Decide Who It’s For

All you have to do is convert your bullet list to paragraph form. The key here is to avoid rambling. Remember, this is a summary. You’re not re-writing the entire book.

If you have a specific page restriction, here’s another tip to stay under the limit:

Page Limit ÷ Number of ...

Just take some minutes at the end of each chapter and use your highlights to fill out these form.

• Chapter number:  
• Chapter title:  
• “Big ideas”:  
• Arguments supporting big ideas:  
• Interesting facts, stats, or analogies:  
• Resonating quotes:  

Just take some minutes at the end of each chapter and use your highlights to fill out these form.

• Chapter number:  
• Chapter title:  
• Setting:  
• Characters in chapter:  
• New insights about characters:  
• Main events:  
• Problems & Resolution...

A book summary is not a book review.

A book review is a description of the book including your opinions, interpretations, ideas, and critiques.

A book summary, sometimes called a synopsis, it recaps all the main ideas and does not inc...

For fiction books, group them by where they fall into the story structure:

• Beginning (Intro to characters, setting, problem) 
• Rising Action (Tension around problem builds) 
• Climax (Highest point in tension) 
• Falling Action (Resolving loose ends ...

You might feel like it slows you down, but it’ll save you heaps of time in the long run.

• Highlight the book and take notes in the margins 
• Use stickies to mark pages and take notes 
• Take notes in a separate notebook

Your mindset is important here. Don’t just blaze through pages as fast as you can. Instead, read each page as if you had to teach the material to someone afterward.

Scan through each summary and pick out the most important ideas & plot points. Jot these down in bullet list form on a separate sheet of paper.  

When deciding which fictional plot points to include, ask yourself, “Is this information vital for understanding the ‘big picture’ of the story?”...

1. Decide who it’s for
2. Start reading (with a “teacher mindset”)
3. Highlight and take notes
4. Write mini-summaries for each chapter
5. Organize your mini-summaries
6. Condense main points to a bullet list
7. Use bullet list to write your final summary