A good summary keeps the main points, drops the detail, and uses your own words and sentence structure. It shows that you understood the passage, not that you can copy it. Check the exact wording of each task, since the required length and focus are given in the question.
This lesson brings together paragraph purpose, whole-text headings, examples versus claims and contrast connectors. It is part of reading for main ideas.
What does a summary keep and drop?
Keep the main claims and the reasons or results that explain them. Drop examples, names, repeated points and decoration such as colourful descriptions. If the task names a focus, for example “the advantages only”, keep only points that answer it.
A step-by-step method
- Read the task first to see the focus and the limit.
- Read the passage and mark the main claim of each paragraph.
- Cross out examples, repetition and side details.
- Close the passage and say each point aloud in simple words.
- Write the points as short sentences, joining them with connectors such as because, so and but.
- Compare with the passage to check that no point is missing and no phrase is copied in a row.
Worked example
Many towns now run repair cafés where volunteers mend broken toys, lamps and clothes for free. The first café opened in a church hall, and its founder, Mr Tan, repaired a record player on opening day. The cafés keep useful things out of the rubbish and teach visitors simple repair skills. However, some volunteers say that the cafés cannot fix everything, because new products are often built to be difficult to open.
Task: Summarise the benefits of repair cafés in one or two sentences.
Step 1, task focus. Only the benefits.
Step 2, main points. Volunteers mend things for free; fewer things are thrown away; visitors learn simple repair skills.
Step 3, what to cross out. The church hall, Mr Tan and the record player are examples and background. The However sentence is a limitation, so it is outside the focus “benefits”.
Step 4, own-words version.
Repair cafés let volunteers fix broken items at no cost, so less is thrown away and visitors pick up basic repair skills.
Step 5, check. Three benefits appear, in new sentence structure. No example is included. The passage’s exact phrases “keep useful things out of the rubbish” and “teach visitors simple repair skills” have become “less is thrown away” and “pick up basic repair skills”.
The mistake to watch for
A common slip is to lift sentences and trim them.
Mistaken summary: “Many towns now run repair cafés where volunteers mend broken toys, lamps and clothes for free. The first café opened in a church hall.”
The first sentence is copied almost word for word, and the second is an example of background detail that the task did not ask for. The benefits, fewer items thrown away and new skills, are missing.
The correction is to start from the points, not from the sentences. List the points first, and then write each in a fresh sentence.
Check yourself
1. Turn this into one own-words sentence: “The museum, which opened in 1998, has a rooftop garden where pupils grow herbs and learn about the insects that visit them.”
Show answer
One possible answer: The museum’s rooftop garden lets pupils grow herbs and study insects. The date is a side detail and has been dropped. Other wordings are fine if they keep the growing and the learning.
2. A student’s summary says: “Repair cafés, which are run by volunteers who repair toys, lamps and clothes for free.” What is wrong with it as a sentence, and as a summary?
Show answer
As a sentence it is incomplete, because it has no main verb after the subject. As a summary it keeps close to the passage’s wording and adds no reason or result. Add a finite verb and a point, such as “Repair cafés use volunteers to fix items, so less is thrown away.”
3. Which should be kept in a summary about why a school started a reading hour: “pupils read more”, “the head teacher is Mrs Lim”, or “the hour begins at 10:15”?
Show answer
Keep “pupils read more” because it is a result. The name and the start time are details that do not answer why the hour started.
Where this leads next
Use the summary selection and paraphrase studio to practise choosing points, and the writing revision compare view to compare two drafts of your own summary. Then try the mixed practice set.
A teacher in online one-to-one English as a Second Language tuition can read your summary beside the passage and show, line by line, where a point was lost or borrowed.