand. While writing the summary, we need to keep in mind that the reader will learn about the source material from this summary. In summary, it is advised to use one’s own language rather than copying from the original text. We can add quotations from the original text in the summary if it’s absolutely necessary.

4. Editing and Proofreading the Summary

This is the last step to take into consideration while writing a summary. We need to re-read the summary to check for grammatical mistakes, spelling errors and words used out of context. In summary, we do not want any irrelevant details. Therefore, we need to check for unnecessary information and remove them. Since summaries have a word limit, we need to check that the summary is not exceeding the word limit given for the same.

Summary Writing: Example

In order to understand better, let us look at some examples of summary writing. This is a resume summary of a student applying for an It Project Manager Job.

“Experienced project manager with knowledge in IT. Skills include computer networking, analytical thinking, and creative problem-solving. Able to apply customer service concepts to improve the user experience for clients and the company.”

This is a good summary as it describes his skills and experience clearly and concisely. It does not exaggerate on any point. This helps the candidate have a higher chance of being hired as it briefs all the important points that the job requires.

Now let us look at an example of a summary of a story to understand the challenges of summary writing.

Cinderella is a story that tells about the suffering and hostility faced by Cinderella by her stepmom and stepsisters. 

This is not an efficient summary of the story of Cinderella as it misses out on important points. While it is difficult to write a summary in a few sentences, we should always chalk a few points to describe the situation and then illustrate them in brief.

Conclusion

A summary is a concise description of the material given. Summary writing makes it easy to understand the text and gives a better overview. To write a summary, we need to read the text thoroughly so as not to miss the essential points. The summary should not contain excessive details. One should always cross-check and proofread to see if there is any mistake in the summary.