Article: You should read it without making any kind of marks. Instead, focus on really understanding what the author is trying to say. This might mean that you need to read one sentence or paragraph more than once. You might also want to reread the whole piece. That's fine. This will help you start to put the piece's arguments in your own words. You can also ask yourself what point or points or themes come up throughout the entire piece. The title can also give you a tip as to the main point of the piece. The author might also state their thesis more plainly by saying something like "my argument is...." or I believe... In a fiction piece, the author will more likely emphasize themes. So if you notice that love - discussions or descriptions of it, for example - come up a lot, one of the main points of the piece is probably love. Once you know for sure what the author's main point is, reread the piece, looking for the ways they support that point. You can find supporting material by looking for details that refer to the title, surprises in the argument or plot, repetition, or a lot of attention to details such as descriptions of characters (if any). Write down each time something like this occurs. To put something in your own words, write it down as if you were explaining or describing it to a friend. In that case, you wouldn't just read what the author wrote. Do the same when you're writing down the major points in your own words. You only need to know what they're arguing. So, for example, say the author's main argument is: "The U.S. Civil Rights Movement actually began in the 1950s." They might say that black women's boycott of mass transit is an example of this. You only need to note the black women's boycott, not the examples of that boycott that the author uses. For fiction pieces, this means avoiding rewriting every single thing that happens in the piece. Focus instead on the major plot points and the main motivator for those points. Don't include everything that happens to the character along the way.
What is a summary of what this article is about?
Read the piece thoroughly. Write down what you think the main point of the piece is. Reread the piece, taking notes on the major points of it. Don't focus on the evidence that the author uses to support those points.