英文要約について

　「次の英語を要約せよ」とあったのですが、英文要約は初めてで、どこが重要なのか分からなく、要約できなくて困っています。
　次の文章の要約、もしくはそのヒントとなることを教えていただけると幸いです。
（次の文章は、過去のどこかの国公立大学の二次試験だったそうです。）

　次の英文の内容を130～150字程度の日本語に要約せよ。ただし、句読点文字数に含める。

Those who have studied the human brain have long known that it has two hemispheres, and that each performance specific functions.
The right side of the brain is thought to govern the motor functions of the left side of the body. It is also the side that performance "nonrational" mental functions, such as intuition, pattern recognition, nonverbal communication, playfulness, abstraction, and the like.
The left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body, and the "rational" functions of logic, calculation, verbal articulation, structured observation, analysis, and so forth.
Recent evidence that expands our knowledge of these differences has become from work with brain-impaired patients. In sum, the evidence suggests that people who have had damage to the left side of the brain suffer losses of speech, writing ability, and the ability to performance logical calculation. They continue, however, to function normally in therms of "nonrational" activities. The opposite is also found to be true: damage to the right side of the brain results in loss of the spatial sense, of nonverbal skills, of such qualities as humor, color sensitivity, and intuition.
This evidence has led to speculation that differences in hemisphere dominance produce differences in thinking and in the approach to problems. Although they are still highly speculative, these notions do provide support for the existence of preferences in styles of thinking.
If it were found that the anatomy and physiology of the brain does indeed govern the styles of thinking that people have developed, would that mean that nothing could be done to alter them? It is of course a possibility, one that would explain the persistence of particular styles of thinking throughout life. But we doubt that the governance of the physical brain is at all absolute.
There is entirely too much evidence in favor of the flexibility of the human mind. We suspect that the brain is capable of altering its own capabilities. There are too many people we have seen who have learned to think out of the "other side" of their brains.

　文字数の関係で、訳まで入れることができませんでした。

　どうか、英文要約の第一歩の手助けを宜しくお願いします

No.1 ベストアンサー 回答者： skydaddy 回答日時： 2009/11/15 11:01

とりあえず、全文和訳されれば要約はできるのでは？と思いますが・・・ただ、この英文は日本人的書き方になっています。

なんとなく元は日本語文でそれを英訳されているような・・・

大まかな内容は、当初人の脳の右脳と左脳の役割が述べられ、片方の法に障害があるとその影響からそれらの役割がある証拠として示されています。しかしながら、人の柔軟性から機械的に左右の脳の役割を分けて考えるのは適切ではないのでは？ケースによっては補完ができるのではということが最後にあります。

科学的なテーマに対し、文章全体が散文調で結論（役割補完の可能性）へのバックグランドがありません。したがって要約するとしても、内容をまとめると言うよりは全体の文章を縮めることに注目されればやりやすいと思います。