How to Summarize a Chapter of a Book

If you have already come to the end of a chapter and asked what you have just read, you are not alone. Even with the best of intentions, sometimes we don’t understand what the author is saying or we need a quick summary of the main points of the chapter. Anyway, a chapter summary can be a useful tool to help you remember the details of a chapter.

Although most textbooks include abstracts of chapters that provide students with a condensed version of the material they have just studied, students need to know how to summarize chapters accurately.

Book Chapter Summarizing

Before you write a chapter summary, you should first have a good understanding of what you have read. Every chapter of a novel can be compared to an episode of a TV show. Generally, there’re the five narrative components of fiction:

• Character
• Setting
• Conflict
• Resolution
• Plot

And there’s the basis for an event:

• Who or What
• Did What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How

Go through the material thoroughly, jot down the story, and summarize it.

Reread the Story to Emphasize Key Parts

Scan the text to highlight, emphasize or otherwise identify parts of particular importance, making sure you can mark in your book before you continue. Books often provide clues about key concepts by overwriting or repeating them on the page. Search for remarkable parts, and write them down on a piece of paper.

Identify Main Figures and Settings

Begin your summary by indicating the main characters and how to configure the chapter in one to two sentences. The main characters are the object of history. They play, feel and speak for the most part in the chapter. Provide details about both the protagonist, antagonist, if the chapter includes both characters. If it contains supporting characters, such as friends and family members, don’t include them unless they affect the outcome of the chapter.

The context of the chapter is the timing and location of the story. The setting may be as specific as Manhattan in June 1965 or as extensive as a rural village in the Middle Ages.

Presenting a Summary

One of the most delicate parts of creating a summary is to specify that it’s a summary of somebody else’s work; these ideas are not your original ideas. You’ll almost always start an abstract with an introduction to the author, the article, and publishing, so the reader knows what we are about to read.

Main Theme

The main concept is the main topic of the chapter. To figure out what it is, consider what the lead character spends most of the time doing or thinking about. In many cases, the character tries to resolve a conflict. Conflict sometimes occurs internally. For instance, the character may have trouble containing his anger or dangerous urges.

Sometimes, the conflict is outward — the character against their environment or some other character. The character could be caught in a thunderstorm or try to win somebody’s affection.

The primary idea may also include a message or morality. In two or three sentences, indicate the principal action, conflict, and morality.

Supporting Details

The accompanying details are the sentiments and actions which support the main idea. They include the means that the principal character attempts to solve the conflict. Supporting details, address questions about why and how.

Look at the motivation of the protagonist and the antagonist and how they feel or react to the events of the chapter. Include overall details or concepts, but be selective and concentrate on those that are most significant. Write a few sentences with details as presented by the author in chronological order.

Revise to Clarify the Summary

Review and revise your abstract. All the essential elements — the characters, the scenery, the theme, and the meaningful details — must be presented clearly and logically without non-essential information or opinions. You must write the summary only in your own words. If you use a particularly outstanding phrase in the chapter, assign it to the author to prevent plagiarism.

Summary Conclusion

Now that we have a little more information about the major ideas of this room, think about whether some links or details need to be filled out that’ll help your reader fully understand the points raised in this text? That’s where you put them.

It’s also a great place to begin (or reaffirm) the things that are most important for your readers to remember after finishing your summary.

If you think that chapter summaries are nothing more than serious and boring writings, you are mistaken. Chapter summaries can also be valuable for writing and reading. You just have to figure out how to play with your words and apply a variety of phrases to make your chapter summary factual but fun reading.