Summary writing

One strategy for improving reading comprehension is to write summaries. Summaries function to reduce the amount of information to be remembered and to organize the information in a way that aids understanding and remembering. My team of professionals writers from thesis writing service recommends also to practice other types of writings!

Five steps of summary writing are provided below.

1. Make sure you understand the text.

• Ask yourself, 'What was this text about?' and 'What did the author say?'

• Try to say the general theme to yourself before you begin to summarize the text.

2. Look back.

• Reread the text to make sure you got the general theme right.

• Also reread to make certain that you really understand what the important parts of the text are.

• Star or mark the important parts of the text.

• Now use the four specific rules for writing a summary.

3. Rethink.

• Reread a paragraph of the text.

• Try to say the theme of that paragraph to yourself.

• Is the theme a topic sentence? (Main idea?) Have you marked it?

• Or is the topic sentence missing? If it is missing, have you written one, in the margin, for example?

4. Check and double check.

• Did you leave in any lists? Make sure you don't list things out in your summary.

• Did you repeat yourself? Make sure you didn't.

• Did you skip anything?

• Is all the important information in the summary?

5. Polish the summary.

• When a lot of information is reduced from an original passage, the resulting concentrated information often sounds very unnatural. Fix this problem and create a more natural- sounding summary.

• Adjustments may include but are not limited to: paraphrasing, insertion of connecting words like 'and' or 'because,' and the insertion of introductory or closing statements.