21 February 2008, London
25 September 2008, London
Information overload affects everyone, and there is an urgent need for people who can extract the key facts and opinions from documents rapidly and reproduce them accurately. Within the library and information profession, abstracting and summarising techniques are essential for current awareness services, enquiry answering and desk research, as well as for preparing briefings and writing reports.
Benefits of attending
This one-day course reassures participants that abstracting is a learnable skill, and shows how using ordinary reading and writing skills more efficiently can improve abstracting techniques.
By the end of the event participants will have:
- learned how to scan documents rapidly and identify their key content
- developed strategies for summarising or describing that content
- identified the different abstract types and decided when to use which kind
- experienced the different techniques needed to scan and summarise news stories, articles, reports, textbooks and informal documents
- practised writing to a house style, to word length and to deadline
Who should attend?
Information staff who need to summarise documents regularly for current awareness or database creation. Enquiry staff who produce written answers to enquiries or carry out extended desk research. Managers who need to assimilate documents rapidly and review them in reports.
Programme
| Registration & coffee |
09.15 |
| Start |
09.45 |
| Lunch |
13.15 |
| Close |
16.30 |
- Abstracting is a learnable skill
Practical: Abstracting in daily life
- Reading strategically
Practical: Making sense of a technical article
- What should our abstracts achieve?
Abstract form and content
- What to include – what to leave out
Practical: Shortening a news story
- Gathering material for our abstract – using signposting
Practical: Summarising a report
- Scanning documents that have little signposting – rapid reading techniques
Practical: Finding key information in seconds
Practical: Describing a book’s content
Tackling documents that offer few clues – further rapid reading ideas
Practical: Exhuming bad news
- Making our abstracts stylish
Practical: Writing an abstract that is accurate, comprehensive, stylish and fast
Places are limited to: 12
Course leader: Tim Buckley Owen
Fees:
CILIP personal members: £275 plus VAT £323.13
CILIP organisation members: £330 plus VAT £387.75
Non members: £385 plus VAT £452.38
Updated: 16 July 2008