4 SUMMARIZING Colorado State University（4总结科罗拉多州立大学）.pdf

4 SUMMARIZING: THE AUTHOR’S MAIN IDEAS ummary, like paraphrase, allows you to reproduce another writer's thoughts—but in shortened form. In writing a summary, you focus on the most important statements of S the original statements of the original passage and eliminate the less important material. Three techniques—selection and deletion, note taking, and miniaturizing—can help you shorten the material. As you become more adept at summarizing, you will devise your own combination of these techniques for each occasion. But in all cases the summary must be written in readable prose that reflects the essential meaning of the original text. Like paraphrase, summary can be used for many purposes: to help you understand the main points and structure of the author's argument, to convey understanding to others, to present background information quickly, or to refer to another writer's ideas in the course of making your own original statement. 50 Chapter 4 Summarizing: The Author's Main Ideas 51 Writing a Summary Whereas paraphrase writing leads you to examine all the details and nuances of a text, summary writing gives you an overview of the text's whole meaning. If you look over the whole text too rapidly, however, you may overlook important parts. Good summary writing, therefore, requires careful attention to the meaning and shape of the entire text. As you become more skilled at summary writing, you will become aware of just how much meaning can be distorted or lost by too rushed a s