TIPS FOR WRITING SUMMARIES
The ability to make a summary of a long piece of text is a skill that you utilize even at a tertiary level
of study 😊. The skill of writing a summary is tested in English exams by an examiner providing you
with a piece of text and requesting that you summarize it in a limited number of words.
Some tips for writing a good summary:
1.THE SUMMARY THAT YOU WRITE HAS TO BE JUST AS LOGICAL AS THE FULL EXTRACT
You need to imagine that you are writing a paragraph for a person who has not engaged with the full
text. Your summary needs to flow logically. To ensure that your summary has a logical flow, link your
individual points with eachother. Conjunctions can also be used to join your sentences together.
EXAMPLE:
Susan went to the beach and was upset. The reason for Susan’s turmoil was her hunger.
*The sentences are linked. There are three separate points that have been joined together. 1) Susan
went to the beach 2) Susan was upset 3) Susan was hungry. Something that links the sentences is
the fact that Susan was both hungry and upset at the beach.
2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE INCLUDED ALL THE MAIN POINTS OF THE FULL EXTRACT IN YOUR
SUMMARY
The primary reason that your teacher is requesting you to write a summary is to test your language
comprehension. As a student, you demonstrate that you have engaged and comprehended the
meaning of the full extract by including its main points in your summary. Highlighting the main parts
of the full text is a good way to ensure that your summary contains all the important points it needs
to.
3. DON’T USE DESCRIPTIVE WORDS
Adjectives are beautiful 😊. It is a very natural human inclination to use descriptive words, and they
certainly have their time and their place in creative writing. Unlike descriptive essays, summaries are
only allowed to be comprised of a small number of words. Using adjectives in a summary is not a
very wise move, as they will waste the precious number of words that you have been allocated. Let’s
imagine a scenario. When you you are taking notes in a meeting, the meeting is happening at a fast
pace. It is your job as a scribe in this meeting to write down all your colleagues’ talking points. The
fact that the “the company is not making a profit” is a perfectly sufficient fact. You don’t have to
write in your meeting notes that “the company is not making a profit and is crumbling into a million
pieces”. When you a writing a summary for assessment, imagine it is simply a study note that you
are making for yourself, or that you are writing down all the main talking points of a meeting for
your boss to review.
4. TRY TO WRITE SUMMARIES IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
I must stress a point that has probably been mentioned to you before. When you are writing a
summary, you need to demonstrate that you comprehend what the full extract is about. A way that
you can demonstrate that you have engaged with the text and that you understand what it is about
is by paraphrasing certain parts of the text in your own words. There are going to be parts of the full
extract that you can’t change or rephrase, however you should try to shorten lengthy sentences by
The ability to make a summary of a long piece of text is a skill that you utilize even at a tertiary level
of study 😊. The skill of writing a summary is tested in English exams by an examiner providing you
with a piece of text and requesting that you summarize it in a limited number of words.
Some tips for writing a good summary:
1.THE SUMMARY THAT YOU WRITE HAS TO BE JUST AS LOGICAL AS THE FULL EXTRACT
You need to imagine that you are writing a paragraph for a person who has not engaged with the full
text. Your summary needs to flow logically. To ensure that your summary has a logical flow, link your
individual points with eachother. Conjunctions can also be used to join your sentences together.
EXAMPLE:
Susan went to the beach and was upset. The reason for Susan’s turmoil was her hunger.
*The sentences are linked. There are three separate points that have been joined together. 1) Susan
went to the beach 2) Susan was upset 3) Susan was hungry. Something that links the sentences is
the fact that Susan was both hungry and upset at the beach.
2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE INCLUDED ALL THE MAIN POINTS OF THE FULL EXTRACT IN YOUR
SUMMARY
The primary reason that your teacher is requesting you to write a summary is to test your language
comprehension. As a student, you demonstrate that you have engaged and comprehended the
meaning of the full extract by including its main points in your summary. Highlighting the main parts
of the full text is a good way to ensure that your summary contains all the important points it needs
to.
3. DON’T USE DESCRIPTIVE WORDS
Adjectives are beautiful 😊. It is a very natural human inclination to use descriptive words, and they
certainly have their time and their place in creative writing. Unlike descriptive essays, summaries are
only allowed to be comprised of a small number of words. Using adjectives in a summary is not a
very wise move, as they will waste the precious number of words that you have been allocated. Let’s
imagine a scenario. When you you are taking notes in a meeting, the meeting is happening at a fast
pace. It is your job as a scribe in this meeting to write down all your colleagues’ talking points. The
fact that the “the company is not making a profit” is a perfectly sufficient fact. You don’t have to
write in your meeting notes that “the company is not making a profit and is crumbling into a million
pieces”. When you a writing a summary for assessment, imagine it is simply a study note that you
are making for yourself, or that you are writing down all the main talking points of a meeting for
your boss to review.
4. TRY TO WRITE SUMMARIES IN YOUR OWN WORDS.
I must stress a point that has probably been mentioned to you before. When you are writing a
summary, you need to demonstrate that you comprehend what the full extract is about. A way that
you can demonstrate that you have engaged with the text and that you understand what it is about
is by paraphrasing certain parts of the text in your own words. There are going to be parts of the full
extract that you can’t change or rephrase, however you should try to shorten lengthy sentences by
