How To Write A Book Summary (Step By Step)

How To Write A Book Summary – Do you find it challenging to write a summary of a novel, book, or assignment? Writing a summary can be difficult for some people, even though writing a summary will help the reader to understand the key points of the book., or novel.

Writing a book summary will help you to extract the main ideas from a book, or any type of work you may be reading, thereby giving you an in-depth understanding of what you read.

Summary writing is a problem to very many people. Not because it’s that difficult, but it’s just that most people don’t know the right steps to take when writing a summary, and that is why they are afraid of writing a summary. However, in this article, you will learn the step to steps on how to write a summary.

What is a Summary?

A summary is a brief analysis of a larger work that gives the reader a salient point for easy understanding. Writing a summary of a book means a writer’s ability to gather the main ideas or points of a book, essay, television show, or novel they have read, studied, or seen and condense the main ideas into a short sentence.

Summaries provide vivid descriptions of work, using paragraphs, and providing enough detail so that the reader understands the subject matter of the work. while writing a summary, the writer may add his personal contribution and understanding of the subject matter.

Benefits of Writing a Book Summary

Writing a book summary is very important, the major benefit is that writing a book summary:

Helps you remember the things you have read. Most of us have read books that today we cannot recall what we read, only to forget its key ideas as soon as we finish. Therefore, summarizing a book in your own words will help you to recall the main points in that book at a glance.
It helps you to have a quick review of ideas in the future: Why spend hours looking for some vital information in a book you have already read?
It helps others: Your summary can help others who cannot sit down to make a summary of a book. This is because most people don’t like spending time reading a book or doing a summary of them.

How To Write A Book Summary Step by Step

Whether you are summarizing a novel, play, or newspaper article, your ability to write and compress the piece into a one-paragraph summary that can be understood by the reader is an exceptional skill that every writer should acquire. Below is the step-by-step on how to write a good summary:

For you to succeed in writing a good summary, look for a quiet away from people, television, radio, and phone distractions. Let all your focus be on the book until you’re done writing. If you are writing at night, make sure you use a bright lamp to avoid straining your eyes while writing.

Identify the main ideas

Try to find out what the writer wants the readers to understand in that section. A good summary extracts the main idea from the entire story that the writer may have employed in his illustrations.

You should be able to pick the major point you want and relay it to your readers, using very few simple sentences to convey them wisely. While writing your summary take down a few notes to help outline your thoughts in an organized manner.

Keep your summary brief

In summary, try to let go of redundancies, and repetitions, to avoid boredom. Rather make it a short summation of the original piece. A summary paragraph should not exceed eight sentences.

Write without judgment

When you are summarizing an original text or piece of work, try to bring in words that will make that work more simple while maintaining the original idea and theme of the book. Let it be the most important information that you condense. Write in your own words but not in your own opinion.

Make sure it flows

When you are writing, make sure that there is a free flow of ideas, and connect your sentences with the use of transitional words, making sure that they flow together and convey the message of the summary work clearly, yet concisely.

Take Notes While You are Reading

When you are reading any print or hardcover book, highlight important ideas, quotes, and questions, and then identify the page number on the first blank page of your notebook or jotter.

Continuous Summarizing

One of the best methods of book summarization practices is continuous or progressive summarization The concept behind continuous summarization is for you to summarize your read book again. That is you summarize what you have summarized before, then summarize that summary again. By summarizing that summary, you can abstract key ideas into smaller and smaller summarized works with important points.

Write Your Summary

At this point, don’t forget that you are writing a summary, and not re-writing the entire book. The idea here is summarizing the summary so that you will be able to abstract key ideas into smaller and smaller summarized works with important points.

In Conclusion,

A good summary is an investment, which is why writing a book summary requires time, energy, and effort. But when done consistently, over time. I’m sure with this step-by-step summary guide, you can now summarize your works with ease.

How To Write A Book Summary (Step By Step) | 2024 Latest Guide