How do I find the main idea in a paragraph?

Sometimes the main idea will be stated twice—in the first sentence and the last sentence—but be phrased slightly differently.

Leave your opinion out of it

If you are an active reader, you react to an article by making connections, conclusions, and criticisms of the author's reasoning. That's great! But a summary is not the time to share all those great thoughts you had. When you are writing a summary, make sure that you only include ideas that the author mentioned in the article. For example, if I read about how stores charge more for bottled water right before a big storm, I may have reactions like "That should be illegal," or, "That's why you should stock up on supplies when a storm isn't expected." If the author doesn't mention these points, however, I shouldn't include them in my summary paragraph.

How to find an implied main idea and write it

Try some of the tips below.

Just the facts (WWWWWH)

This acronym stands for who, what, when, where, why, and how. Use this technique when a paragraph is basically just describing an event that happened. Highlight the sections of the text that answer these questions, or write the questions on a piece of paper and take notes. You may not be able to answer all the questions—that’s fine.

• What happened: first Black man was signed to baseball’s Major Leagues

• Who was involved: Satchel Paige, Brooklyn Dodgers president Branch Rickey, Jackie Robinson

• When: October 1945

• Where: California, Brooklyn, America

• Why: ?

• How: ?

Then pick the important info and combine it into one sentence. You may decide that some of the information you wrote down is a detail, or obvious, and doesn’t need to be stated in your main idea.

In October 1945, Jackie Robinson became the first Black man in American baseball to be signed to the Major Leagues.

Cross out details

The second strategy for finding the main idea is crossing things out. Cross out sentences and phrases that contain details until only the main idea is left.

When you’re done, you will have a few phrases left.

Replace examples with more general words

When I tried to make the above phrases into one sentence, I came up with

Bacteria living in the human colon break down carbohydrates, produce enzymes that target specific foods, and extract energy from those foods.

I think this sentence is too detailed. Instead of writing a list of each thing the colon bacteria do, I want to find a phrase that could summarize it. When I re-read the sentence, I realize that all three things colon bacteria do help us to digest food. So I will change my sentence to

The bacteria living in the colon help humans digest food.

Divide and conquer

You may find that a paragraph has multiple important ideas, but they’re all expressed using a bunch of details and examples. It’s hard to know what to cross out and what to leave.

In that case, try dividing the paragraph into sections. Each section will be made up of sentences that seem related.

Then, try to find the main idea for each section, and write it down. If you decide that a section is really just made up of interesting details that don't add to the main idea at all, you don't need to summarize it.

Combine sentences

You can see above that I’ve gotten rid of the details, but I’m still stuck with three sentences instead of one. There’s a lot you can do to connect multiple ideas into one longer sentence. Here are some examples.

• Before:

• Parents use negative sanctions.

• “Negative sanctions” means punishments.

• Parents use negative sanctions to discourage rude behavior.

• After:

• Parents use negative sanctions, or punishments, to discourage rude behavior.

• Before:

• The bacteria living in the colon performs a lot of useful tasks that keeps humans healthy.

• An imbalance in our gut bacteria can be a factor in diseases.

• Outside of the gut, colon bacteria can cause health problems.

• After:

• The bacteria living in the colon keeps humans healthy, but in the wrong place or wrong amount, it can cause disease.

Check your work

Finding the main idea is like packing a suitcase for a trip. You don’t want to pack too much, too little, or the wrong stuff. No matter which of the three strategies you used, you should go back afterwards, re-read the paragraph, and compare it to what you’ve written. Did you do a good job packing? Did you capture all the important ideas, but leave behind the extra details?

When I looked back at my first summary, I felt like it was missing some important things, so I added two questions. Then I used the answers to rewrite my main idea.

• Why it’s important: Would topple baseball’s color bar

• Why it was surprising: Satchel Paige had been expecting for two decades that he would be the one to topple baseball’s color bar

In October 1945, Jackie Robinson became the first Black man in American baseball to be signed to the Major Leagues, toppling the color bar and surprising Satchel Paige.

There are many right answers

Would you have written the main idea differently than I did? That's okay! Two different people may have different preferences for including more or less detail in their main ideas, but that doesn't mean that one of them is wrong. The more complex the paragraph, the wider the variety of answers will be.