What is summarising?

Summarising involves taking the main ideas from a piece of text and rewriting them in your own words. A summary is significantly shorter than the original text and tends to give an overview of a topic area.

Tips for summarising

• Highlight the main ideas in the text you want to summarise (do not include any minor details)
• Combine these ideas together in your own words
• Correctly interpret the original
• Do not include your own opinion or add extra information
• Use your own words and not those of the original author (unless using quotation marks)
• Remember to cite your source using a recognised referencing format
• Keep reminding your reader that you are summarising the work of someone else:
• The author goes on to say that ...
• The text further states that ...

Characteristics of a good summary are it gives a proper citation, it includes the main ideas, it uses paraphrases and it is of appropriate length.