Grouping means sorting your selected points by one rule, so related points sit next to each other and the summary has a visible shape. The rule is your organising principle. A summary built on one is easier to write and easier to read.
This lesson follows combining repeated ideas. It is part of summary selection and synthesis.
How do you choose a principle?
Let the task word decide. If it asks how something works, sort by stages. If it asks why something happened, sort by causes and effects.
If it asks about a decision, sort by advantages and disadvantages. If it asks about a community, sort by who is affected.
Then use one rule only. Mixing two rules, such as stages and people, produces groups that overlap.
Worked example
Read this original passage about a food bank.
Volunteers collect tins and packets from supermarkets every Friday evening. On Saturday morning a second team checks expiry dates and throws away anything out of date. The food is packed into boxes, each meant to feed a family for three days. Families are referred by local clinics, and they collect their box on Monday at the community hall. A volunteer drives boxes to those who cannot travel.
Task: Explain how the food bank gets food to families.
Step 1, notes: collect from supermarkets on Friday; check dates on Saturday and discard; pack into three-day boxes; families referred by clinics; collect Monday at hall; delivery for those who cannot travel.
Step 2, principle. “How … gets food” points to stages. Sort the notes:
| Stage | Notes |
|---|---|
| Collecting | supermarkets, Friday |
| Preparing | check dates, discard, pack into three-day boxes |
| Handing over | clinics refer, hall on Monday, delivery if needed |
Step 3, write one sentence per group:
Volunteers collect food from supermarkets each Friday. They check and pack it into three-day family boxes on Saturday. Families referred by clinics then collect the boxes from the hall on Monday, or have them delivered if they cannot travel.
Each group became a sentence, and the order follows the process.
The mistake to watch for
Students often group by what they met first in the passage, not by the principle.
Mistaken grouping: Volunteers collect food and families are referred by clinics. Food is checked and boxes are delivered.
The points are all true, but it jumps between supplier, recipient and preparation. A reader cannot follow the route from supermarket to family.
Another slip is a group called “other”, which hides that you have not found the link. The correction is to state the principle in a few words first, for example “stages in the process”, and to check that every group answers it. A point that fits no group usually means either the principle is wrong or the point is irrelevant.
Check yourself
1. A passage lists these points about a school trip: cost is high, long coach journey, students learn field skills, parents worry about safety. Suggest a principle.
Show answer
Advantages and disadvantages works: one advantage (field skills) and three drawbacks (cost, journey, safety worries). If the task asked only for the drawbacks, you would drop the advantage and might group the rest by “practical” and “personal” concerns.
2. A passage explains why a village well dried up: less rain, more farms pumping water, a blocked stream. Which principle fits?
Show answer
Causes. You could group them as natural (less rain) and human-made (farm pumping, blocked stream), which gives two groups with a clear link.
3. What is wrong with a summary that has groups called “Volunteers”, “Food” and “Problems” for a task about how a scheme works?
Show answer
The groups mix different rules: people, objects and a judgement. They overlap, since volunteers handle food and problems involve both. A single principle such as stages would separate them cleanly.
Where this leads next
With points grouped, you can write clean sentences. The next lesson covers how to paraphrase while preserving qualifications. The summary selection and paraphrase studio lets you sort points into groups of your own.
If grouping is where your summaries lose shape, a teacher in online one-to-one English First Language tuition can look at your sorting with you and test different principles on the same passage.