The following presentation offers advice about distinguishing major ideas in a text from minor ones.  When you’re asked to write a summary of something you read, you’ll want to focus only on the major ideas, since minor ideas aren’t generally included in summaries.

http://www.slideshare.net/NicholeKeith/major-and-minor-details

On slide 6, can you identify which are the major ideas of the paragraph, and which are the minor ones?