Whew. I'm tired. There's so much information to remember about indirect and direct approaches, about requests and Elizabeth. Will she get her dream team together for BioDent? How will I remember all of this? How do I organize these big chunks of information? I don't have time to review all these videos. Magically, there's a way to help remember things. It's a trick our brain uses naturally because it knows we can't remember everything. We call it summarizing. To summarize is to retell only the big ideas, or main points of something. Imagine you're travelling to a foreign country, and you've just walked into the best smelling bakery on the planet. Since you are far from home, chances are you will never visit this bakery again. For the daily special, you must buy a dozen items. You wouldn't buy 12 pastries that were exactly the same, would you? Heavens, no. You want to try them all. You would pick out the best and most important desserts to buy. You wouldn't be able to eat all the desserts in the bakery either. But at least you could leave with a delicious dozen. And so it is with summarizing. We're given a ton of information. Some information we may only hear or learn once. It's our job to pull out the big ideas, the most important points, or the most delicious desserts. We can't retain all the information or buy out the entire bakery, but we can at least have a dozen new bits of knowledge. In a business setting the ability to summarize is extremely important. Investors, CEOs, employees, marketers, researchers, executives and managers are busy always. Additionally, they are fed 1,000s of bits of new information every day. If we were to memorize every new thing put into our brains each day, they would explode. Just as we would explode if we ate all the desserts in that bakery. You want information that is most relevant, useful, and information that is key. So how do you choose? How do you put the information together? The first step is to make sure you understand your information, whether it be written or spoken. If it is written, and you don't understand it, why, read it again? If it's spoken information, continue to ask questions until you have a full understanding of what is being said. Second, find key words, main ideas, and sentences that talk about the topic. Creating an outline might be necessary to organize big portions of information. Next, write or speak your summary. This should include a topic sentence, supporting sentences and a concluding sentence. A summary needs to be clear to someone who hasn't seen or read the original material. Don't use direct quotes, examples or extra details. Think of our bakery. What if someone asked you what the bakery sold? As much as you want to answer heavenly delectables, this doesn't give your audience enough information nor does it help solidify the information in your own brain. A summary would describe the pastries. Some were round with chocolate icing, some had caramel and pecans, and some were cream filled. Again, you wanna provide too much detail such as oh they were desserts made up of a cupcake flour, three cups sugar, four tablespoons cocoa. Remember to use language that is cohesive and brief. Something I was once taught is to imagine you have $2 to write your summary, but you're being charged $.10 per word. You can't spend more than $2 when you finish your summary. You have to make sure each word has a purpose. Fourth, write supporting sentences that stick to the main points. Follow the same order that the information was given. Finally, write a concluding sentence. Think of this as a summary within a summary. How can you again reaffirm your information in the fewest amount of words? Your brain loves repetition. It's one of the best ways to learn and retain information. This is just an overview of summary writing. In module two, we'll further explore this summarizing process. Let's then figure out what the key takeaways are from this lesson. Summaries are the most important ideas and biggest pieces of information. When we're able to summarize, our brain remembers better. The first step to writing a summary is to make sure you understand the information. Then write or speak your information. Find key words and phrases or make an outline. Create a strong topic sentence. Add details and support without adding your opinion and finish with a concluding sentence. You'll soon be introduced to a reading with different summary and examples. Until next time, thanks for watching English for Management and Leadership.