Discover how to identify MAIN and SECONDARY ideas in a text

When writing well, it is necessary to be clear about the main ideas of it in order to express them correctly. We must not forget that the objective of any writing or speech is to be understood by the receiver, for this reason in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we want to show you how to identify main and supporting ideas in a text. In this way, you will be able to carry out a text comment in an academic way and get a good grade in your homework or in your exam. Take note of our advice!

Before discovering how to identify main and secondary ideas in a text, it is important that we understand both concepts well. A text is made up of different messages coded hierarchically with the objective that the information they transmit is understood. These messages are the ideas that can be divided into major and minor. The use of them in a text indicates that a language is mastered correctly and that the communication between sender and receiver will be effective.

First of all, in order to know how to identify the main and secondary ideas, we must know what each of them is. The

In any text there must be a main idea that will back it up since without it, a compendium of sentences without meaning or coherence would be formed. This can appear explicitly or tacitly, in the chaos of the latter, the author seeks the goal of the issuer being the one to decipher it after reading and understanding the text. Therefore, the main idea will be the one that contributes logic to the text and allows the construction of its structure forming the base that will be sustained with secondary or derived ideas.

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Secondary ideas, meanwhile, are responsible for support the main idea and emanate directly from it. Without the main idea the secondary ones cannot exist, in the same way that these explain the rationale behind the base of the text.

Through secondary ideas, the author can reach the issuer in a clearer way, improving communication, since in many cases they serve to amplify the main idea. They provide different views and perspectives to enhance the recipient's understanding.

Therefore, despite their importance, they only make sense if the main idea is well defined, in Otherwise, they will not contribute anything to the text proposed by the author and will make it difficult to understand the receiver.

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Therefore, and taking into account the above, we are going to show what are the characteristics that you should look at in order to know how to identify main ideas and secondary of a text.

Characteristics of the main ideas

• They are the basis of the text, around them the rest of the ideas arise.
• They can appear tacitly in the text, that is, they should not appear explicitly for the reader to find them. Although they do not appear clearly, it is known that it exists and the idea is maintained throughout the text.
• Recognizing them is easy since If these are eliminated from the text, it loses all its meaning and secondary ideas have no sustenance on which to lean. This makes them independent from the rest, although they rely on secondary schools to increase their level of understanding.

Characteristics of secondary ideas

• Forever are born from the main idea and they connect with her making the message make sense and their communication and understanding are more effective.
• They serve to explain the main idea. That is, secondary ideas express the properties of the main idea to achieve a greater understanding of the receiver of the text.
• Secondary ideas they can be as many as the writer wants since they are derived from the main theme and serve to enrich it. In this way it is possible to broaden the understanding of the theme or main idea.
• They can't go alone, since they would lose all their meaning.

This will be very helpful in making a literary text commentary or of any other gender.

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So that you can better understand the concept and identify the main and secondary ideas, we propose the following text:

Everyone is born with a special talent and Eliza Sommers discovered early that she had two: a good nose and a good memory. The first served to earn a living from her and the second to remember her, if not precisely, at least with the poetic vagueness of an astrologer. What she forgets is as if it never happened, but the real or illusory memories of her were many and it was like living twice. She used to tell her faithful friend, the sage Tao Chi’en, that her memory was like the belly of the ship where she was she knew, vast and gloomy, full of boxes, barrels and sacks where the events of all her existence. She awake it was not easy to find something in that great disorder, but she could always do it asleep, just as she taught her Mama Fresia in the sweet nights of her childhood, when the contours of reality were just a fine line of ink pale. He entered the place of dreams by a road many times traveled and returned with great precautions not to shatter the faint visions against the harsh light of consciousness. She relied on that resource as others do in numbers and so refined the art of remembering that she could see Miss Rose bent over the Marseille soap box that was her first crib. […]

It is an excerpt from Isabel Allende's book, Daughter of fortune. In it we are introduced to Eliza Sommers, the protagonist of the story. If we break down the text we can clearly find what it is The main idea from this excerpt: Eliza has a prodigious memory.

The secondary ideas For its part, the rest are those that the author uses to convey to the reader that this is indeed the case, for example:

[…] her memory was like the belly of the ship where they met, vast and dark, full of boxes, barrels and sacks where the events of their entire existence accumulated. [..]

[…]She relied on that resource as others do in numbers and so refined the art of remembering that she could see Miss Rose bent over the Marseille soap box that was her first crib. […]

These two secondary ideas serve us to reinforce the main idea of ​​the text. If we continued with the original text, we would find more secondary ideas that would support the main one.

If you want to read more articles similar to How to identify main and secondary ideas in a text, we recommend that you enter our category of Reading.

The importance of reading ideas. (S. F.). (n / a): Study techniques.

Molina, A. (2010) How to interpret paragraphs and get main ideas for reading comprehension.