summary writing

Unit 1 Task 1Summary writing

In the Unit 1 OCR GCSE examination, you will be given a page of brief stimulus information, followed by a question assessed for reading

The stimulus will be a non-fiction source such as:

•A Newspaper or magazine article

•An extract from a biography or autobiography

•A review of a book, film or event

•The transcript of a speech

•An extract from a travel guide

•A report or advice sheet

You will have 35 min to answer this question –

10 min reading & planning and

25 min writing

You will be expected to either:

Give an account of the ideas or argument presented in the passageor

Extract and summarise key information

In either case, you will be writing a summary – the term ‘outline’ is often used in the question

rubric

Sometimes the question will ask you to offer a ‘concise account’ or ask you to ‘concisely explain’

It is likely that the stimulus material will be about 700-800 words long (1 side of A4)

You will be expected to write 300-400 words in the time available

So you should aim to cut the word count at least in half!

The skill of summary writing is knowing what is the essential information and what you can

afford to leave out

This will depend on what the question asks you to focus on – so make sure you read it carefully

Once you have understood the task, you should read the stimulus material and identify the

relevant information

To save time, annotate the text using one or more highlighters – this will save you time when

planning your answer

It’s all too easy to highlight everything! Try to extract just the key information because...

There’s nothing worse than bad highlights!

Your plan should follow a

5 paragraph essay plan

Paragraph 1

Capture the essence of the stimulus material – think of this as a thumbnail sketch

Paragraphs 2/3/4/5

Summarise the key ideas or arguments – directly answering the task

Unlike other writing tasks in the exam, there is no need for a formal conclusion but you should bring your summary to a close

by starting your last paragraph using one of the following:

Finally,...In the closing lines, the writer...The author concludes by...The article ends with...The writer’s position is brought to a close by...

As a general rule, you can cut out:

•Anecdotes

•Case studies

•Other examples for clarification

•Statistics and detailed facts

•Structured repetition for effect

You are expected to write your summary in your own words

If you quote from the passage or parrot the phrases used by the writer you will lose marks

The better your vocabulary bank, the more likely you are to be able to express yourself

eloquently and economically

He was wound up and edgy. He couldn’t seem to make his mind up because he was stressed out by the hassles that he might have to deal with if he made the wrong choice about which kind of job he should try and get. (45)

He was anxious and indecisive, being aware of the possible consequences of a poor career choice. (16)

Your opinion about the passage content should NOT appear in your outline

Think of yourself as a translator rather than a critic or commentator

‘’The Simpsons’ for example is a highly overrated TV show aimed at the brain dead MTV generation. Like so much media entertainment today it appeals to the lowest common denominator and offers little worthy of

serious contemplation. Great programming must do more than amuse – it must educate. ’’

Can you spot the trap you could fall into?

“The writer clearly has no taste or appreciation for great popular cultural texts because he suggests that ‘The Simpsons’ is.....oops”!

“The writer suggests that modern programming fails to challenge or

educate its audience”.

You should also make sure that you only deal with what is IN the text – don’t add details or make unsupported assumptions

‘My cat had the annoying habit of singing along whenever I played the piano’

‘My cat had the annoying habit of singing along whenever I played the piano’

To summarise – a good summary is:

Brief

Focused

Well structured

WRITTEN IN YOUR OWN WORDS

ARTICULATE

Now it’s time to put all of this into practice!