Glossary
summary
A summary states the main idea and the few details needed to support it, in your own words and much shorter than the original.
A summary condenses a passage to its main idea plus the few details a reader needs for that idea to make sense — usually a sentence or two for a paragraph, a short paragraph for an article. Everything that illustrates rather than carries the point comes out: the examples, the repetition, the asides. A summary keeps the passage's proportions as well as its content, so a subordinate point should not arrive with more space than the central one, and it stays in the writer's own view rather than adding the summarizer's reaction. The test of a summary is whether a reader who had not seen the original would come away with the same understanding in the same shape. Questions ask for the best summary, which means the option that covers the main idea without importing a detail that was minor, dropping a qualification that mattered, or editorialising.
Taught in
Related terms
- main idea — The main idea is the claim a passage was written to deliver — broad enough to cover every paragraph, narrow enough that no paragraph sits outside it.
- supporting detail — A supporting detail is a fact, example or reason that holds up the main idea of a passage rather than adding a new point of its own.
Source: The reading-comprehension guide in this course: the three skills above are the ones that guide teaches, and every definition is written for this course in our own words, with no publisher's prose reproduced. Elsevier's own HESI A2 page, which names reading comprehension among the areas the exam covers, is the exam-side source. (Elsevier HESI A2 page accessed 2026-10-23; definitions written 2026-10-27)