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5: Getting the Point

  • Page ID
    25746
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    • 5.1: Topics, Supporting Details, and Main Ideas
      Being able to identify topics, main ideas, and supporting details is essential for literal comprehension of a text. While these are fundamental skills, they're essential for moving past literal comprehension and towards interpretive and applied comprehension.
    • 5.2: Identifying Thesis Statements and Topic Sentences
      Topic sentences and thesis statements are similar to main ideas. This section discusses those similarities and the differences associated with them. Acquiring an understanding of topic sentences and main ideas prepares students to identify and understand thesis statements of much longer readings.
    • 5.3: Summarizing a Text
      Being able to summarize is a key comprehension skill because it demonstrates a student's understanding of the basics-- topics, main ideas, topic sentences, thesis statements, and supporting details. Summarizing must be done in one's own words in order to fully demonstrate comprehension. This section discusses each of these components and characteristics of an effective summary, and how students can use this strategy to better assist their comprehension of and preparation for various academic tas
    • 5.4: Paraphrasing
      Paraphrasing, while similar in many ways to summarizing, is still different and often confused with summarizing. This section discusses those differences and instructs students on how to properly and effectively paraphrase an author's writing.
    • 5.5: Evidence and Support in an Argument
      This section prepares students for identifying an author's argument and the support provided. As critical readers, students must identify and understand the claim (argument) an author is making, the support (evidence) to that claim, and evaluate whether that support is sufficient, typical, accurate, and relevant to that claim. This section also discusses various questions readers should ask as they critically read an author's argument.
    • 5.6: Identifying Relationships between Ideas
      Seeing how ideas connect to one another is an essential reading skill because it solidifies one's comprehension of a text. In this section, students will learn how to make use of transitions to understand the point an author is making in the text.

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    5: Getting the Point is shared under a CC BY-NC-ND license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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