How to define the main idea

The definition of the main idea is one of the basic tasks when working with text. If you were able to identify the main idea correctly, it means that you understand the text. The main idea can be defined "by intuition", a certain sixth sense, which not all people have. But you can greatly facilitate your work.

Instruction manual

one

Divide the text into semantic parts. They will not always correspond to the division of the text into paragraphs. Each semantic part should tell about its own. Make sure that they are not particularly large, but it also makes no sense to divide the text into lines, then you only spend as much time with the main idea as it would take you to analyze the whole text.

2

Now in each semantic part you need to find some key sentence. This sentence, which in the most concentrated form conveys the content of the text. Most often, such sentences are at the beginning of the semantic part or at the end - these are the places that are most remembered by the reader. But in particularly difficult texts, difficult to understand, key sentences can be in the middle of the part.

3

The next step is to find something in common in all the key sentences that you have found and written out. By the way, this is a thesis outline of the text, which can help you when retelling. Combine mentally all these sentences into a single text, and already in this text find the most important key sentence, which most fully displays the meaning of the text. This proposal can then be modified, to develop the idea that is expressed in it and go to a complete analysis of the text.

4

Even though you can rationalize your work and go the way described above, you still have to show creativity. In addition, you must also have some percentage of the “sixth sense” that many people manage, if only in order to find the key sentence in the semantic part. Therefore, train, think what the author wanted to say. You can’t catch a fish from a pond without labor.