25 Purpose, Subtopics, and Main Ideas in Summaries
What to Look for in a Summary Article
Effective readers are able to identify and write 4 elements in a summary of an article. These elements are fundamental to the quality of the assignment:
- A General Topic or Main Idea: This is what the whole article is about. You will express it in a sentence, written at the beginning of the summary, which should include the author’s intention or purpose expressed in a comprehensive argument.
- Subtopics: These are sections of the article that address specific topics within the author’s larger topic or main idea.
- Main Ideas: These are sentences that express key information within each subtopic. Your task is to separate main ideas from secondary details. Key information may be dispersed in a paragraph or perhaps beyond a paragraph. once you identify the main ideas, you must paraphrase and cite them correctly.
- Only Relevant Supporting Details: There may be specific information that complements the main ideas. Notice if these supporting details answer questions such as how, what, when, where, why, how much, or how many. Only some relevant supporting details are worthy of being included in the summary.
You will be able to determine the general topic of an article after reading it a few times. By identifying subtopics, main ideas, relevant supporting details, and the relationships among them, you will be in a much better place to say what the general topic of the reading is.
Secondary Details
Effective summarizers can leave aside, or ignore secondary details. Readings usually contain “filler ideas” that make up a large body of secondary details, which are important to understand the article but unimportant when summarizing the article.
Subtopics
Subtopics are large “areas” of the text where the author of an article addresses distinctive topics rather extensively. Usually, subtopics are dispersed in a few paragraphs. For example, “from paragraphs 4 through 7, the author presents a subtopic that deals with _____”. It may be possible too that a subtopic is discussed by the author in non-sequential paragraphs; for example, in paragraphs 4 and 5, and then in paragraphs 12 and 16.
