You’ll remember from the “Supporting Claims” section earlier in this module that one way to analyze a reading is to distinguish its main ideas, its major supporting details, and its minor supporting details.

Review this video to remind yourself of the distinctions between these three things.

Note: The video has instrumental guitar for audio, but no spoken words, so can be watched without sound if desired.

Looked at from the perspective of summarizing a source, the distinction between major and minor details becomes very important.

• Summaries naturally want to emphasize the main ideas of a source.  All of the main ideas of a reading should be captured in a summary.
• Include major supporting details only if there is enough space, and if they help your audience understand the overall text more clearly.
• Leave out minor supporting details.