A summary is what? The meaning of the word "summary"

The semantics of words is one of the most amazing parts of the Russian language. Sometimes the meaning of a word that seems familiar is completely opposite, or its original meaning is absolutely antonymous to today's. Yes, vocabulary needs to be expanded, but you can not do it without reliance on its meaning. So, what does "summary" mean and in what context can you use this word?

Dictionary of Ozhegov

Let's start with the canonical vocabulary - the dictionary of Ozhegov. On it, a summary is a document that contains a set of data. The same word can be interpreted as information summarizing these very data. This noun is formed from the verb "reduce" by adding a zero suffix.

The same word is used in conjunction with the verbs "compose" (compile a summary) and "accept" (take a summary). If this summary is operational, it reports the data received by a specific structure (most often by the police or military) about the situation at the current time. But much more often in everyday life there is a combination of "weather report"

Technical interpretation

According to another dictionary, a summary is a statistical systematization, calculation and verification of statistical data obtained as a result of observations. You can name any statistical grouping of data.

This term is much more technically scientific, but at the same time it is more precise than Ozhegov's definition, it reflects the hidden meaning of the word. Any summary should and is based solely on the validated data, moreover, these data must be processed and collected together. Only in this case they can claim the title of summary.

In word combinations

Now consider the meaning of the word "summary" in specific phrases. For example, in the Counter-Intelligence Dictionary the term "external surveillance report" is encountered. This combination means an operational document (that is, information provided by some departmental structures), in which chronological order gives data on external observation at a particular time period. This term more fully reveals some of the properties that a summary should have: objectivity (that is, no comments or selective recording, only the most impartial reflection of what is happening) and completeness (the information obtained from the record should not need to add any data, everything should be Clearly from the available material). Typically, such a document is accompanied by the addition of a sheet, which indicates all the most important information: the number of recorded cars, the text of conversations and so on. In addition, the operational survey still provides information about who was doing shadowing, 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 in creating the forecast, not one station is involved, and not even two. In order to predict weather behavior, for example in Moscow, data are used from London, Ankara, Reykjavik and other cities scattered all over the world - the influence of atmospheric fronts from other regions on 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 this basis this summary appears, which is then announced on the radio, from TV screens and printed in newspapers.

Music summary

By the way, in music, the term "summary" has a slightly different meaning. Here, it rather acts as a reduction of the word "reduction". In the process of this action, different tracks of sound recording are combined into one, forming a musical track familiar to us. The person involved in this should ensure that one track does not block the other, so that there is no discord 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 compiling complex reports about anything, but in no case can it be considered less important.

How to compile a report

We have already mentioned that a summary is a document that contains generalized information. How do modern people basically make such reports? That's right, with Excel!

We have a table containing some data. For example, the sale of some goods for several months. Having organized this table, we place the cursor in the first cell of the first column and choose from the "Insert - Pivot Table". The drop-down menu will suggest where to put this new table - on the same sheet or on the 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 will be able to achieve grouping of data by one or another parameter.

For example, if we drag "Goods" in the "Line Name" field, and "Sales" in the "Values", the summary table will reflect the amount earned on the sale of a particular product. That is, the "Line Name" displays what exactly we will analyze, and "Values" - by what parameter this will occur.

We generalize

So, a summary is the grouping together of any information, regardless of the nature of its origin. You can organize the bulletin in the form of a table, which is the most traditional, and in the form of diagrams and graphs, which is more obvious - the choice of how this report is presented depends entirely on who needs this grouping of data. Today, there are a huge number of special programs that themselves perform all the analysis and provide a ready report on it, so the human factor in the compilation of reports can be minimized. These generalizations are necessary for us not only in business life, but also in home issues, so do not underestimate the importance of reports and, what is most important, the importance of the meaning of this word, without knowing which to correctly use it in the context will not work.