What does extracting the key ideas from a text mean?

This is useful when you are approaching a text with a specific question in mind: the goal is to become aware of contradictions, ambiguities, or difficulties in the text by putting it into your own words. Extracting the key ideas from a text allows you to integrate the content better into your own writing.

Extracting the key ideas of a text means writing down the main statements in a text.

In addition, extracting the key ideas can help us keep track of knowledge we have developed, and keep it available for reference at a later stage or for future work.

You should summarize texts in a way that you won’t need to go back to the original text later.

What should I write down?

• Relevant aspects: Does the text interest me? Is it important for my question? Does it match my prior knowledge?
• Criteria: Title, author, year of publication, table of contents, introduction, conclusion, and bibliography.
• Questions for the text: What, who, how, why, for what purpose, where, when? Activate your prior knowledge!
• The basic structure of the text: Be aware of the structure of the work to avoid taking passages out of context.

Keep the notes on your literature in one place, ideally in a reference management program such as Zotero.

What kind of texts are suitable for this technique?

• Fundamental texts for your own studies
• Texts that may become important later, e.g. for exams or when writing your final thesis
• Passages from texts that are particularly important for what you are working on just now

Literature (in German): Rost, Friedrich (2013): Wissenschaftliche Texte lesen und verstehen, In: Franck, Norbert; Stary, Joachim (ed.): Die Technik wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. 17., überarbeitete Aufl. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. pp. 65–91.

Frequently asked questions

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