Summarising & note-taking
Lesson opening
This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.
Summarising and note-taking: condensing a text, a lecture, a meeting
“Mediation & relaying” taught you to pass someone’s words on to a listener and to shrink them as you go. Here the task is to turn an article, a talk or a meeting into a short text that people read instead of the original. At work you hear napiši rezime “write a summary”, at university sažmite ovo u pet rečenica “sum this up in five sentences”, and after a meeting somebody sits down to write the zapisnik, the minutes.
The opener: Tekst govori o…, Autor tvrdi da…
A summary opens with a formula announcing that what follows is someone else’s, not yours. Top of the table: the topic; middle: what is said and the author’s position; bottom: the upshot.
Govori o names the topic; navodi da and piše da report what exactly is said. Spoken Suština je da… “the point is that…” grows in writing into Suština je u tome da…, with the locative u tome “in this”.
Main points and side detail: what to throw out
Condensing is choosing. Ask three questions: O čemu? “What about?”, Šta autor tvrdi? “What does the author claim?”, Šta sad? “So what now?” The answers are your summary.
The phrases for this step: izdvojiti glavnu misao “to single out the main idea”, izostaviti detalje “to leave out the details”, svesti tekst na tri rečenice “to reduce the text to three sentences”, ključne reči “keywords”. Linking words stitch the summary’s sentences together: međutim “however”, dakle “so”, sve u svemu “all in all” (the lesson “Linking words”).
Their position and yours: where the line runs
A summary is neutral: you report the author’s position without agreeing or arguing. If you add anything of your own, say so.
Cheat sheet
The cheat sheet — everything essential from the lesson on one page. In the app it opens at any time.
Summarising and note-taking
| Formula | Job |
|---|---|
| Tekst govori o… / U tekstu se govori o… | topic, + locative |
| Tekst se bavi temom… | topic, + instrumental |
| U članku se navodi da… / U članku piše da… | what the article says |
| Autor tvrdi / smatra / navodi / ističe / naglašava / upozorava / zaključuje da… | claims, believes, states, points out, stresses, warns, concludes |
| Cilj teksta je da pokaže… | aim of the text |
| Suština je u tome da… / Zaključak je da… / Ukratko rečeno,… | closing: the upshot |
Selection. Ask: O čemu? Šta autor tvrdi? Šta sad? Keep glavna misao, tvrdnja, zaključak, rok, cena, zaduženje; drop primeri, digresije, ponavljanja, formule učtivosti, imena sporednih učesnika. Verbs: izdvojiti, izostaviti, svesti na tri rečenice, ključne reči. Linking: međutim, dakle, sve u svemu.
| The author’s position | Yours |
|---|---|
| Prema autoru,… / Po rečima autora,… | Po mom mišljenju,… / Lično mislim da… |
| U tekstu se tvrdi da… / Kako autor navodi,… | Ja bih dodao (dodala) da… |
| Autor se zalaže za… (argues for) / navodno (allegedly) | S ovim se ne slažem, jer… / Ovo je već moj komentar. |
| Spelled out | Condensed |
|---|---|
| Zato što je padala kiša, utakmica je odložena. | Zbog kiše je utakmica odložena. |
| Nakon što je stigao materijal, počeli su radovi. | Po dolasku materijala počeli su radovi. |
| Kada su potpisali ugovor, poslali su ga. | Nakon potpisivanja ugovora poslali su ga. |
| Sastali su se da bi dogovorili rokove. | Sastali su se radi dogovora o rokovima. |
Folding. zbog (cause), radi (purpose), nakon, posle + genitive; po, pri + locative; u vezi sa + instrumental. Nouns in -nje: plaćanje, potpisivanje, kašnjenje, produženje, donošenje odluke. Bookish: Pročitavši izveštaj, potpisao je ugovor. Having read the report, he signed the contract.
Notes. Symbols: → leads to, ↑ ↓ (raste, pada), = ≠, ! important, ? check, + – (za i protiv). Clipped, with a full stop: sast., dog., izv., pon., ut., pet.; an hour: 10 h; standard npr., tj., itd., br., str., god. Noun style: sastanak → dogovor o rokovima.
| In the notes | As a full sentence |
|---|---|
| nova cena – od 1. 9. | Nova cena važi od 1. septembra. |
| Marko – izv. do pet. | Marko treba da pošalje izveštaj do petka. |
Expanding: put back the verb (važiti, biti, treba da), the preposition with its case, full words; for readers (emails, summaries, minutes), sentences, not noun chains. Dates: day first.
Minutes. Who was there, what was decided, who does what by when. zapisnik skeleton: datum, mesto, prisutni, odsutni, dnevni red, tačka dnevnog reda, tok sastanka, zaključci, zaduženja, rok, zapisničar. Impersonal: Usvojen je dnevni red. Konstatovano je da postoji kvorum. Zaključeno je da se rok pomeri na jul. Zadužen je Marko da pošalje izveštaj. Genres: sažetak/rezime summary, beleške notes, izveštaj report.