The summary

Making a summary is one of the first things we learn in our student life, we feel the need to turn to them when we face an exam period. It is normal that it is such a popular technique, since it is characterized by its simplicity and great usefulness. The truth is that although it is apparently simple to make a summary and we all know what this technique is about, we do not always apply the best methodology and as a consequence we end up making unfinished or extremely long summaries.

Having said this, we believe it is important to go a little deeper into the subject. We will analyze what this popular technique is based on and give you some recommendations so that you can prepare your summaries with quality.

What does it consist of?

A summary is based on reflecting the central idea of a given content, what we seek is to establish a kind of filter that allows us to keep what is really important and essential, while eliminating the filler of the content, that part that decorates more than it contributes in usefulness. Summarizing does not mean reading less, before summarizing you must master all the content, going over it several times in order not to omit essential aspects of it.

The following recommendations will help you to prepare a good summary.

Read carefully

As we said before, the fact that we are going to make a summary does not exempt us from knowing all the content of the text we are going to summarize. It is important to read responsibly, because of all the implications of deleting parts of the text. You should read as many times as you need to, making sure that your information filter is as accurate as possible.

This is the most important aspect when it comes to making a quality summary, and unfortunately it is also the one we neglect the most.

Summaries are personal

A summary to study is a personal document, this is because the student makes a summary according to his needs, so he can consider the fact of not reflecting certain content in depth because he masters it very well. This means that we do not recommend summarizing summaries of summaries. You have to be the one who elaborates your notes according to your pace and study needs.

You should not make a summary thinking that it is as complete as possible, but that it has to respond especially to the elements that you do not master well, that you want to memorize or highlight to be able to consult them later.

Do not summarize everything

We usually make the mistake of summarizing in parts, we read a paragraph and we try to find what we need from it. You do not need to summarize every paragraph, every page or every chapter. You have to summarize depending on what you need from