- Write out the thesis (the main point the author wants to make or prove) in your own words.
- Go back over the article and make a list of the main points the author tries to prove, in order to prove the thesis. Write them out in your own words. Do not simply copy them from the article.
- In most articles, even quite long ones, the list of main points will be relatively short—three or four; usually not more than five or six. The difference between a short article and a long one is not the number of main points, but the number of levels in the hierarchy. A short article will have a thesis and main points and possibly one level of sub-points. A long article will have a thesis, main points, sub-points, sub-sub-points and so on.
- For more on how to tell where the topic shifts, read Looking for Section Breaks.
- Write a brief phrase to explain how each main point makes a different contribution to the thesis.
Tip: The goal here is to see how an argument is a series of steps that leads the reader to the conclusion. Each step contributes something unique to the overall idea. You can also think of each main point as proving a different part of the thesis, or proving a point that has to be true if the thesis is going to be true.
- Go back over the article, this time focusing on each paragraph. Write a word, phrase or short sentence identifying the main idea of each paragraph in your own words. (If it helps, underline the topic sentence to find the main idea.) Make a list of these words and phrases.
Write up your list in outline form. Group the paragraph summaries under the main points. Each main point will have a number of paragraphs under it.
- These paragraphs come in sequential order—that is, you would not put paragraph 1, paragraph 5 and paragraph 11 into one group and paragraphs 2, 4 and 8 in another. Instead, the groups of paragraphs go in sequence—for example, 1 – 4, 5 – 9, etc.).
You should now have a short, manageable list of main ideas that cover the entire article or chapter, as well as a brief summary of each paragraph that supports each main idea.
