Summary Writing: Finding Points and Packing Them
The SHS 1 foundation for WAEC summary: identifying task-relevant points, excluding examples and repetition, paraphrasing without distortion, sentence-combining, and word-limit discipline.
A farmer from Sefwi being reported on radio after a cocoa-blast: his hour of talk — the dew on his leaves, his grandfather's farm, three proverbs — compresses to two sentences for the news bulletin: "Dry weather and spraying failure reduced his crop; he wants seedlings from the district office." That compression, nothing more, is summary.
Key Syllabus Learning Objectives
- 1Isolate the summary task and the exact category of points demanded
- 2Separate main points from illustrations, quotations and repetition in a paragraph
- 3Paraphrase points without changing or narrowing their factual sense
- 4Combine related points into single clean sentences where appropriate
- 5Respect a word limit while keeping every answer sentence complete and grammatical
Reading the Task Before Reading the Text
- Task verbs that change the point-type: causes (why it happens), effects (what results), problems (obstacles), reasons (justifications given by the writer), qualities (traits of a person), measures/solutions (what should be done).
- "In paragraph 3" means points exist ONLY in that paragraph — no fishing in others.
- If two categories are asked ("the problems and the measures suggested"), number your answers so the marker sees both.
- Preview the passage length: the mark total tells you how many points to expect — 10 marks ≈ 5 well-made points.
District exam question: "Summarise why the trading centre was crowded" — a candidate lists how the market looked; every description point scores 0 because the task demanded REASONS.
The task word (cause/effect/quality...) is a filter: only points of that class pass.
Excluding What Is Not a Point
- One point, once: if two sentences say the same thing in different clothes, keep one and paraphrase.
- A general statement + its example = ONE point (the statement), not two.
- A string of examples may collectively reveal ONE general point: "maize, beans and groundnuts failed" compresses to "several food crops failed".
- Dialogue or quoted speech inside a narrative passage is usually evidence of a quality, not the quality itself — convert "I will never give up!" to "she was determined."
A minister's two-page congratulation reduces to "the new block was funded by the assembly and completed before the exam season" — the adjectives about pride are decoration, not points.
The pen strokes that cross out examples and padding are worth more marks than the strokes that write the answer.
Paraphrase: New Clothes, Same Facts
- Keep the register: a summary of a report should sound like a report, not a chat.
- Preserve hedges: "some traders" must not become "all traders" — quantifier swaps are factual distortions.
- If a word has no safe synonym, KEEP it — a correctly retained technical term (dysentery, cocoa swollen shoot) beats a wrong paraphrase.
- Sentence-compression: two short points can share one verb ("The roads were bad. The bridges were broken" → "Roads and bridges were in a state of disrepair") only when both remain countable as marks.
Source: "Traders could not move their goods because the lorry park was flooded." Summary: "Flooding of the lorry park halted the movement of goods."
Swap the wording, guard the facts: paraphrase is re-dressing, not re-writing history.
Packing: Sentences, Limits, and the Check
- A fragment scores 0 even when the fact is right: "Because of the heavy rains" must become "Heavy rains caused the outbreak."
- Order points as they appear in the passage — mark schemes follow the text, and so should you.
- Leave out your own opinion entirely; a summary reports, it does not review.
- If your draft is over the limit, do not delete points — delete padding words and compress clauses.
Model 60-word answer on cholera from an unseen report: "The outbreak spread because the borehole was contaminated; vendors carried untreated water; the clinic ran short of reagents. Cases multiplied when families shared one latrine." — four points, four sentences, task-compliant.
Complete sentences, passage order, no repetition, inside the word limit — the four walls of a full-marks summary.
- Annotate the passage freely: ticks, crosses and page-margin numbers are allowed and save minutes; the answer script must stay clean.
- Count the marks against likely points: a 10-mark summary almost never wants 25 sentences; it wants 5 clean points done thoroughly.
- Begin your answer with the required numbering exactly as asked (a, b, i, ii): misnumbering can make a correct point unmarkable.
- Never write an introduction that restates the question ("The passage below summarises...") — it wastes word-limit and time for zero marks.
- Leave one minute to read YOUR sentences back: one subject-verb slip can erase a point's mark even if the content is right; proofread for concord and tense first.
- Lifting whole sentences from the passage ("mindless copying") — scored 0 even when the sentence contains a point.
- Including examples as points: "for instance, mangoes" is never a cause.
- Answering a causes task with effects — the category error that halves the score.
- Writing notes or fragments instead of full sentences: "Dirty water. Too many people." scores nothing.
- Adding personal opinion or outside facts the passage never stated.
- Blowing the word limit by keeping every detail the passage offered.
- Can I restate a summary task as a one-line filter ("causes only, paragraph 3")?
- Can I strip a 120-word paragraph to its two real points in two minutes?
- Can I paraphrase a point without altering any fact or quantity?
- Can I write five points as five complete, connector-light sentences?
- Can I hit a 90-word limit without dropping a single markable point?
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