Summarising

Welcome to the second lesson, Reading, as we explore the act of summarising.

Summarising involves retaining the core ideas in given texts or statement. You are encouraged to pay attention as the lesson progresses.

Summary writing is the act of reducing a lengthy statement or piece of information or text to simple form, maintaining the core or main ideas. This is to say that in writing summary, one is required to state the main ideas in fewer words. This suggests that some expressions may be irrelevant to the overall meaning of the text. Such expressions are replaced or eliminated in the process of summary writing. In summary writing, you give a concise overview of the main points of a text in your own words. This does not mean you have to introduce new ideas into the text but rather, to ensure clarity and brevity. Let us examine the examples below to firm up our understanding of summary writing.

Figure 11.6: Example of Summary writing From sentence 1, you can see that the subordinate clause “because he woke up late” (you remember subordinate clauses – not the main clause), is only an extra information to the main idea “Kuwornu missed the bus” (main clause). Therefore, in summary writing, we need to eliminate the expression (subordinate clause) that gives extra information about the main clause, hence the summary “Kuwornu missed the bus”.

In the second sentence, you can observe that the lengthy expression “people watching the football match” has been replaced with the word “spectators”. This helps to summarise the sentence as “The spectators got angry at the referee”. The explanation here suggests that in summary writing; you we can eliminate an irrelevant expression or replace lengthy expression with a word or group of words.

Great! You have just learned to summarise a sentence. Try your hand on the activity below.

Activity 11.6 Replacing a Group of Words or Expressions with One Word or Few Words or Eliminating Them Pair with your friend or classmate to discuss and write the summary forms of the following sentences.

1. Madam Hawa’s speech was capable of more than one interpretation.

2. The security man was unable to read or write.

3. Though their parents gave them all the support, they still failed in life.

4. Teenagers like Abena, Amavi and Aminata are fond of mobile phones.

5. A person who owns money lives well.

It is important to know that when writing summary, you are required to state the ideas in fewer words. You can do this effectively by:

For instance, let us look at the sentences below:

a. Teachers like Kukua, Orrison and Selasi do not like truant students.

b. My decision was one I cannot take back.

c. She worked hard so that she could become successful.

When these three sentences are summarised, this is how they will look:

a. Teachers do not like truant students.

b. My decision was irreversible.

c. She worked hard.

Activity 11.7 Summarising into Their Simplest Forms Summarise the following sentences into their simplest forms. Do this as an individual.

1. In Ghana, many people use charcoal or firewood because these are less expensive and readily available

2. Gas is expensive, so only a few people can afford it.

3. Widespread use of gas will reduce the number of people in the charcoal business.

4. Random felling of trees has, however, destroyed large portions of forests.

Paragraph Shrinking

Paragraph Shrinking is an activity or a strategy that helps in summarising the main ideas in each paragraph of a given text. First, you read the paragraph and then take turn to summarise the paragraph into the main points or ideas in your own words as much as possible. This suggests that after reading a particular paragraph, you have to look for the important ideas in it. The idea of paragraph shrinking helps to build your understanding and confidence as a reader. Let us consider the example below.

Vidako Fashions is a good fashion shop. It is very modern and clean inside. A fashion shop should always be clean. Young men and women like to visit the showroom, have some coffee or soft drink, take a glance through collections and interact there with their friends. Vidako Fashions is also a good place to buy all types of dresses and footwears. There is always a large choice and the prices are always reasonable.

This makes Vidako the one stop fashion shop for everyone.

Note: Let us use the question below as guide for the paragraph shrinking.

Question: In four sentences, one for each, state four things that make Vidako Fashions the best for everyone.

Answers (Paragraph Shrinking):

1. Vidako Fashions is a modern shop.

2. Vidako Fashions is a place people feel comfortable.

3. People can buy all they want at Vidako Fashions.

4. Vidako Fashions’ prices are reasonable.

You have just learned what paragraph shrinking entails. We are now going to learn some strategies for summary or paragraph shrinking. Before we continue, perform the

activity below.

Activity 11.8 Meaning of Paragraph Shrinking

Pair with your friend or classmate to discuss and explain the idea of paragraph shrinking with examples. Paste your findings on the walls of your class for your colleagues to read.

Strategies for Summary Writing/Paragraph

Shrinking Effective summary writing or paragraph shrinking will depend on the strategies. You are encouraged to read through these steps carefully and apply them effectively in summarising any given text.

1. Read and understand the text: Understanding plays a critical role in summarising, as it would not be possible for you to summarise without understanding what you are summarising. Before summarising, read the text carefully and make sure you have established what the passage is about. Identifying the main idea of texts helps you to take a step further in your summary. It is therefore important to understand what the main ideas and the supporting ones are in a given text.

2. Identify the main idea: What is the message of the text? This question would enable you to identify the central idea of the text. Identifying the main idea serves as the beginning point of your summary.

3. Find key points: The key points are the ideas you require to build your summary.

You need to identify the most important and supporting points or arguments that develop the main idea. This helps you to focus your attention on the relevant pieces of information while ignoring the less important ones.

4. Leave out unnecessary details: Ignore minor details, examples, cohesive devices, adverbials, modifiers, appositives, or repetition. These details are unnecessary in summary writing. They provide only further details to the main idea of the text.

Stick closely to the main idea. The main idea is contained in a sentence we refer to as the topic sentence. After the sentence has been located then you reduce it to the simplest form, ignoring those other details.

5. Use your own words: It is also required that you write summaries using your own words. This seeks to avoid lifting grammatical or lexical items directly from the text. You therefore need to paraphrase the main idea and key points in your own words, avoiding direct quotations from the original text if possible. However, you are not supposed to introduce new ideas into the summary.

6. Keep it concise: This implies that your summary has to be short as possible but should include the relevant information of the text. You need to leave out unnecessary details/lists to be able to achieve this.

7. Use clear and simple language: Avoid using complex vocabulary or jargon that might confuse readers. Summary writing aims at making your audience understand what you communicate. For this reason, you should avoid using unfamiliar words or words that are not related to the area of writing to write your summary.

You may want to ask the question “why is summary important?”. From the discussion so far, take few minutes of your time to reflect with your friends or classmates how important summary writing is to you as students.

Now, compare your ideas on the importance of summary witing with ones we are going to learn.

The Importance of Summary Writing

₁. Efficiency: Efficiency is one of the reasons for summary writing. Summaries condense lengthy information, saving time for readers. Summary helps to use less energy than reading a text or listening to a speech.

2. Clarity: Well-written summaries provide a clear understanding of complex topics.

Summary breaks down complex or difficult text to simpler form. One would not need to struggle to understand a text when a summary is effectively done. It gives the audience the opportunity to follow a complex topic.

3. Retention: Summarising helps retain essential details from a text. With summary, it is easy for you to keep what the text contains in mind. This is possible because it is only the relevant ideas that are needed. You therefore do not need the other details of the text. So, working with fewer ideas helps in retaining what is needed.

4. Communication: It is sometimes difficult to deal with voluminous text or information that needs to be communicated to the target audience. Summaries facilitate effective communication in various contexts. So, communicators do not have to suffer themselves with large piece of information. They would only the main ideas to deliver their message.

5. Assessment: Assessment is another important element of summary. Teachers and employers often evaluate summarising skills. Thus, it helps teachers to evaluate or measure the performance of learners to know how well they are learning. In the same vein, employers make use summaries to evaluate the profitability/ performance of their firms/companies. With this, they are able to compare their previous and current performances.

Activity 11.9 Summarising and paragraph shrinking

1. Outline three paragraph shrinking strategies.

2. Why is summary important to you as a learner?

3. Read the paragraph below carefully and answer the question on it.

Should teachers discover that the learners do not understand the concept taught, they should re-state the points in simpler, clearer language to make themselves more clearly understood. This is usually the stage at which the revision of their teaching strategy would be in order. If for example, they had used the lecture strategy earlier on, they might now like to try the discussion method. This method would allow the learners to take charge of their own learning and understand the concept at their level.

Question: In two sentences, one for each, briefly state the two things teachers should do if they discover that learners do not understand the lesson.

A summary is a brief and concise overview of the main points or essential information from a larger text or passage. Summary aims to shorten the content and only highlighting the Key Ideas. In order to achieve this, detailed explanations and examples must be omitted. Just be brief when you summarise because summary aims to give the reader a quick understanding of the primary themes and important details without reading the entire original document. A summary is written only on what is contained in a given text or speech. As usual, there is a guide below on what to do and what not to do in order to achieve a good summary of a text or speech. Answering a summary question involves condensing a given text into its main points while ensuring you capture the essential ideas.

Here is a step-by-step guide to help you.

1. Read the Text Thoroughly

a. Read the passage carefully to understand its overall meaning and main ideas.

This is first and most important step in writing summary. Reading carefully leads to understanding, and understanding also leads to summarising.

b. Identify the purpose and the key points the author is making. Grasping the purpose and key points play critical roles in summary writing.

2. Identify Key Points

a. Look for topic sentences in each paragraph, as they often contain the main idea.

The topic sentence (sometimes more than) is mostly found at the beginning, middle or end of each paragraph.

b. Note any recurring themes or important facts. Recurring/repeating themes signal to you that there is some importance attached to them. Do not ignore them.

3. Eliminate Details

a. Ignore examples, anecdotes and detailed explanations. None of these is needed in summary writing. They serve a purpose of giving further information to the main ideas to enhance the reader’s understanding. Avoid including them.

b. Focus on the ‘who, what, where, when, why and how’ of the text. Mostly, texts are written about a person, something, a place, time, reason and the manner of something. Having all these in mind would help you to do away with any details of the text at hand.

4. Write the Summary

a. Begin with a sentence that introduces the main topic or theme of the text. This is to help follow the presentation logically for easy understanding. But sometimes the question might demand that you consider the main topic or theme of the text. The focus may be on the other key points within the larger context. In this case, there is no need for you to bother about the main topic.

b. Use your own words as far as possible to condense the key points. Replace the words that are used in the text (topic sentence) with your own words or use synonyms. Make sure you do not change the original meaning/message of the text or sentence. There may be some words that cannot be easily replaced. When you encounter that, you can use them. If you try to replace them ‘forcefully’, you may distort the meaning of the message.

c. Keep the summary concise and to the point. Since summary is the condensed version of the original text, make sure your summary is short but should be on point or contain the relevant information. Do not use too many words.

d. Ensure that the summary is coherent, written in complete sentences, and logically structured. Present your sentences in an orderly manner. Ensure that they are unified to make up a whole.

5. Review and Edit

a. Re-read your summary to ensure it accurately reflects the main points of the original text.

b. Check for clarity, coherence, and concision. Ensure it is clear enough for understanding, orderly presented, and brief, but to the point.

c. Make sure you have not included any unnecessary details or missed any important ideas. Make sure all the conditions necessary for summary writing are taken care of. Avoid unnecessary explanations or details.

By following these steps, you can create effective summaries that capture the essence of the original text.

Activity 13.2 Adopting shrinking strategy

1. Watch and listen to your teachers as they model the procedure for paragraph shrinking, to understand how to apply the strategy yourself in summarising.

2. With three colleagues, apply what you just learned in paragraph shrinkage and summarising texts by drawing out four key points/ideas in the passage below.

3. Orally present your summary to other colleagues for evaluation and constructive criticism.

Read the following passage carefully:

The number of people living in slums worldwide is estimated to be more than a billion. Experts in urbanisation fear that the ever-growing slums in the world will soon become more populous than the cities. Findings like these, however, do not show clearly the devastating effect which substandard living conditions have on the poor.

The situation is more serious in developing countries, where many people lack basic amenities, adequate housing and modem health care services. It is an irony that while some of the richest nations want to build colonies on the moon and explore Mars, growing numbers of their poorest citizens cannot afford a decent place to live here on earth.

It might be easy to conclude that the poor could remedy their situation if they showed more initiative. But many factors involved in the housing crisis are beyond their control.

The world’s population is increasing at an alarming rate such that millions of houses are needed to keep pace with this development.

It is a fact that cities provide more facilities than the rural areas. It is easier to get electricity and a good water supply, pursue one’s education and secure well-paid jobs in cities than villages. Very often those in the villages hanker for such opportunities. One cannot therefore blame them when they seize the first opportunity to reside in the cities. They do not mind going away from the villages to reside in congested cities, thereby contributing to over-population in the cities.

In troubled areas of the world, political disasters, civil wars and suicide bombing are common. Poor people, women and children run away from such troubled areas to preserve their lives. They seek refuge in whatever shelter they can find when existing buildings are completely destroyed.

The relationship between housing and poverty cannot be ignored. People who cannot afford basic necessities as food and clothing, may not be able to rent or build decent houses. These and other factors have forced millions of people to settle for substandard housing. They live in abandoned buses, shipping containers, cardboard boxes and other unthinkable places.

The housing problems, just like many other problems facing the world should be tackled with urgency. However, the cost of land for the erection of houses is high.

Even when land is secured, the high cost of building materials is another problem to contend with. One must not therefore consistently blame building agencies which employ methods that enable them to build inexpensive houses.

Active and Passive Voice (Principles/Usage)

In the previous section, we learned that an active voice is the form of the verb that indicates the subject performs the action of the verb while the passive voice is the form of the verb that shows the subject experiences the action of the verb.

Uses of the Active Voice

₁. It is used when the speaker wants to foreground the performer of the action.

2. An active sentence is simple and straightforward, promoting clarity.

3. The use of an active voice fosters a sense of action and participation.

Uses of the Passive Voice

₁. It is used when the speaker wants to highlight the action instead of the performer of the action. For example, in the sentence Scholarships were awarded the focus is on the awarding of scholarships rather than on the one awarding the scholarships.

2. The passive Voice is used when the speaker is ignorant of the performer of the action. For example, in the sentence The school gate was opened before 6am, it is possible the speaker is oblivious of the one who opened the gate and so made the sentence about the action – what was opened – rather than the performer.

3. The use of the passive voice fosters objectivity but it can sound over-formal at times.

An active voice can be converted into a passive voice and vice versa. The are however rules or principles that govern the conversion.

Rules of Conversion

₁. Make the object the subject and the subject the object. For example:

Active: The learners∕ presented ∕the science project∕ to the panel.

S V O Passive: The science project∕ was presented ∕by the learners.

S V Prep. + O

2. While moving subjects to objects position and vice versa, articles, adjectives and adjectival phrases linked to them are carried over with them. For example:

Active: The traders in the stalls ∕visited ∕the chief in the locality.

S V O Passive: The chief in the locality∕ was visited ∕by the traders in the stalls.

S V O

3. When pronouns are transferred from the place of Object in Active Voice to the place of Subject in Passive Voice, their forms change. For example:

Active: Agoe / loves / me.

S V O Passive: I / am loved/ by Agoe.

S V Preposition + O

4. When pronouns are transferred from the place of Subject in Active Voice to the place of Object in Passive Voice, their forms change. For example:

Active: They / take / apples to school.

S V O Passive: Apples / are taken / to school by them.

S V O

5. The ‘be’ form is used in accordance with the tense of the verb. For example, in the active sentence above, the verb ‘presented’ is in the past tense. The ‘be’ form ‘was’ is therefore used the reflect the tense of the verb. For example:

Active: Adiza∕ speaks ∕the truth S V O ‘speaks’ is in the simple present tense. Its ‘be’ form is ‘is’ and its past participle form is ‘spoken’. The passive sentence becomes:

Passive: The truth ∕is spoken∕ by Adiza.

S V Prep. + O

6. In a sentence in which an Auxiliary Verbs can / could / may / might / should / would are used with Finite Verbs, they are retained as they are given in the Active Voice, followed by ‘Be + V3’.

Active: He / can take / this home.

S V O Passive: This / can be taken/ home by me.

S V O

7. In some sentences, verbs ' to be ' (is, am, are, was, were) is followed by Has / Have / Had, which is followed by an Infinite (to + verb). While converting these sentences into the Passive Voice, Verb ' to be' and ' Has / Have / Had' are retained in the form appropriate to the subject, after which are used to be +V3. For example:

Active: You / need to raise / the bar.

S V O Passive: The bar / needs to be raised / by you.

S V Prep + O

8. Some active sentences have intransitive verbs. This means that the verbs are not followed by objects but sometimes, prepositions. While converting such active structures, follow the general steps of conversion, retaining the preposition with the verb. For example:

Active Passive

The government∕ provides for∕ the people. V + Prep.

The people ∕are provided for by ∕the government. V + Prep.

We looked for the television remote. The television remote was looked for.

9. Some sentences have two objects. Direct Object or Indirect Object. While converting such sentences into Passive Voice, the Indirect Object should be used as Subject.

For example:

Active: I / will show you / what to do.

S V O Passive: You / will be shown / what to do.

S V O

10. Some sentences containing Double Object begin with Let in the Active Voice. In the Passive Voice also, these sentences begin with ‘Let,’ and the Direct Object is used as the Subject. Also, ‘Be’ should be used before the third person of the verb. For

example:

Active: Let me / take / a pen.

S V O O Passive: Let a pen be taken by me.

The rules of active and passive voice are many. We meet them every day in reading and writing. Some of us are not even conscious of them even though we use them daily in speech and writing. You are encouraged to follow these rules and read more about them. As you apply them, you will not only achieve the expected outcome, your speech and writing will also be enriched. Essentially, the active voice provides clarity about, for example, who did what to whom. The passive voice, while being objective in intent, can seem evasive. Public speakers employing the passive voice can give the impression of reluctance to take action or responsibility.

Activity 13.3 Study the conversion in the picture below

1. Gather your friends and read the news from the Script below. There are two of them; take turns to read.

Anchor: Good evening, I'm [Name], and welcome to tonight's news.

The Free Senior High School policy, launched by President Akufo-Addo in 2017, has benefited over 1.5 million students nationwide. The government continues to fund tuition fees, ensuring increased access to quality education.

Minister for Education, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, has announced plans to expand the program, focusing on improving teaching methods and infrastructure.

Regional workshops are being organised for teachers.

Parents and stakeholders have praised the policy's impact on reducing poverty and increasing enrolment rates. The government has committed to sustaining the program.

That's all for tonight. Thank you for watching.

2. Another friend should read this News Script.

Anchor: Good evening, I'm [Name], and welcome to tonight's news.

The Free Senior High School policy, launched in 2017, has benefited over 1.5 million students nationwide. Tuition fees continue to be covered by the government.

Plans to expand the program have been announced by the Ministry of Education, with a focus on improving teaching methods and infrastructure.

Teachers are being trained through regional workshops.

Praise has been expressed by parents and stakeholders for the policy's impact on reducing poverty and increasing enrolment rates. Commitment to sustaining the program has been reaffirmed.

Activity 13.4 Identification and Differentiation of the Active and Passive Voice

1. I hope you had a fun reading time with your friends in Activity 13.3! Two sentences, one from each script, have been foregrounded for you. Read them.

Script One:

The Free Senior High School policy, launched by President Akufo-Addo in 2017, has benefited over 1.5 million students nationwide.

Script Two:

The Free Senior High School policy, launched in 2017, has benefited over 1.5 million students nationwide.

2. In groups of three, discuss the process involved in changing active sentences into passive sentences and support your discussion with examples.

Activity 13.5 Conversion of active and passive sentences

1. Read the following sentences:

a. The script was edited.

b. The worker has been recommended.

c. The candidate has been nominated.

2. Underline the subjects and the verbs. What do you observe?

3. Introduce objects. Add ‘by + O to all the sentences.

4. What voice are the sentences in?

5. Change the sentences into active by putting at the subject position the object you introduced. Continue by following the steps above.

6. What is your observation? Share it.

7. Pick any of your prescribed literature texts, read a few paragraphs or two, identify five active sentences and change them it to a passive sentence.

8. Within the same paragraphs or text, identify 5 passive sentences and change them into the active form.