Mastering the art of summarising (Part 1)

Elliot Ziwira

Senior Writer

IMAGINE going through a whole sermon of three hours at church and walking away without a clear picture of what exactly the preacher, priest, pastor or prophet meant, or spending hours in the library and still leaving none the wiser.

Just imagine waking up in the middle of the night, sweating and your heart pounding, aware that you were jolted from a bad dream, yet none of the details still click in your head.

That is the nature of the human brain, it grasps and loses. This is the reason why we keep on revising our work, especially so before examinations.

We dream every day, and our dreams are usually linked to our experiences.

During a single night we go through many separate dreams, yet by the time we wake up we would have forgotten 95 percent of them. We only remember those dreams that really have a bearing on our lives. The rest are just meant to keep our brains conscious; they are not the main details of our lives.

So as we go through our books, it does not mean that everything that we read is important to us, nor does all that is said by the pastor or prophet have a bearing on our lives. For that reason the pastor or prophet cannot quote whole scriptures to drive home his/her ideas. Only a verse or two will suffice.

No single book can give you all that you need to be ready for your examinations, and not all that you come across every day is important to your own unique experiences. Therefore, the art of summarising is crucial to you.

You should learn to pick out opportunity from experience, grain from chaff and honey from bile. Summarising is a life skill, which is not only confined to your study of English Language. Remember English is a language first and a subject second.

The summary writing task

Before you engage yourself in summary writing, you should know what exactly you want to achieve from the task, as this will help you in picking out the main points. Since the question on this task is worth 20 marks, you should aim for that mark. You cannot just let that slip because of mistakes that you can avoid.

Although the tips we are going to discuss in this instalment will help all those who want to hone their summary skills, they are especially meant for those preparing for the ZIMSEC English Language syllabus 1122/2. The Cambridge syllabus 0500 also follows a similar scope, although it varies now and again. The Cambridge 1123 syllabus, however, follows a different scope as the question will be divided into two parts.

Steps to follow

The following steps will help you in sharpening your summary writing skills. Go over them carefully.

· Read and understand the question: As we discussed in our lessons on the comprehension task (revisit The Herald website and look them up), a question understood is half way answered. So, it is important that you read the question carefully and underline key words. The question may also be divided into two or three parts, so you have to be very careful here.

· Identify the summary boundary: The summary boundary refers to the relevant paragraphs that you should use to answer the question. This will be indicated in the question, so what you simply have to do is to indicate it using a pencil.

NB: Using information outside this boundary renders your answer irrelevant.

· Read the passage underlining the main points: Now read the passage within your boundary, underlining key points and numbering them. Do not underline in textbooks. You can use a faint pencil to underline, or you can write them on a separate piece of paper provided.