There are people who write summaries of books that are read only for the pleasure of doing it, others must do it because they have to deliver it to the school, institute or university. But It is essential to know how to make a summary of a book so that the main ideas do not escape.
When a summary is made, it is done with several objectives, some of them being: knowing what the book is about in detail or being able to remember when reading the summary everything read before. It serves to remember what was read or to know if that book deserves your attention to be read. It also helps the teacher who asked you for the summary to assess whether you have understood the main ideas of the reading. and the message it conveys.
What is NOT a book summary?
To make sure we're all on the same page, let's start with what is NOT a summary of the book. A book summary is not a book review.
- A book review is a description of the book that includes opinions, interpretations, ideas, and criticisms.
- A summary of the book, sometimes called a synopsis, summarizes all the main ideas and does not include external comments.
Why write a book summary?
In addition to what was discussed above about why write a book summary, you can also do it for several reasons:
- Help solidify what you have learned. Summarizing a book in your own words makes you reflect on the information that has just entered your brain. If there were lessons or ideas in the book that you want to remember, this time of reflection helps to "code" it in your memory. Without it, we forget.
- It helps you quickly review ideas in the future. Why spend hours reading a book (especially non-fiction) if you are going to forget everything in a week? When you read a book, if you write a summary it will be easier to remember things.
- Help others. People like the wisdom and ideas that come from books. What they don't like is spending their precious time reading books that they may not like later. By writing summaries, not only will you help yourself, but you can also earn points by sharing them with your friends, family, and followers.
How to write a book summary
The process for writing fiction and nonfiction book summaries is slightly different. I have included instructions for both in the steps below.
Decide who it is for
Is this a formal task? Or is it just for your own reference? If it's just for you, there are no rules. Feel free to put aside ideas that you are already familiar with (or don't resonate with) and structure your summary however you like.
If it's an assignment (or you're going to share it with others), you'll want to follow the structure outlined below and include ALL the main ideas from the book. In this case, you should be more objective and include things, whether or not you agree with them.
Start reading
Your mindset is important here. You don't have to read the book as fast as you can, you have to read each page as if you were going to show it to someone later. This helps you better retain information (and avoid finishing a chapter and immediately forgetting what it was about). You may feel like it slows you down, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run. There are a few ways to do it:
- Highlight and take notes
- Highlight the book and take notes in the margins.
- Use sticky notes to mark pages and take notes.
- Take notes in a separate notebook
- Write mini summaries for each chapter
Let's work smarter, not harder. Let's say you are writing an abstract for a book with 30 chapters. When you're done, are you going to remember the important quotes from Chapter 7? No. You'll have to re-view your highlights, chapter by chapter, and essentially reread everything… maybe that's too much.
Instead, just have 2 minutes at the end of each chapter and use your highlights to fill out this form (while everything is fresh in your memory).
Chapter Summary Worksheet Template (FICTION)
- Chapter number:
- Title of the chapter:
- Adjustment:
- Characters in chapter:
- New ideas about the characters:
- Main events:
- Problems and Resolutions:
- Omen / Flashbacks:
- Important quotes and disclosures:
- Connections and inconsistencies:
- Themes:
- Other thoughts:
Chapter Summary Worksheet Template (NOT SHEET)
- Chapter number:
- Title of the chapter:
- "Big ideas":
- Arguments that support great ideas:
- Interesting facts, statistics or analogies:
- Resounding quotes:
- Action steps:
- Other thoughts:
When you finish the book, you will have all the information you need to write a summary of the book on these handy sheets (and you won't need to look for things in the book).
Organize your mini summaries
So you have everything you need in your mini summaries. Now you just need to organize them. For fiction books, group them by where they fall in the structure of the story:
- Beginning (Introduction to the characters, setting, problem)
- Increasing action (Tension around building problems)
- Climax (highest point in tension)
- Drop action (resolving loose ends after resolving tension)
- Resolution (closing)
For nonfiction books, organize your mini summaries by topic (use the Table of Contents for help). The final summary of your book should follow this structure.
Choose the main ideas
Now, with everything laid out in front of you, go through each summary and choose the most important ideas and plot points. Write these down as a bullet list on a separate sheet of paper. When deciding which fictional plot points to include, ask yourself: 'Is this information vital to understanding the' big picture 'of the story?»If the answer is no, remove it.
For nonfiction books, it is much easier to decide what to include. Make a list of ideas of the main conclusions of each chapter (or topic) along with the best supporting arguments.
Write your summary
At this point, all you have to do is turn your list of ideas into a summary. The key here is to avoid rambling. Remember, this is a summary. You are not rewriting the entire book. There's a catch: Imagine you're in high school and your best friend is about to take a test on a book she didn't read. You have two minutes to explain before the bell rings and class begins. What does it include and what do you leave out? There you have your summary!