Writing a summary is neither easy to elaborate nor easy to teach. That is why today’s article wants to make it easier for you to show how to write a summary. I have developed a simple but effective idea so that your students can visualize the aspects that are worth taking into account when writing a review. I hope that these 10 tips to write a summary will be useful for you.

10 Tips for writing a summary

1. Do not start with the preposition «IN.» I prefer to start the review with a subject. I think it makes the summary more natural. It also serves to avoid the use of passive reflects: In this text it …

2. Use the 3rd person singular. A review does not give an opinion but explains the content.

3. Use verbs in the present tense. When writing a summary, you must remember that, although the text is in the past, the writing of the review must always be in the present tense.

4. Replace the enumerations with a word or expression. What is involved when writing a review is that the summary is fluent, so it is convenient to replace the catalogs that slow down the summary by a word or expression that agglutinates this enumeration.

5. Substitute adjective subordinate propositions for adjectives. What is intended is to streamline the review and simplify it as far as the use of subordination is concerned. Remember that less is more. In this sense, I must confess that I am in favor of using only simple sentences when writing a summary.

6. Transform all the keywords into names. Although typically almost all the keywords of a text are usually names, if a keyword appears that is not a noun, my recommendation is that you automatically transform it into a title. In this way, you can place said name after the verb of the sentence.

7. Place the keywords after the verb. Once you have decided the keywords that you will use to write the summary, it is when you place them next to each verb. It can go immediately afterward.

8. Use textual connectors from the second sentence. In general, the writing of a summary does not exceed four or five sentences. My recommendation is that, from the second sentence, insert a textual connector at the beginning of each one of them. This connector will give cohesion and fluidity to the text.

9. Skip the subject in the second sentence. Remember that less is more. You should avoid repeating both the questions and the verbs at the time of writing a summary. In the case of the subject of the second sentence, I recommend that it be elliptical or omitted.

10. Do not copy textual citations. It is necessary to avoid copying literal sentences or textual quotes from the text that is going to be summarized. What it is about is to explain a book, not to copy a document. Surely it is one of the aspects that most costs students.

These have been my 10 tricks or tips that I use in my classes to teach how to write a summary to my students. I hope that they serve you and you can also apply them to your classes in case you think it is convenient. You may also like: The importance of reading comprehension.