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A summary of everything

herr-stritt 4. Juli 2023

How to analyse a text

1) Introduction

The very first sentence (“umbrella sentence”)

  • mentions the author
  • gives the name / title of the text
  • identifies the text type
  • gives the source (Where is this article from? Where was it published? When was it published?)

Text type

Basic distinction: Is the text 

  • fictional? (Examples for fictional texts: poem, novel…)
  • or non-fictional? (Examples for non-fictional texts: report, interview, comment, feature story…)

Example structure:

“In his feature story “Bitcoin – the new gold?”, which was published in the New York Times on Jan 20th, 2021, author Henry Miller speaks about / discusses / gives insight into…”

2) Summary / abstract

answers the “Wh”-questions

gives only the important facts; should be rather short (only essential information)

direct speech

no 1st person

formal language; tense: present tense (Only use past tense when you speak about real

events that happened in the past! (Quotes, happenings, etc.))

“Miller claims that… / speaks about the financial industry being uprooted / refers to the

financial crisis which happened in 2009.”

3) The analysis (about 3 paragraphs)

depends on the task / what you are asked to do!

Speaking Card Sets

B1 Level (GER: Form 10)