Understanding What Is the Main Idea in a Text

Master the Art of Identifying Main Ideas and Paraphrasing with Ease

As a new university student, you’ll need to read a lot of materials like books and articles. It can be hard to understand everything in these texts, especially if English isn’t your first language.

But if you can figure out the main idea and important details of a text, you’ll understand it better and faster. This skill is really important for doing well in university.

In this article, we’ll show you some easy ways to find the main idea and important details in what you’re reading, so you can do your best in your studies. We will start with reading comrehension.

Reading Comprehension

Comprehension means understanding.

Set a purpose for reading

Before starting to read a text, you should identify why they are reading it.
This helps them to focus on the important information and stay engaged throughout the reading process.

Active reading

Engage with the text.
This includes underlining or highlighting important information, taking notes, and summarizing key points.

Build vocabulary

Students with a larger vocabulary tend to have better reading comprehension.
Look up unfamiliar words and practice using them in their writing and conversation.

Practice summarizing

After reading a passage, practice summarizing what you read in your own words.
This helps to reinforce your understanding of the material and identify any areas that you may need to review.

Read regularly

The more students read the better they become at comprehension.
Encourage students to read a variety of texts, including books, news articles, and academic journals.

Monitor comprehension

Learn to monitor your own comprehension as you read.
Recognize when you don’t understand something and take steps to clarify it, such as re-reading, asking questions, or looking up information.

Identify the Main Idea

Example Text: “The sun is very important for life on Earth. It provides light and warmth that plants and animals need to survive. Without the sun, there would be no life on Earth.”

This starts with a statement that the sun is very important to life, why? Why is it important? The text should provide evidence to say why the sun is important.

“The sun is important for life on Earth because it provides light and warmth that plants and animals need to survive.” So without the sun there would be no life on Earth. This is the main idea, the other text just supports this detail.

So we can highlight the main idea:

“The sun is very important for life on Earth. It provides light and warmth that plants and animals need to survive. Without the sun, there would be no life on Earth.”

Here is another example, can you identify the main idea and the main points of the text?

“Dogs are loyal pets. They are known for their unconditional love and loyalty to their owners. Dogs are also great protectors and can help keep their owners safe. Some dogs are even trained to assist people with disabilities. Overall, dogs make wonderful pets and companions.”

Vocabulary building

A loyal pet is an animal that loves you very much and always stays with you, like a really good friend.
Unconditional love means that your pet will love you no matter what, without expecting anything in return, just because they care about you.
Protectors are people or animals that keep you safe from harm or danger.
Disabilities refer to physical or mental conditions that may limit a person’s ability to do certain things
Companions are friends or animals that you spend time with and enjoy being around.

Once you have found the main idea and the main points then you can write it in your own words by ‘paraphrasing’.

To Paraphrase

To paraphrase means to express the same idea in a different way.
When you paraphrase, you use your own words to convey the same meaning as the original text, without copying it word-for-word.
It’s like re-telling a story in your own words.

Paraphrasing example

Here is an example text:

Family is a group of people who are related to each other. They usually live together and take care of each other. Families can be big or small, and they can include parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

We can identify and even add the meaning and main points of this text:

Family is a group of people who are related to each other.
Families live together and take care of each other.
Families can have different sizes and include different family members.
Families are made up of people who love and support each other.

Finally, we can paraphrase the text, put the meaning of the text into our own words:

Family is a group of people who are related to each other and care for each other. It can be made up of different family members and is important because it provides love, comfort, and security to these members.

Writing Task - paraphrasing

Use the main points of the text about the text “dogs are loyal pets” that you created before and paraphrase them so you have a summary of this text in your own words. good luck!