What a Summary Is Not- Police Reports and DVD boxes

A summary is the main idea of a text, supported by a few of the most important pieces of information within it.

A summary is not like a police report. A police report is just the facts. A police report includes every single fact that a witness can remember. Since a reader can always read the text directly, it isn't necessary to put all the facts of a text into a summary.

A summary is not like the back of a dvd. The back of a dvd contains some information about the movie; it may even contain the main idea, but it also contains attempts to hook the interest of the reader. A summary does not contain a hook.