Strategy Finding the key idea
Usually each paragraph, section or segment, contains a main idea or a key point.
The other sentences explain the key idea or give reasons why it is important.
Finding the key idea in each section or segment, helps you
understand the point being made,
remember the point,
identify the arguments or points being made,
make notes or summaries.
Finding the Key Idea will help you learn and remember.
Read the following section and try to find the key idea.
The local area is a term which refers to the area nearest to where
The key idea in the above section is
The local area is where you live and get the things you need for day to day life.
A secondary idea is
that it may be very small or very large.
The key idea
is often the first sentence and can be repeated in the section or segment.
It often is also used at the end of the section or segment as a summary.
can be used as the starting point when using any of the learning techniques. (see later).
use highlighters or coloured pens to mark key ideas and points.
Activity 1 Key Idea in a Passage
Read the following passage and highlight the key idea
It may be helpful to know what research has shown about the factors relating to successful writing. Surprising enough it is not closely related to the amount of writing you have done. Instead, success at writing is most closely related to the amount of reading you do for pleasure. Since older students have usually had a lot of experience of reading for pleasure - books, newspapers, magazines- they are likely to be good writers, even though they may not have a lot of practice in recent years
Activity 2 A Letter to the Editor
Read the following letter to the editor. Highlight the key words used by the writer. Using your own words and in one sentence write down the writer's main idea
.| The proof of the pudding | |
|
Politicians are forever promoting that hoary old chestnut that they are not being paid enough in comparison with executives in the private sector. Considering the mess these unskilled labourers of the parliamentary circuit have created over the past 30 years or more -such as bank deregulation. globalisation, uncontrolled debt, selling our assets, denuding our rural sector of essential services and huge unemployment, which must be double the pretend figure of about 8 per cent - who in their right mind, in the private sector, would employ these superannuated, non-achieving windbags or their equally incompetent Sir Humphreys in the Public Service? Very few of them from the top down would have enough ability to run a double-decker toilet in a baked beans factory. Frank Bellet October 21, Petrie (Qld). |
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SMH Letters to the Editor Oct 22 1998
Activity 1. Success in writing is closely related to the amount of reading you do for pleasure.
Activity 2. Politicians do not have the ability to get an executive job in the private sector.