Text only Version of the Online Writing Lab
St. Louis Community College - Meramec
How Do You Summarize?
Dig for main ideas. Consider any selected text to be like a large jar with the following contents: big rocks, gravel, sand and water. You will need to separate the big rocks or main ideas from all of the other items. The list below describes how the gravel, sand and water fit into the jar, otherwise known as your text.
How Long Should the Summary Be?
The completed summary should be approximately one-third the length of the original text. For example if the text is three pages long, your summary should consist of only one page of the main ideas from the text that are written in your own words.
You Can Learn to Summarize in Three Steps:
R |
A Annotate |
T Think |
RAT