Four Questions to find the Main Idea

(Only ask as many as you need to)

1. Topic: What is the topic/subject?

2. Main Idea: What is the one most important idea about the topic?

3. Details: What details support the main idea?

4. Signal Words: What signal words point to details and the main idea?

Four Qualities of a Good Summary:

1) Brief (leave out the minor details)

2) Complete (Main Idea and all the major details)

3) Clear (Someone who hasn’t read the original can still understand the summary.)

4) Objective (Keep your own mouth shut and tell only the author’s ideas in your own words)

Your summary should be about 20-25% of the length of the original article.

Three things to put in the first sentence of your summary:

Author, title, main idea (in any order)