Various techniques in summarizing a variety of text Myline Lopez

1. VARIOUS TECHNIQUES IN
SUMMARIZING A VARIETY OF
ACADEMIC TEXTS

2. Learning Competency:
Uses various techniques in summarizing
a variety of academic texts.

3. Try to recall one of the novels or short stories you discussed
in one of your previous classes in English; choose one
selection out of the several you tackled throughout your
school life. Then, on a separate sheet of paper, try to rewrite
the story using your own words.
Questions:
a.Did you find the retelling of the story difficult? Why or why
not?
b.What strategies did you employ in order to retell the
story? Did you find these strategies helpful?

4. What is Summarizing?
Buckley
(2004)
Fit to
Print
Summarizing is reducing text to one-third or
one-quarter its original size, clearly articulating
the author’s meaning, and retaining main ideas.
Diane
Hacker
(2008)
A
Canadian
Writer’s
Reference
Summarizing involves stating a work’s thesis and
main ideas “simply, briefly, and accurately”.
Dictionaries Summarizing is taking a lot of information and
creating a condensed version that covers the
main points; and to express the most important
facts or ideas about something or someone in a
short and clear form

5. Summarizing
thesis
Main ideas
Clearly
articulating
Simple, brief,
accurate
Reducing text
Condensed version
Short and clear form
Most important
facts or ideas

6. Various Techniques in Summarizing a Variety of
Academic Texts
1. Read the work first to understand the author’s intent.
(inaccurate summary is plagiarism)
2.Present information through facts, skills, and concept in visual
formats. (use flow charts or infographics)
3.To avoid difficulty, you need first to know the main points and
the supporting details. (exclude any illustrations, examples or
explanations)
4.Analyze the text to save time in thinking what you will do.
5.Think what information you will put in your summary. (cover
the main points and arguments of the document.

7. 6. Restate the words into different one. (retain the
information)
7. You willfully understand what the document is when
you organize all ideas.
8. Write down all information in a coherent and precise
form.
9. Represent information through using dimensional
constructions in representing concepts, skills or facts.
10. Paraphrasing is one of the skills you can do in writing
a summary. (do not use the same words with the author)

8. Here is how you start writing your summary:
Due to an increase in traffic between the various island which
make up Japan, and predictions of a continuing growth in train
travel, a rail tunnel was built to connect the islands of Honshu and
Hokkaido. The Seikan Tunnel in Japan is today the longest tunnel in
the world, with a length of almost 54km. When the tunnel was
opened in 1988, all existing trains went through it. However, newer
Japanese bullet trains have never used the tunnel because of the
cost of extending the high speed line through it. Consequently, the
train journey by air takes only three and a half hours. This has
combined with the fall in the cost of flying, has meant that more
people travel by plane than train and the tunnel is not used as much
as forecasters had predicted.

9.  Increase in traffic
 Connect islands
(Honshu & Hokkaido)
 Predictions and
continuing growth
 The longest rail tunnel
 Opened 1988
 54 km
 Opened in 1988
 Bullet trains
 Never used tunnel
 Fall in the cost of flying
 Not used as much as
forecasters predicted
Summary:
The longest railway tunnel in the
world links the islands of Honshu
and Hokkaido. This 54km tunnel was
inaugurated in 1988 to deal with the
predicted increase in rail traffic.
However, the fall in the cost of flying
and the fact that high speed trains
cannot use the tunnel have resulted
in the tunnel being less widely used
than expected.

10. Summarizing Techniques:
1.Somebody Wanted But So Then
2.SAAC method
3.5 W’s, 1 H
4. First, Then, Finally
5.Give me the Gist

11. 1. Somebody Wanted But So Then
Somebody: Who is the story
about?
Wanted: What does the main
character want?
But: Identify a problem that
the main character
encountered.
So: How does the main
character solve the problem?
Then: Tell how the story ends.
Somebody: Little Red Riding
Hood
Wanted: She wanted to take
cookies to her sick grandmother.
But: She encountered a wolf
pretending to be her
grandmother.
So: She ran away, crying for help.
Then: A woodsman heard her
and saved her from the wolf.

12. 2. SAAC Method
State: name of the
article, book, or story
Assign: the name of the
author
Action: what the author
is doing (tells, explains)
Complete: complete the
sentence or summary
with keywords and
important details
State: The boy Who Cried Wolf
Assign: Aesop ( a Greek story teller)
Action: tells
Complete: what happens when a
shepherd boy repeatedly lies to the
villagers about seeing a wolf

13. The Boy Who Cried Wolf, by Aesop
(Greek story teller), tells what happens
when a shepherd boy repeatedly lies to
the villagers about seeing a wolf. After a
while, they ignore his false cries. Then,
when a wolf really does attack, they do not
come to help him.

14. 3. 5 W’s, 1H
 Who is the story about?
 What did they do?
 When did the action take
place?
 Where did the story
happen?
 Why did the main
character do what
he/she did?
 How did the main
character do what
she/he did?
Who: The tortoise
What: He raced a quick, boastful hare
and won
When: When is not specified in this
story, so it is not important in this case
Where: An old country road
How: The tortoise was tired of hearing
the hare boast about his speed
How: The tortoise kept up his slow but
steady pace

15. Tortoise got tired of listening to
Hare boast about how fast he was, so he
challenged Hare to a race. Even though
was slower than Hare, Tortoise won by
keeping up his slow and steady pace
Hare stopped to take a nap.

16. 4. First, Then, Finally
First: What happened
first? Include the main
character and main
even/action.
Then: What key details
took place during the
event/action?
Finally: What were the
results of the
event/action?
First, Goldilocks entered
the bears’ home while they
were gone. Then, she ate
their food, sat in their chairs,
and slept in their beds.
Finally, she woke up to find
the bears watching her, so
she jumped up and ran away.

17. 5. Give Me the Gist
When someone asks for “the gist” of a
story, they want to know what the story is
about. I other words, they want a
summary--- not a retelling of every detail.

18. When is summarizing useful?
 many types of writing and at different points in
the writing process
to support an argument
provide context for a paper’s thesis
write literature reviews
annotate a bibliography

19. Post Assessment

20. Directions: Simple recall: For numbers 1 and 2,
write the letter of the correct answer.
1.Which of the following statements in
summarizing is false?
a. The summary is what all or most of the
sentences or paragraphs are about.
b. The summary is usually found in more than
just one sentence of the passage.
c. The summary is one isolated thought in a
passage.

21. 2. Which of the following statements in
summarizing is true?
a. The summary is a thought that is true but
is not in the passage.
b. The summary is what the passage is
mostly about.
c. The summary is always found in the first
sentence of the passage.

22. Choose the letter that presents the best summary in each of the
following:
3. When some people think about Texas, they think of cowboys on
the open range-herding cattle up a dusty trail. However, Texas has
much more than open prairie with large herds of cows. There are
the mountains of West Texas, the piney hills of East Texas, and the
emerald waters off the coast of Padre Island. Texas also has large
coastal harbors with numerous sailboats, powerboats, inland lakes,
rivers, swamps of Southeast Texas with alligators and other exotic
wildlife.
a.There are many different, varied parts of Texas.
b.Texas is one of the biggest states in the United States.
c. There are alligators in the swampland of southeast Texas.

23. 4. Tomorrow is Jill’s birthday. She is excited because she
gets to pick where she will eat dinner. Will it be Mexican
food at the Big Enchilada House? or will it be fried
chicken at the Chicken Snack, or a big cheeseburger at
Al’s Hamburger Palace? She could not decide. Then there
was always the Pizza Shop with that great pepperoni
pizza. How would she ever decide? Maybe she would
just flip a coin.
a.Jill loves Mexican food.
b.The Pizza Shop has the best pizza in town.
c.Jill will choose a place by flipping a coin.

24. 5. It started when they got to the bears. Peter felt tired and his
stomach hurt. He dragged himself over to see the elephants,
which were eating from a stack of hay. Normally, the elephants
were his favorite. Without much interest, Peter followed his
classmates to the camels, which were busy swatting flies with
their trails. Peter knew he should be having fun at the zoo, but
he just felt terrible and all he wanted to do was lie down and
rest. Even the lions and tigers did not interest him now.
a. The camels were swatting flies with their tails.
b. It was really hot at the zoo.
c. Peter did not enjoy the zoo because he felt really bad.

25. 6. For the walls, Jenny thought she would use a yellow paint. She would
pick a border that had mostly bright red and green colors, and maybe a
little bit of blue. She already had found some curtains that were sky blue
with streaks or red, blue and yellow that she thought would go great with
the walls. Finally, she had picked a carpet that was mostly blue with
specks of red and yellow. Jenny could not wait till she was done
decorating her room. It was really going to look awesome.
a. Jenny likes bright colors.
b.Jenny was going to paint her room.
c. Jenny was picking out colors and materials to decorate her room.
d.Yellow is a good color to paint your walls.

26. 7. Right now, Jason was playing right field. He really
wanted to play third base. Earlier this year, coach had put
him in left field and second base in a game, but he kept
missing ground balls. When he did stop one, he made a
bad throw to first base. Maybe if he kept practicing,
Jason would be good enough to play third base. That
was his dream.
a.Jason was the best player on his team.
b.Jason had trouble catching ground balls.
c.Jason was too lazy to practice.

27. 8. San Francisco is located on the coast of California in an area
often called the Bay Area. The weather is generally very mild,
seldom getting really cold or really hot. Its mild climate is one
reason may people live there. It seldom snows in San Francisco
and generally does not get below freezing during the winter.
Even in the middle of summer, temperatures may be in the mid-
80s with a cool breeze from the bay keeping the weather very
comfortable.
a.San Francisco has many neat things to do.
b.It seldom snows in California.
c.Many people choose to live in California.
d.The weather in San Francisco is generally very mild.

28. 9. Julie watched the ants as they carried small crumbs down the
trail to the anthill. She thinks ants are very hard working and
industrious little creatures. They always seemed busy, and you
never saw an ant just laying around doing nothing. They were
carrying food, building tunnels, or defending the anthill. One
thing you could say about ants is that they sure are not lazy.
a.Ants carry many things.
b.Some ants may bite you.
c.Ants are hard workers.
d.Some ants help take care of the queen.

29. 10. The first book Chris read in fifth grade was about a lost
kitten. Then he read a book about a family of bears, and then he
read about a wild kangaroo in Australia. It seems every book
Chris reads is about animals. Last week he found a good book
about snakes and reptiles, and another book about elephants.
Today, Chris went to the library and he checked out a book
about dolphins, whales, and other animals that live in the sea.
a. Chris likes kangaroos.
b. Chris is in the fifth grade.
c. Chris reads a lot of books about animals.
d. Dolphins and whales live in the sea.