Presentation of chapter

The transition to university forces students to take a “qualitative leap” regarding the production of written work. This sudden change is often a source of demotivation, stress or failure.

The modules in this chapter offer some simple methods and recommendations to help you deal with the most common text formats: the report, the summary and the synthesis. They will also allow you to progressively improve your skills by becoming aware of the main issues evoked in these texts.

Objectives of this chapter

  • Write a methodical and comprehensive reading that highlights the meaning of the text
  • Produce a circumstantial text according to an event or situation
  • Make a representative summary of a content or a theme
  • Write a synthesis from a document of scientific or technical value
  • Write a synthesis from a corpus of texts

Content of this chapter

Part A : Factual writing

➥ Module 1 : Practising critical reading
➥ Module 2 : Producing a report
➥ Module 3 : Writing a summary

Partie B : The synthesis

➥ Module 4 : Writing the synthesis of a document
➥ Module 5 : Writing the synthesis of several documents