The semantics of words is one of the most amazing parts of the Russian language. Sometimes the meaning of a seemingly familiar word turns out to be completely opposite, or its original meaning is absolutely antonymic for today. Yes, the vocabulary needs to be expanded, but you cannot do this without relying on its meaning. So, what does “summary” mean and in what context can this word be used?
Ozhegov's Dictionary
We begin the definition with a canonical dictionary - Ozhegov's dictionary. A summary of it is a document that contains a summary of any data. The same word can be interpreted as information summarizing these same data. This noun is formed from the verb "reduce" by adding the zero suffix.
The word is used in combination with the verbs “compose” (compile a summary) and “accept” (accept a summary). If this report is operational, it reports the data received by a certain structure (most often by the police or the military) about the situation at the current time. But much more common in everyday life is the combination of "weather reports"
Technical Interpretation
In another dictionary, a summary is a statistical systematization, calculation and verification of statistics obtained from observations. A summary is any statistical grouping of data.
This term is much more technical and scientific, but at the same time it is more accurate than Ozhegov’s definition, reflects the hidden meaning of the word. Any summary should and is based solely on verified data, moreover, this data should be processed and collected together. Only in this case can they claim the title of bulletin.
In phrases
Now consider the meaning of the word “summary” in specific phrases. For example, in the Counterintelligence Dictionary, the term “surveillance report” is used. This combination means an operational document (that is, information provided by some departmental structures), where, in chronological order, data are given on external monitoring in a specific period of time. This term more fully reveals some of the properties that the summary should have: objectivity (that is, no comments or selective recording, only the most impartial reflection of what is happening) and completeness (information obtained from the recording should not need to add any data, everything should be clear from available material). Usually, such a document is accompanied by the addition of a sheet where all the most important information is indicated: license plate numbers of the cars, text of conversations and so on. In addition, the operational shooting still provides information about exactly who was involved in surveillance, in which case to use this person as a witness.
Weather summary
And if you touch the phrase “weather report”, how to understand what it means? We all perfectly understand that this is a banal weather forecast, but how is it compiled?
Few people know that far from one station, and not even two, is involved in creating the forecast. In order to predict the behavior of the weather, for example, in Moscow, data are used from London, Ankara, Reykjavik and other cities scattered around the world - the influence of atmospheric fronts from other regions on the weather in a particular place has long been known. The information recorded by a number of stations is collected in one database, analyzed, organized in a special way, and on the basis of this same summary appears, which is then announced on the radio, from TV screens and printed in newspapers.
Musical Summary
By the way, in music the term “summary” has a slightly different meaning. Here he, more likely, acts as an abbreviation of the word "mixing". In the process of this action, different tracks of sound are combined into one, forming the usual music track. A person doing this must ensure that one track does not overlap another, that there is no dissonance between the sound of some instruments, and so on - there are a lot of purely technical issues.
Perhaps this process does not require such intellectual efforts as the preparation of complex reports on something, but in no case should it be considered less important.
How to compile a summary
It has already been said above that a summary is a document that contains generalized information. How do modern people write these reports? Right, using Excel!
We have a table containing some data. For example, sales of some goods for several months. Having organized this table, we place the cursor in the first cell of the first column and select from "Insert - Pivot Table". A drop-down menu will suggest where exactly to place this new table - on the same sheet or on a new one. When the location is selected, the program will offer fields and areas that can be analyzed, and by placing them in the places you need, you can achieve grouping of data by one or another parameter.
For example, if we drag “Product” into the “String Name” field and “Sales” into “Values”, the summary table will reflect the amount earned from the sale of a particular product. That is, the “String Name” displays what we are going to analyze, and the “Values” - by what parameter this will happen.
Summarize
So, a summary is a grouping together of any information, regardless of the nature of its origin. A summary can be organized both in the form of a table, which is most traditional, and in the form of charts and graphs, which is more obvious, the choice of the way this report is presented depends entirely on who needs this data grouping. Today there are a huge number of special programs that themselves perform the entire analysis and provide a ready-made report on it, so the human factor in compiling reports can be minimized. We need these generalizations not only in business life, but also in domestic matters, so do not underestimate the importance of summaries and, most importantly, the importance of the meaning of this word, without knowing which it is impossible to correctly use it in context.