Summary writing skills: how to write a summary step by step (read twice, find the main idea, cut the detail, use your own words, keep the order, check the length), two worked examples, the rules for school and exam summaries, the eight mistakes that lose marks, and a practice plan for Grades 5 to 10

Summary writing is the skill behind half of school English and most of adult reading: it is how a student takes notes, answers comprehension questions, revises for exams and, later, reads a report in five minutes. It is also marked directly, in IGCSE, GCSE, CBSE and most school curricula, and marked harshly, because a summary that is too long, copied or opinionated fails on sight. The good news is that it is a method, not a gift, and the method has six steps.

What a summary is, and is not

A summary is a short restatement of the main ideas of a text, in your own words, in the author's order, with nothing added. It is not a shorter copy of the text, not a list of everything in it, not a review, and not your opinion of it. The test for every sentence in a summary is: would the reader lose the author's argument without it? If not, cut it.

Two skills underneath it are usually the real gap. Telling a main idea from a detail: the main idea is what the paragraph is about; a detail is an example, a reason or an illustration of it. Paraphrasing: saying the same thing in different words, which is how a student shows they understood rather than copied. Most children who "cannot summarise" can do neither yet, and both are teachable in a fortnight.

The six steps

1. Read it twice. Once straight through for the sense; once with a pencil, marking where each paragraph's main idea is. In most well-written texts it is the first or last sentence of the paragraph.
2. Write the main idea of each paragraph in one line. Your own words, from the start. If you cannot say it in one line, you have not found it yet; try "this paragraph is about…" and finish the sentence.
3. Cut. Cross out examples, anecdotes, quotations, lists of instances, figures of speech, repetition, and numbers that are not the point. What is left is the skeleton.
4. Write from your notes, not from the text. Cover the original. Turn your one-line notes into connected sentences, in the author's order, in the third person ("the author argues", "the passage explains"). Writing from notes rather than from the text is the single habit that stops copying.
5. Check against the original. Uncover it and read both. Did you change a meaning by accident? Did you add anything? Did you miss a paragraph?
6. Check the length. A quarter to a third of the original, or the word limit the task gives. Over length, cut the weakest sentence first; under length, you have probably dropped a main idea.

Two worked examples

Example 1, for Grade 5 to 7. The original (about 110 words):

Honey bees live in colonies of up to sixty thousand insects, and every bee has a job. The queen lays eggs, as many as two thousand a day in summer. Worker bees, which are all female, do everything else: they clean the hive, feed the young, build the wax comb, guard the entrance and, in the last weeks of their lives, fly out to collect nectar and pollen. Male bees, called drones, do no work at all; their only job is to mate with a queen, and in autumn the workers push them out of the hive to die. A colony is less like a family than like a factory where every worker knows her task.

The summary (about 35 words):

Honey bees live in large colonies where each bee has a role: the queen lays eggs, the female workers do all the hive's work, and the male drones only mate and are expelled in autumn.

What was cut: the numbers (sixty thousand, two thousand a day), the list of worker tasks, the factory comparison. What was kept: the three roles, which is the main idea.

Example 2, for Grade 8 to 10. The original (about 130 words):

Many people believe that homework improves learning, and for older students the evidence supports them: in secondary school, moderate amounts of homework are linked to better results, especially in maths. For primary school children the picture is different. Study after study has found little or no link between the amount of homework and achievement before the age of about eleven. What does seem to help younger children is reading at home, which is not homework in the usual sense, and short practice of number facts. Some researchers go further and argue that heavy homework in primary school does harm, by crowding out play and sleep and by turning parents into supervisors. The sensible conclusion is not that homework is good or bad, but that its value depends on the age of the child and the kind of task.

The summary (about 45 words):

Homework helps older students, particularly in maths, but research finds little benefit for primary children, for whom reading at home and brief number practice matter more. Some researchers argue heavy primary homework is harmful. The author concludes that homework's value depends on age and task.

What was cut: "study after study", the detail about play, sleep and parents, "many people believe". What was kept: the contrast between ages, the exception, the conclusion.

The rules for exam summaries

The eight mistakes that lose marks

1. Copying sentences. The commonest and the most expensive. Write from notes with the text covered.
2. Including examples. An example illustrates a point; the summary needs the point.
3. Adding opinion. "I think the author is right" is not a summary. Third person, no comment.
4. Wrong length. Over is penalised; under usually means a main idea is missing.
5. Missing the main idea of a paragraph. Usually from reading once instead of twice.
6. Changing the order. The author's order carries the argument.
7. Changing the meaning. "Some researchers argue" becomes "research proves". Check against the original.
8. Keeping figures of speech. "A factory where every worker knows her task" is the author's image, not an idea.

A two-week practice plan

• Days 1 to 3: one paragraph a day. Write its main idea in one line. Check with someone.
• Days 4 to 7: a short article a day (a page). One line per paragraph, then a four-sentence summary from the lines, text covered.
• Days 8 to 11: the same, with a word limit. Count. Cut.
• Days 12 to 14: an exam-style task from the student's own board, under time, marked against the board's criteria.

Ten to fifteen minutes a day. By the end of the fortnight the student can tell a main idea from a detail and write from notes, and the rest is practice.

Where to get help

A 1-on-1 online English class with a tutor who holds a master's in English: summary writing taught as the six steps on a shared screen, a short piece written every class and marked line by line before the next, and the exam board's own summary tasks from Year 9 onward. For school English from Grade 5, IGCSE and GCSE English Language, CBSE Class 9 to 12 and SAT Reading and Writing. The free 30-minute first class is a real lesson on a text the student brings.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →