Guides: Summarizing: Common Mistakes (2024)

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Guides: Summarizing: Common Mistakes (1)

Common Mistakes

  1. Misunderstanding of key concepts and ideasthat stand in the way of understanding meaning.
  2. Reading only parts of an article or reading it toquickly
  3. Paraphrasing and presentingthe abstract or conclusion as a summary
  4. Picking whole sentences from the source text and stringing them together
  5. Quoting whole sentences
  6. New or unrelated ideas not present in source text are added to the summary
  7. Failing to proofread the summary for clarity and completeness
  • Last Updated: Jun 22, 2021 1:37 PM
  • URL: https://lc.ucalgary.edu.qa/summary
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Guides: Summarizing: Common Mistakes (2024)

FAQs

What are the common mistakes when writing a summary? ›

What are the common mistakes to avoid when writing an executive summary?
  • Mistake #1: Being too long or too short.
  • Mistake #2: Repeating or copying the document.
  • Mistake #3: Lacking structure or logic.
  • Mistake #4: Missing the hook or the call to action.
  • Mistake #5: Not proofreading or editing.
May 23, 2023

What are the 4 guidelines for summarizing? ›

A good summary should be comprehensive, concise, coherent, and independent. These qualities are explained below: A summary must be comprehensive: You should isolate all the important points in the original passage and note them down in a list.

What is the saac method? ›

The SAAC method is another useful technique for summarizing any kind of text (such as a story, an article, or a speech). SAAC is an acronym for "State, Assign, Action, Complete." Each word in the acronym refers to a specific element that should be included in the summary. State: the name of the article, book, or story.

How good is GPT-4 at summarizing? ›

Importantly, all the FDA professionals unanimously rated that 85% of the summaries generated by GPT-4 are factually consistent with the golden reference summary, a finding further supported by GPT-4 rating of 72% consistency.

What are four things to avoid in a summary? ›

What are the most common mistakes to avoid when writing a summary...
  • Too long or too short.
  • Too generic or too specific.
  • Too passive or too boastful.
  • Too boring or too flashy.
  • Too personal or too impersonal. Be the first to add your personal experience.
  • Here's what else to consider.
Sep 13, 2023

What are the 7 steps in summarizing? ›

How to start a summary
  • Reread the original text. To begin writing a summary, reread the original text or document you intend to summarize. ...
  • Make a list of key points. ...
  • Note supporting evidence. ...
  • Start with a context sentence. ...
  • Describe the key concept of the text. ...
  • Follow up with supporting evidence. ...
  • Write a thesis statement.
Feb 3, 2023

What are the 5 W's in summarizing? ›

One of the best practices for writers is to follow "The 5Ws" guideline, by investigating the Who, What, Where, When and Why of a story.

What are the 5 Rs of Summarising? ›

5.2 The 5Rs of summarising: reduce, reject, reword, reproduce, repackage.

What are the five rules of summarizing? ›

There are five key steps that can help you to write a summary:
  • Read the text.
  • Break it down into sections.
  • Identify the key points in each section.
  • Write the summary.
  • Check the summary against the article.
Nov 23, 2020

How to summarize easily? ›

To summarize, write the main ideas of the text and restate them in your own words in your own writing style. The summary should be shorter than the original (approximately 1/3 of the original length).

What is the 4 2 1 summarizing strategy? ›

Individually, have students determine the four most important ideas of the text. Then, have students pair up to share their ideas and decide on the two most important ideas from their lists. Pairs are then assigned to groups of four. Each group must then agree on the single most important idea.

What is the first then finally summarizing technique? ›

First, Then, and Finally

All you need to do is, wrap up the starting of the content first. And then it comes to the middle of the content which means the main body of the content but a summary is not completed yet. Then finally you need to wrap up the ending of your article or story.

Can you ask ChatGPT to summarize a text? ›

Yes, you can use ChatGPT to summarize text. This can help you understand complex information more easily, summarize the central argument of your own paper, or clarify your research question.

Can GPT-4 summarize a PDF? ›

When using ChatGPT with the GPT-4 model, it is possible to summarize PDFs that are up to 25,000 words in length. However, it's worth noting that when the GPT-4 model was first announced, some users claimed that it could even handle inputs of up to 30,000 words.

Can GPT-4 read handwriting? ›

GPT-4V did the best job of transcribing my notes, making the fewest mistakes interpretting my handwriting and almost perfectly following my instructions regarding formatting. It did make a few errors. For example, renaming Tiago Forte as Rafe Furst and referring to LLAVA as “Clara”.

What not to do when writing a summary? ›

A summary contains only the ideas of the original text. Do not insert any of your own opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments into a summary. Identify in order the significant sub-claims the author uses to defend the main point.

Which of the following is a common mistake that people make when writing summary? ›

People often make the mistake of including too much information in their summaries. They may add unnecessary details that do not contribute to the main idea of the text. In other words, a summary should be concise, and only the main ideas should be included. So, one must avoid this mistake while writing summaries.

What makes a summary bad? ›

Overload: It has too much information. Sequence: Events are told out of order. Incorrect: It has wrong information that didn't happen. Copy: The summary uses the exact words of the author.

What makes summarizing difficult? ›

However, summarizing is a difficult skill to teach and use. In order to summarize, students must be able to understand what they are reading, separate the main ideas from the details, and reduce a large quantity of information to the most important main ideas.

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