Writing a Summary of Nonfiction

Writing a Summary of Nonfiction

Essential Questions

• What is a summary?

• What makes a good summary?

• How can I write a summary of nonfiction?

Multiple Choice

What is a summary?

• A summary is your opinions about a text

• A summary is all of the ideas from a text, written in your own words

• A summary is a shortened form of a text, with all of the main ideas

• A summary is a review of a text, with main ideas and your opinions

Multiple Choice

What is a summary?

• A summary is your opinions about a text

• A summary is all of the ideas from a text, written in your own words

• A summary is a shortened form of a text, with all of the main ideas

• A summary is a review of a text, with main ideas and your opinions

Why do we write summaries?

Readers can write a summary of a text to let someone else know the main ideas

Why do we write summaries?

Summarizing a text helps you to understand it—as you figure out the most important ideas, your brain is engaged in understanding the text

How long should a summary be?

It depends!

How long should a summary be?

•The length of a summary depends on the length of the original text

•A summary should always be shorter than the original text

Multiple Choice

How long does a summary need to be?

• 6 pages

• 2 and a half paragraphs

• 3 Sentences

• It depends!

What makes a good summary?

Here are four basic rules for writing a summary of nonfiction:

-Include the important ideas from the text

-Put ideas in your own words

-Leave out little details and repeated information

-Use the text structure of the text

Include important ideas from the text

  This is easy to say, but sometimes hard to do! As you read, it’s important to think about what ideas are most important to the author

Paraphrasing

  There are some words that you can’t change when you paraphrase. These key words are the important words from the passage.

  

Repeated Ideas

  Authors also might repeat ideas. When the same idea is restated, we only need to include it once in a summary.

Using text structure

  The text structure of a text refers to how the text is organized:

-Description

-Cause and Effect

-Chronological Order

-Problem/Solution

-Compare and Contrast

Multiple Choice

What is a summary?

• A summary is your opinions about a text

• A summary is a shortened form of a text, with all of the main ideas

• A summary is all of the ideas from a text, written in your own words

• A summary is a review of a text, with main ideas and your opinions