Summary

A summary is a shortened version of a text. It contains the main points in the text and is
written in your own words. It is a mixture of reducing a long text to a short text and selecting
relevant information.
A good summary shows that you have understood the text. Please remember, though, that
even when you summarise someone's work, you must acknowledge it.
Look at this example:
Source
The amphibia, which is the animal class to which
our frogs and toads belong, were the first animals
to crawl from the sea and inhabit the earth.
Summary
The first animals to leave the sea and live on dry
land were the amphibia.

The following stages may be useful:

1.Read and understand the text carefully.
2.Think about the purpose of the text.
a.Ask what the author's purpose is in writing the text?
3.Select the relevant information.
4.Find the main ideas - what is important.
a.They may be found in topic sentences.
b.Distinguish between main and subsidiary information.
c.Delete most details and examples, unimportant information, anecdotes,
examples, illustrations, data etc.
d.Find alternative words/synonyms for these words/phrases - do not change
specialised vocabulary and common words.
5.Change the structure of the text.
a.Identify the meaning relationships between the words/ideas - e.g. cause/
effect, generalisation, contrast. Express these relationships in a different
way.
b.Change the grammar of the text: rearrange words and sentences. Change
nouns to verbs, adjectives to adverbs, etc., break up long sentences,
combine short sentences.
c.Simplify the text. Reduce complex sentences to simple sentences, simple
sentences to phrases, phrases to single words.
6.Rewrite the main ideas in complete sentences. Combine your notes into a piece of
continuous writing. Use conjunctions and adverbs such as 'therefore', 'however',
'although', 'since', to show the connections between the ideas.
7.Check your work.
a.Make sure your purpose is clear.
b.Make sure the meaning is the same.
c.Make sure the style is your own.
d.Remember to acknowledge other people's work.
Examples:
I)
a.People whose professional activity lies in the field of politics are not, on the whole,
conspicuous for their respect for factual accuracy.
Politicians ________ ______.
b.Failure to assimilate an adequate quantity of solid food over an extended period of
time is absolutely certain to lead, in due course, to a fatal conclusion.
Lack of food ___________ ________.
c.The climatic conditions prevailing in the British Isles show a pattern of alternating
and unpredictable periods of dry and wet weather, accompanied by a similarly
irregular cycle of temperature changes.
British _________ is _____________.
d.It is undeniable that the large majority of non-native learners of English experience a
number of problems in attempting to master the phonetic patterns of the language.
Many learners find English ________________ _______________.
e.Tea, whether of the China or Indian variety, is well known to be high on the list of
those beverages which are most frequently drunk by the inhabitants of the British
Isles.
The British ________ a large __________ of tea.
f.It is not uncommon to encounter sentences which, though they contain a great number
of words and are constructed in a highly complex way, none the less turn out on
inspection to convey very little meaning of any kind.
Some ________ and _____________sentences mean very little.
g.One of the most noticeable phenomena in any big city, such as London or Paris, is the
steadily increasing number of petrol-driven vehicles, some in private ownership,
others belonging to the public transport system, which congest the roads and render
rapid movement more difficult year by year.
Big cities have growing ___________ _______________.

II)
As part of a test, you need to include a section of about 100 words on the formation of
volcanic islands. You find the following text:
The birth of a volcanic island is an event marked by prolonged and violent travail: the forces
of the earth striving to create, and all the forces of the sea opposing. At the place where the
formation of such an island begins, the sea floor is probably nowhere more than about fifty
miles thick. In it are deep cracks and fissures, the results of unequal cooling and shrinkage in
past ages. Along such lines of weakness the molten lava from the earth's interior presses up
and finally bursts forth into the sea. But a submarine volcano is different from a terrestrial
eruption, where the lava, molten rocks, and gases are hurled into the air from an open crater.
Here on the bottom of the ocean the volcano has resisting it all the weight of the ocean water
above it. Despite the immense pressure of, it may be, two or three miles of sea water, the new
volcanic cone builds upwards towards the surface, in flow after flow of lava. Once within
reach of the waves, its soft ash is violently attacked by the motion of the water which
continually washes away its upper surface, so that for a long period the potential island may
remain submerged. But eventually, in new eruptions, the cone is pushed up into the air, where
the lava hardens and forms a rampart against the attacks of the waves.
1.Read the passage carefully from beginning to end.
2.Remember your purpose: to describe the formation of a volcanic island.
3.Select the relevant information.
4.Mark all the points which should come into your answer.
5. Make notes
o island formation: earth versus sea.
o where? sea bed, not more 50 miles thick, cracked and uneven.
o weak lava bursts through.
o cf. land volcano: no sea pressure
o how? lava cone pushes upwards
o surface - washed away by waves submerged
o lava hardens island.
6. Using this list of points, write your rough draft, referring to the original only when you
want to make sure of some point.
A volcanic island comes into being after a long and violent struggle has taken place
between the forces of the earth and the sea. The island begins to form when hot lava
breaks through weak points on the sea-bed where the earth's crust is not more than
fifty miles thick and is marked by deep cracks. The volcanic island, unlike a land
volcano, has to push up through the immense pressure of the sea. The cone made
up of lava finally reaches the surface, but it does not appear because waves wash
away its upper surface. When the lava hardens it stands up to the waves and the
island is formed.
6. After correcting your draft, write an accurate copy of your text.
A volcanic island is born only after a long and violent struggle between the forces of
the earth and the sea. It begins to form when hot lava breaks through a cracked and
uneven part of the sea-bed where the earth's crust is weak. Unlike the land volcano, it
has to build upwards despite the immense water-pressure until it finally reaches the
surface. Even then it is too soft to withstand the waves and remains underwater until
the cone is pushed into the air from below and the lava hardens.
7. Check your work.
Take care to make your text accurate. Your sentences should be well connected to
each other so that your text reads as a continuous paragraph.

III)
As part of an essay, you need to include a section of about 100 words on the advantages
and disadvantages of progress from the Samoans' point of view. You find the following text:
Samoa Sasa sat cross-legged in his one-room, open-air home, shooing away chickens that
strutted across the floor mats. Bananas cooked on the wood stove. Naked children cried in
nearby huts. From one hut came the voice of Sinatra singing 'Strangers in the Night' on a local
radio station.
The sound of progress frightened Sasa. For most of his 50 years time has stood still. Now
small European-styled homes are springing up around his village in Western Samoa and the
young men are leaving for New Zealand. In the town there are experts from all over the world
advising the Samoan Government on many development projects that Sasa does not
understand.
The people of Luatuanuu Village - including his eight children - have always worked the
banana plantations and respected the custom that the Matais (family chiefs) like Sasa
represented absolute authority.
They owned all the land communally, they elected a parliament and they administered justice
in each village, thus leaving few duties for the nation's 219-man police force. Would all that,
too, change? Sasa wondered.
'We are a poor country and change must come,' Sasa said through a translator. 'But I do not
want it so fast. I do not want my children to go to New Zealand to look for big money. I want
them to stay here in Luatuanuu and work our plantations as we always have done.'
The confusion Sasa feels is shared by many of the 150,000 Western Samoans - and
undoubtedly by the peoples of other newly independent, developing nations as well. The
capital, Apia, is teeming with people wanting to help: an 80-member US Peace Corps
headquarters, experts from the United Nations, investors from Japan, analysts from the Asian
Development Bank and civil engineers from New Zealand.
Already streets are being torn up for a new road system. The hospital is being rebuilt with a
loan from New Zealand. A new $1 million Government hotel has opened to promote tourism -
an industry the country is not quite sure it wants. A loan from the Asian Development Bank
will modernise the communications system. Japanese investors have opened a sawmill and
are building houses. When these and many other development schemes are completed and
Western Samoa, one of the world's poorest nations in cash terms, is forced into the twentieth
century, what is to become of its culture?
'Most Samoans want the modern amenities, but they don't want to throw away our culture to
get them,' said Felise Va'a, editor of the Samoan Times. 'There is no easy answer because in
many ways our culture retards development. The question people are asking is, what is a
balance between the past and the future?'
The tradition of communal land ownership stultifies individual incentive and has resulted in
neglect of the land. The system of permitting only the nation's 15,000 Matais to elect 45 of the
47 MPs destroys political involvement. The exodus to New Zealand - and the money the
emigrants send home - creates a false economy and results in thousands of Samoan families
ignoring the land and living off the earnings of their expatriate children.
New Zealand permits 1,500 Western Samoan immigrants a year and each year 1,500 - one per
cent of the population - go. They, together with thousands of other Samoans in New Zealand
on temporary work visas, send home about $3 millions a year. The money provides a boost to
Western Samoa's agricultural economy, but it also is inflationary, and the inflation rate has
been 35 per cent in two years.
Western Samoa has travelled a long way in the 12 years since independence. It has political
stability and a people who are 90 per cent literate. It offers investors a cheap labour force, and
a land that is 80 per cent uncultivated. It offers visitors the most uncorrupted Polynesian
culture left anywhere today.
(From an article in The Guardian Progress in Samoa by David Lamb)
How do you go about it?
One possible approach is to go through the following steps:
1.Read through the text from beginning to end.
2.Remember your purpose: to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of progress
from the Samoans' point of view.
3.Select the relevant information
4.Mark all the points which should come into your answer. Do this very carefully, and
be sure not to miss anything.
5.Change the structure. You should now have a brief list in your own words of all the
points you marked in 4.
oSasa frightened by progress
odoesn't understand development
oSamoa poor country, needs change
oSasa doesn't want change fast
odoesn't want young people to emigrate
omany other Samoans confused
oSamoans want benefits of progress
obut don't want to lose traditional culture
othey want balance past and future
osystem of land ownership inefficient
oelectoral system undemocratic
omoney sent by emigrants good for economy
obut causes inflation and neglect of land
6.Without looking at the original text, join these points together into a paragraph.
Change the order of the points if necessary, to make the construction more logical.
Use conjunctions and adverbs such as 'therefore', 'however', 'although', 'since', to
show the connections between the ideas.
Here is a possible paragraph:
Samoa is a very poor country with an inefficient system of land ownership and an undemocratic
electoral system. Change is necessary; however, many Samoans, like Samoa Sasa, are worried about
the speed of development. They want the benefits of progress, but find it difficult to understand what
is happening, and are frightened of losing their traditional way of life. They do not want their young
people to leave for New Zealand, and although the emigrants send money home, the increased wealth
is causing neglect of the land and inflation. Samoa's problem is to find a compromise between past and
future.
Look again at the text, just to check that you have not changed the meaning of anything;
make corrections or rewrite the paragraph if necessary.
Now try this question: As part of the same essay, you need to include a paragraph of not
more than 100 words describing the changes that are taking place in Samoa. Write the
paragraph.
Samoa is rapidly being modernised. Improvements include new roads, an up-to-date communications
system, a big new tourist hotel, a radio station and a sawmill. These changes are bringing foreign
investors and advisers flooding into Samoa, and European-style houses are appearing everywhere. On
the other hand, many young Samoans are leaving for New Zealand. The money they send home is
changing the country's economy, causing neglect of agriculture and inflation. Economic changes seem
likely to be followed by political changes.
Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is writing the ideas of another person in your own words. Paraphrasing is
useful when you are using the work of others to support your own view.
When paraphrasing, you need to change the words and the structure but keep the meaning
the same. Please remember, though, that even when you paraphrase someone's work, you
must acknowledge it.
Look at this example:
Source
It has long been known that Cairo is the most
populous city on earth, but no-one knew exactly
how populous it was until last month.
Paraphrase
Although Cairo has been the world's most heavily
populated city for many years, the precise
population was not known until four weeks ago.

Examples:
a.Paul Ekman from the University of California has conducted a long series of experiments on
how nonverbal behaviour may reveal real inner states.

b.There are reckoned to be over 4,000 plant species used by forest dwellers as food and
medicine alone.

c.Memory is the capacity for storing and retrieving information.

d.Research and publications are accumulating in each of the four fields of anthropology at an
exponential rate.

e.It is worth looking at one or two aspects of the way a mother behaves towards her baby.