Evaluating the exercise: example summaries

In the downloads, you will find some good and bad examples of the previous summary exercise. The good examples have done a greater job of restructuring the keywords in the text. As it is partly a subjective matter, the examples are of course open to discussion.

Combined with the reflection exercises, we think these examples will help you to develop a clearer understanding of the Topic Comment method.

Educators give their view on the good examples:

Both summaries are quite short, but they give a good overview. For most exams this will be enough. Of course, learners could add more explanation if they are very unfamiliar the topic. In a text like ‘How feedback influences motivation’, two related concepts (growth and fixed mindset) are explained: a table is very suitable to depict this, because it will make the differences between the concepts easy to see.

Educators give their view on the bad examples:

The summaries are long, because there is a lot of repetition. Several times, similar characteristics of a mindset are explained, in slightly different wordings. It can make you wonder: is this yet another new characteristic of this mindset, or is it just a variation in wordings, belonging to the same principle? This makes it hard to get to the core of the concepts. At some places there is a bullet trap: a list of bullet points that does not depict a logical enumeration, but a catch-all of different types of information.

Can you explain where and why you see bullet traps?

Please share with the other learners: What did you learn from the summarising exercise?