If you are going to write effective summaries, you need to practice annotating and taking notes on what you are reading. Here are some links to help you in that process:

Annotate and Take Notes

From UNC Chapel Hill Writing Center

Helpful tips

• Write notes in your own words instead of copying down information from the book.
• Avoid over-highlighting. Highlighting doesn’t actively engage the brain, so it’s not the most useful strategy. Also, highlighting too much can keep you from focusing on the main ideas.
• Wait until the end of a page to take notes so that you can better focus on what you are reading and so that you can try to summarize in your own words rather than copy.
• You don’t need to write pages of notes—keep them brief and focused.
• Preview the chapter before you start reading by looking at the text features to gain clues about the main ideas of the chapter.
• Focus on the main ideas and concepts.

LINK TO SITE

PDF on ANNOTATING from UNC-Chapel Hill WC: Annotating Texts