How to Find the Main Points
Finding the main points gives you a framework to organize the details presented in the reading and relate the reading to concepts you learned in class or through other reading assignments. Here are some tips on where to find the main points.
Textbooks
Textbooks contain headings and subheadings intended to make it easier for students to identify core concepts. Graphic features, such as sidebars, diagrams, and charts, help you understand complex information and distinguish between essential and inessential points. When you are assigned to read from a textbook, be sure to use available comprehension aids to help you identify the main points.
Other books
Many trade books include an introduction that presents the writer’s main ideas and purpose for writing. Reading chapter titles (and any subtitles within the chapter) will help you get a broad sense of what is covered. It also helps to read the beginning and ending paragraphs of a chapter closely. These paragraphs often sum up the main ideas presented.
Popular articles
Reading the headings and introductory paragraphs carefully is crucial. In magazine articles, these features (along with the closing paragraphs) present the main concepts. Hard news articles in newspapers present the gist of the news story in the lead paragraph, while subsequent paragraphs present increasingly general details.
Scholarly books and journal articles
The introduction usually presents the writer’s thesis, the idea or hypothesis the writer is trying to prove. Headings and subheadings can help you understand how the writer has organized support for their thesis. Additionally, academic journal articles often include a summary at the beginning, called an abstract, and electronic databases include summaries of articles too.
This chapter has been adapted from University of Minnesota’s Writing for Success, Chapter 1, CC-BY-NC-SA. Some sections from the chapter have been removed, and minor formatting adjustments were made.
