Summarizing a text

0:00- [David] Readers, let's sum up. I'm David, you're readers, and a summary is a short retelling of a text that only includes the most important bits, only the main ideas, not the supporting details. It's in your own words and it contains none of your opinions, just information.

0:17The devil's in the details here, what counts as an important bit or a main idea, and that's what we're gonna talk about in this video. Summarizing can help you focus on the most important ideas in a text, which in turn will make you better at understanding, discussing, and writing about what you read.

0:32Say you read an article online and you wanted to tell a friend about it, what would you say? What are the parts that jump out for you? Let's say you read this article about this inflatable Swedish bike helmet. "Invented in 2005, the hovding, an inflatable bicycle helmet from Sweden, is not worn on the head.

0:52Sleek, rechargeable, and black, the hovding cradles your neck. Sensors within the device can tell when you move suddenly, like if you tumble off your bike. Inflating rapidly like an airbag in a car, the hovding protects your head when you hit the ground." Given this paragraph, what would you tell a friend about this device?

1:10If you were talking to your friend Charlie, and you went like, "Charlie, you'll never believe this wild thing I just read", what would you tell him? What are the main ideas in this paragraph? To answer this question, I'll need to use some kind of strategy to distinguish between main ideas and minor details.

1:26So I rely on a journalist's technique called the five Ws and the bonus H, and that's who, what, where, when, why, and how. I'll put on some music, try to answer those questions using the information from the passage. Let's go. (upbeat music) So what were the most important things you wanted to tell your friend about this device?

1:57Here are my five Ws and an H. So who is inventors in Sweden. What? An inflatable by helmet called the hovding. Where? Sweden, the nation of Sweden. When? 2005. What's the why from this passage? To keep cyclists safe. And how? Wear it on your neck, inflates when you fall.

2:25So let's turn that into a summary. That is to say, I'm going to take my answers to the five Ws and the bonus H and organize them into a couple of sentences that summarize the passage's main idea. Here we go. "In 2005, Swedish inventors created the hovding, a type of bicycle helmet.

2:43The helmet, which is worn on the neck, can tell when a rider has fallen off their bike and it inflates to protect their head." Everything else is probably a supporting detail. How essential is it to know that the hovding is black or rechargeable? It's interesting, but removing those details from the summary doesn't change any of the five Ws or the H.

3:03If I take out the how, right, my understanding of the device completely changes, but knowing the color of the device doesn't really impact my understanding of how it works, why it was made, or any of the other Ws. Now, my feelings about the hovding are not included in the summary because they're not in the text.

3:23Summaries are a way to express the most important ideas in a text. They shouldn't include any information that's not included in the text, like your feelings or opinions about what you've read. Practice this on your own. Find an article online about something that interests you, and then write out the five Ws and the bonus H.

3:42Try to write one or two sentences that include all that information to summarize the text. To summarize summaries, just the facts, no opinions, leave out the minor details. Most importantly, you can learn anything. David out.