Identifying Main Ideas and Summarizing

By now we all know what a #Hashtag is, right? If you don't know what a hashtag is, then you live under a rock, and more importantly: How are you getting internet service from under a rock?

As we get into reviewing concepts behind summarizing, let's take a look at how I think hashtags are used best on Twitter: #FirstWorldProblems is the example we'll look at.

#FirstWorldProblems

#FirstWorldProblems

#firstworldproblems

In this instance, the idea behind the hashtag is to summarize the sentence preceding it in the tweet. Regardless of what the tragedy is that this well-to-do person is dealing with, it can simply be summed up in three quick words. Similarly, we will be learning various ways to wrap up whole entire articles and readings into summaries a fraction of their size. In a way, you've already done this when we discussed identifying themes, but we'd be getting more specific with deciding what details are important and which are not, and what is relevant at the end of the day. What a day, am I right?!

I'll leave you with this playlist of Jimmy Fallon's Hashtag game from the Tonight Show. He's got countless examples for how summary and main idea are used for FUN!

We'll be using a couple of works from Native American writers to help practice in class (also FUN!)

[9/23]

I just wanted to add a few more things that we'll go over to build on our review of Summarizing and Identifying Main Ideas:

When summarizing longer passages, including book chapters and entire articles, you can find yourself writing way more or less than you need to. This is where we as a reader need to get picky with what we're reading. 

KEEP, REMOVE, SUBSTITUTE

You don't need to remember this, because most of us already internalize these three steps when building our summaries for a passage. To spell it out, you're basically just figuring what information is important enough to KEEP in your short summary, REMOVE any details that are extra, and SUBSTITUTE those pieces information you're keeping with your own words. In other words, paraphrase.

As I mentioned, this is something we are already doing when we read -as it's probably been taught to you and repeated every year. Through a conscious effort to acknowledge what steps we take when doing this, however, we can remind ourselves of why we do it in the first place and how to improve on this skill.