How to Summarize

Oh, hi. James from EngVid. Yeah, I have something I want to teach you today. I hope you didn't

see me doing, well, I'm a little vain, what can I say. Today's lesson is on something

that I've had students address or bring up several times, which is summarizing writing.

I had given a lesson earlier on about how to write a paper and summarize it, assuming

that students, when you assume, you actually think that something is true. I assumed that

students would know the answer and just go with it. And then I've got a couple of responses

where students said, well, what do you mean by summarize? We understand you want me to

do something, but how do I do this summary? So I've come up with something I hope will

help you today, and Mr. E, of course, is going to help us. And the first thing he wants us

to show us is what is a sum. Because summary comes from sum, which means to come to an

answer. Mr. E had some time on his hands, and he asked himself a question. He asked,

if you had four times, multiply it by 21, divide it by pi, and then add infinity, what

would the number be? And he came up with the number 42. And this answer is the answer to

the life, the universe, and everything. So by using this number here, oh, by the way,

it comes from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Good movie, go watch it, okay? But

he said, if you add all of these things together, because they're different things, completely

different, but if you add them together, you will come to a number which will explain basically

what each one of these things are telling you. And that's what we mean by giving a summary,

taking information from different sources, putting them together, and then saying, this

is basically what it means. Okay? So what I want to do is get you to be able to do this

and say, this is what it means. So the first thing we're going to do is, we want to look

at how do we do this? Well, when you get something, say, a book, or an article in a magazine,

what you should do is look at the title. Right away from the title, let's make a prediction.

Predict is an interesting word. D-I-C-T means say, talk, tell. Pre means before. So we want

to make a prediction, which means we want to look at the title and then say, by looking

at this title, I'll practice tests. I predict there will be tests in here. I will say, before

I open the rest, there will be tests in here. I will make a prediction. We can use the title

to tell us whether this is a story, like policemen or an ambulance, an emergency story, see?

Okay? It's a story, or if it's going to be academic and teach us something, or it's going

to be an argument and defend a position. So we're going to use the title to give us a

prediction about what we're going to learn. Next, we want to ask questions. What do you

mean by ask questions? Well, you make a prediction. I think this book is about biology, economics,

sociology, or a story about how a good boy became better. Now I want to ask some questions.

I want to ask questions that are going to basically say, what am I going to learn? If

I have predicted what the title is, when I ask a question, I should say, will this teach

me about how something works? Will this teach me so and so and so on? So you ask questions

about what should you learn, what information should be there, if you've made the right

prediction. Okay? So we start with a prediction, then we ask questions, like what information

should be there so I know I understand the subject properly? And write them down, because

you're going to look at these again later on, so let's go over, okay? Okay, here we

go. Now we're here. After we make a prediction, we're going to do this. Compare. You need

to compare. We did two things, okay? We did two things here. We made a prediction, and

we asked some questions. We predicted what should be inside what we're reading, and then

we asked questions about what should we be learning, what should we get from this, okay?

Now we have to compare our prediction with our questions that we asked. Why? When you

finish learning something, if you do this comparison, something interesting will happen.

First of all, you'll know, did you learn what you thought you would learn, okay? Was the

book about what you thought it was going to be? That will help to clarify things for you,

okay? That will help so you're reading and going, hey, you know what? It didn't answer

this question, so I really don't know the answer to this subject. Or it did hit everything

I was asking it said. By doing that, it means I was able to, when I was reading, you know,

asking myself these questions, to know the subject, so it goes deeper in your brain.

This is good for you, okay? Now, after we've done this comparison, what we want to do is

we want to take a second or two, close your eyes. I know, you're visualizing me naked

right now. You like? You like, I know. Anyway, Ezekiel's not happy, he's like, ugh. Visualize.

Why? In drawing a picture in your mind after you've done all these comparisons, you have

the ability to actually visualize and come up with a picture. A picture will give you

understanding. If you can picture it, you usually understand it. When I ask you what

is infinity, you usually don't know. I mean, infinity means the beginning and the ending

never ending. That's why it's a loop. It just keeps going on and on and on. I can speak

for infinity. Really, I could. What I mean by that is something continually going on.

So here, when you visualize something, if I say dog, I can either say has four legs,

goes ruff ruff, has long hair, smells bad. Another word for bad is foul. Smells foul.

Bad breath. But, you visualize the dog, you see a dog, and that means more to you. You

see it, you understand it. So what we want to do is do the comparison and visualize,

get a picture in your head of what they're trying to show you, or at least a moving picture.

If you can do that, you understand it. And finally, what we want to do after we do this

is now we're going to do the... And now we're going to work on the summary. You can see

summary here. The S. Excuse me, I made a mistake. I mean visualize, and it's really visualize.

Okay? So S for S. I'm a terrible speller. I teach the rules terrible. I like to read

more than I like to write, so you'll have to excuse me when I do that. Happens once

in a while. In fact, check other videos and see if I made a mistake and crossed it out.

Okay, so now we can actually do work in the summary. Because we actually have visualized

and we can come up with a word to cover something, because we've got this picture in our head,

like I say water, you get a drop. You go, okay, drop, drop. You can use that word.

You can use, in your summary, the words that you get from the visualization to become key

ideas, right? When you think about freedom, you might think something like chains. Someone's

got two chains behind their hand, and they're chained up. And then you go, chain. Man is

chained to his destiny, and he needs to break free of the chains. And then that's the idea

of freedom. You can say this leads to freedom, because you can see chains holding someone

back, holding them back, and then you see the chains gone, and you see them being free.

The visualization gives you key words, which can become ideas, if you like.

So when we're doing a summary, we want to do what Mr. E has done. Make a prediction.

He has made a prediction that if he thinks about this, he can come up with an answer,

the answer to everything. He asks questions. Well, what would be involved? What would I

have to know? What should I have to learn? Do I have to learn pi? Blah, blah, blah. Then

he compares. When he gets into the question, he compares the question that he asked with

his prediction, and sees how they match up. Did he get all the information that was required?

Did he miss anything? After that, he visualized. He visualized. Infinity in his head, pi in

his head, 401, visualized. And then he finally came up with an answer to the question, the

answer to the universe and everything. And boys and girls, this is a public announcement

moment. What I'd like you to do is, after you get off, go to a website, maybe Wikipedia,

because it knows everything, and go check out the number 42 in Hitchhiker's Guide. You'll

find out some interesting facts about the fastest way to travel on the planet Earth,

the name of God, and all sorts of other things. Woohoo. Okay? Go check it out. It's kind of

cool. Anyway, so, predict, ask, compare, visualize, and then summarize. Yeah. All right. Now,

I'm going to get going. In summary, I hope you've learned a lot. I've given you not only

information on how to improve your essay writing skills, but the answer to everything in the

universe. But if you need to know more, I feel like William Shatner. If you need to

know more, you must go to the source. And the source today is, 42 is not the answer,

baby. No. The answer is www.eng, as in English, vid, as in video, where we will give you life,

the universe, and everything in it. No, we won't. No, we won't. I wouldn't get paid.

This is for free. Mm-hmm. It's for free. Have a good day.

Con, criminal, me, police. Con, place to go.