For students, professionals, and anyone looking to express their ideas clearly and succinctly in today’s highly competitive world. The capacity for effective and efficient communication has emerged as a crucial skill. One of these abilities that is frequently needed in academic, professional, and private settings is summary writing. It’s not simple to write a good summary, but anyone can get better at it with the right strategy and some practice. In this article, we’ll look at 5 simple steps you can take to write better summaries.
Check our guide: 10 Smart Tips for Perfect Essay Writing
What is a Summary?
A summary is a clear, concise overview of a piece of writing that focuses on its main ideas. It is a helpful technique for reducing lengthy writing. A summary’s goal is to convey a work’s main idea or message succinctly and effectively without giving the reader too much information. A well-written summary condenses the entire piece into one paragraph without the use of sub-points or extraneous details. The most crucial information must be carefully chosen and arranged in a clear, coherent manner in order to produce an effective summary that is both thorough and succinct.
Check our guide, The 5 Common Essay Writing Mistakes To Avoid, before diving into steps.
5 easy steps to help you improve your summary writing
Simply put, when you summarize, you’re attempting to say more with fewer words. The following five easy steps will help you write a summary for any text.
Step 1: Read and Understand the Text
The first step in writing a strong summary is to carefully read the text and ensure that you understand the main concepts and important details. It is critical to concentrate on the author’s point of view and the evidence that supports it. Highlight or underline the critical information that you want to include in your summary. To ensure that you completely understand the text, make a note of any new concepts or words and look them up.
Step 2: Identify the Purpose and Audience
Before you begin writing your summary, consider your purpose and target audience. Are you summarizing for a specific group of people, such as your coworkers or your boss? Do you want to inform, persuade, or simply provide an overview? Knowing your goals and target audience will help you choose the appropriate level of detail and tone for your summary. For example, when summarizing a scientific article, you may need to explain technical terms and concepts to a non-expert audience. When summarizing a business report for your colleagues, you should focus on the key conclusions and recommendations.
Step 3: Create an Outline
It’s time to make an outline once you have a firm grasp of the text, your purpose, and your target audience. You can better organize your ideas and make sure that your summary makes sense by using an outline. Start by listing the text’s main ideas in the order that they appear. After that, compile related ideas into one group and arrange them logically. Your outline should start with a concise introduction that states the text’s author, title, and main idea, then move on to the main points and important supplementary information.
Step 4: Write a Draft
It’s time to begin writing your summary now that you have your outline in hand. Start off with a succinct and clear statement that states the text’s author, title, and main idea. Then, using your outline as a guide, elaborate on each main point while adding pertinent details and examples in your own words. Keep in mind to concentrate on the most crucial details and to keep your summary succinct and direct. Avoid expressing your personal opinions or viewpoints about the text because doing so could undermine the summary’s objectivity.
Step 5: Edit and Revise
Spend some time editing and revising your summary once you have a draught of it. Look for ways to make your writing more concise and clearer. Remove any extraneous details or repetitions and confirm that your summary accurately captures the main ideas of the original text. Verify your grammar and spelling, then fix anything that needs fixing. It can be beneficial to have someone else read your summary and offer comments on its precision and impact. You can also use the summarizing tool for quick work. It creates summaries of longer texts using artificial intelligence and techniques for natural language processing. Students, researchers, and anyone else who needs to quickly create a summary of a lot of information may find it useful.
Related: 7 Tips to Make Your Essays Even Better
Examples of Summary Writing
Example 1
Original Text: “Social media’s emergence has changed how people share information and communicate. Users can instantly share their ideas, images, and videos with a large audience by simply clicking a button. Businesses have also been significantly impacted by social media, with many now using it to advertise their goods and interact with customers. Social media offers many advantages, but it also carries risks, such as the dissemination of false information and cyberbullying.”
Summary: Social media has transformed information sharing. It allows users to instantly share content with a large audience. Social media has also been used by businesses to interact with their customers and promote their products. Social media does carry some risks, including the spread of false information and cyberbullying.
Example 2
Original Text: “The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted life all over the world. To stop the virus from spreading, governments have implemented measures like lockdowns and travel restrictions. Due to the necessity of closing many businesses, there have been job losses and economic downturns. The pandemic has also brought attention to the disparities and flaws in the world’s healthcare systems.”
Summary: Lockdowns and travel bans have been implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to contain the virus. A lot of businesses have shut down, which has led to job losses and financial difficulties. Additionally, the pandemic has highlighted existing disparities and flaws in the world’s healthcare systems.
Bottom Lines
Writing summaries is a crucial skill that can be developed with repetition and close attention to detail. You can write summaries that effectively convey the main points and key concepts of any text by following these 5 simple steps. Don’t forget to thoroughly read the text, decide on your purpose and audience, make an outline, draught your essay, then edit and revise it. You can master the art of writing summaries with time and practice.
