Written English
The ability to identify key facts in a piece of work is an important skill for an interpreter. Working with the written word this exercise will help you to hone this skill.
- Find a factual article in a magazine or quality newspaper that is at least 750 words in length.
- Summarise the article including all the important details, creating a piece that is no more than 300 words in length.
- Ask someone else to read both the article and your summary and to comment on whether or not you have included all the information.
A variation on this theme is as follows:
- Find an article in a quality newspaper that also appears in a tabloid newspaper.
- Without reading the tabloid article, read and summarise the article in the quality newspaper.
- Compare your summary with the tabloid article. Did you include the same information?
- Compare the tabloid article with the first article. How is the information conveyed in different ways for different audiences? What is the difference in the language used?