Summarising - helpful for your Inquiry research

I know that some of you find it really tricky when you find a book or a website on your topic, but then you realise that you can't copy everything out - you need to sk yourself the following questions:
- What is this article about?
- What are the main points/ideas in this article?
- What examples does the author use to support these main ideas?

When I summarise I often use a highlighter or underlining to identify the main points so that I can easily find them once I have finished reading it.

Use one of these graphic organisers below to summarise your article:

Summarising - Day 2

I have had a chat with Tom on our blog about summarising. He told me that it gives him shivers just thinking about it because he find it difficult.

I explained to Tom that one of the best ways to approach summarising is to imagine that after reading an article, someone asks you to tell them in 30 seconds what it was about.

What would you include from the article?
What would you leave out?

You summarise all the time without realising it:
- When I ask you how sport went in the weekend
- When you tell someone about a good book or movie that you saw
- When someone asks you what you did in the weekend

In each of these situations you are choosing the most important or relevant information to share with your audience (the person/people you are talking to).

If you click on this link there is a really good BBC lesson on summarising:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/teachers/literacy_7_11/text/newsid_1694000/1694088.stm



1. Read through the different stories, starting with the one about windpower.
2. Think about the questions that you are asked and how you would answer them.
3. Now read the article about Harry being made an honourary Bradford City fan and answer the who/what/where/why/how questions.
4. Find another article of your own and use the same process to summarise the article.