The main idea of the text

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The purpose of a summary, or concise statement, is to convey the main idea of the text.

The purpose of a summary, or concise statement, is to convey the main idea of the text. It does not require you to retain the author's style, as in a detailed narrative. The main thing is to accurately grasp the main theme, and to retell all the events described, observing the logic of the narrative.

There is a classic memo on writing summaries - very effective and practical.

  1. Listen to the text and try to identify the main theme, the style of speech.
  2. Highlight in the content of the main thoughts and secondary information. Also, try to make notes already at the first reading, writing down the main thoughts and expressions in abbreviated form. It is important to correctly write down the names of the characters, dates, if they are present in the text.
  3. Also, clarify the meaning of obscure words.
  4. Listen to the text again and make a detailed plan; the more detailed the better. This way you can identify micro-themes and build a logical chain of events or phenomena described in the text. Remember: as many paragraphs, so many micro-themes, if the text is read correctly, then between paragraphs always hold a pause, it will help to orient.
  5. Now you have to compress the plan, remove all the items that do not carry meaningful information. You can remove all the details, descriptions, details, clarifications, explanations, but do not overdo it, or risk omitting something important.
  6. For each paragraph, write the key words, the most striking expressions that you will need to include in the statement.
  7. Outline the content of each paragraph of the plan on a draft, trying to use key words.
  8. Read what you have written and check: whether the logic of the narrative is preserved, whether the main idea of the text is revealed, whether there is a connection between paragraphs.

Avoid frequent repetition of the same word, and use synonyms or pronouns.

Check the speech connection between paragraphs, this is easy to do with organizing words: here's why, it follows, so, so, finally, etc.

Do not rearrange parts of the text (micro themes) so as not to break the logic of the presentation.

Do not misrepresent facts; all names, dates, and facts should be spelled correctly.

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