What a summary is for
A summary is a shorter version of a text that states its main points in your own words. It differs from notes, which are for your private use and can be messy, and from a critique, which gives your opinion. A summary is meant to be understandable to someone who has not read the original, and it should be fair to what the author actually said.
Writing summaries serves two purposes. In coursework, they are a common task in themselves. For learning, the act of condensing makes you decide what matters, which requires understanding the text. Evidence on summarizing as a study technique is mixed: it appears to help when learners are trained to do it well, and less when summaries are copied or too detailed. The steps below aim at the better form.
Step 1: Read for the whole
Read the text once to understand it, without stopping to write. For a long text, the survey step in the SQ3R method (title, headings, first and last paragraphs) gives you a map. For a quick look at structure, skimming and scanning can help. If part of the text is hard, note it and continue, then reread.
Step 2: Identify the main idea and key supports
Ask yourself:
- What is the author’s central claim or purpose?
- What are the three to five main points supporting it?
- What conclusion do they reach?
In many articles, the main idea appears near the start or end, often in an introduction or conclusion. In a textbook chapter it may be the heading plus the first sentence of each section. Marking the text lightly with text annotation, such as a star beside main points and a bracket around examples, helps you find these quickly on a second pass.
Separate main points from supporting detail. Examples, statistics, quotations and side stories generally belong in the original, not the summary, unless one is essential to the point.
Step 3: Put the text away and write from memory
This is the step that most improves quality. Close the book or hide the screen and write the main points in your own words. If you write with the text open, it is easy to follow its sentences too closely, which can slip into near-copying. Writing from memory also doubles as retrieval practice, and gaps in your recall show where you need to look again.
Then look back and fill the gaps.
Step 4: Use your own words
Paraphrase by changing both vocabulary and sentence structure, not only swapping a few words. If a technical term has no easy replacement, such as a name or a defined concept, keep it. Do not insert your opinion, and do not add information from elsewhere.
Step 5: Organize and condense
Order your points as the author did, unless a different order is clearer. A typical summary has:
- An opening sentence naming the source and the central idea, for example “The article argues that …”
- A few sentences covering the main supports in order.
- The conclusion or implication, if the author draws one.
Use plain language and short sentences. Cut repeated points, background that the reader does not need and any evidence detail not required to understand the claim.
How long should it be?
There is no fixed rule. Instructors often ask for a set number of words, and it is best to follow that. When you are free to choose, a rough guide that many writers use is somewhere between a tenth and a quarter of the original length for a short article, with a shorter fraction for a long chapter. A one-sentence summary of a paragraph and a one-paragraph summary of a short article are reasonable targets. Treat these as starting points and adjust to the purpose.
A short example
Here is a hypothetical passage and summary.
Original (invented for illustration): “Many schools have introduced homework clubs. Staff report that attendance is higher in fall than spring. Clubs run for an hour after school on three days a week. Organizers say the main benefit is a quiet space with adult help, though they have not measured results.”
Weak summary: “Many schools have introduced homework clubs and staff report higher attendance in fall than spring.”
This copies details and misses the point. A better summary: “Homework clubs give pupils a quiet place and adult help after school, but organizers have not measured whether they improve results.”
The second version captures the purpose and the caveat, and drops the timing details. Counting words, the original has 46 words and the better summary has 21, roughly half; in real texts you would usually cut much more.
Step 6: Check against the original
Reread the text and your summary. Ask:
- Are all main points present?
- Is anything I wrote not in the text?
- Does the summary reflect the author’s emphasis, or my own?
- Is any sentence copied or too close?
- Could a reader who has not read the original follow it?
Reduce further if needed, and fix errors. This check is also a chance to practice metacognition skills, noticing whether you really understood the text.
Common mistakes
- Summarizing paragraph by paragraph so the summary is nearly as long as the original.
- Including your opinion or evaluation.
- Making it a list of topics (“The article discusses cost, access and quality”) instead of what it says about them.