Summarising Text

Whāinga ako: Lesson Goals

To understand the steps to summarise a piece of writing.

What is summarising? (Whakarāpopoto)

Summarising means taking a big piece of information (like a story, article, or video) and writing or saying the main ideas in a shorter way. You leave out the extra details and just focus on the most important parts. 

In the humanities, we use exactly the same process as English to summarise. This skill is so important in senior subjects right across the school.

S.U.M. it up!

When summarising text it is important to follow these steps.

S – Select the main ideas
What is the text mostly about? Ignore small details.

U – Use your own words
Don’t copy — rewrite the ideas using your voice and structure.

M – Make it shorter
Summaries are brief — cut out extra info and focus on the core message.