Ultimate ChatGPT Prompt for Summarizing

ChatGPT is an incredibly powerful AI assistant that can summarize long texts, research papers, articles, and more with just a simple prompt. As amazing as ChatGPT is, the quality of the summaries it produces depends largely on how well you frame your prompt.

Here are some tips on how to create effective summarization prompts for ChatGPT:

Be Specific About What You Want Summarized

Clearly specify the exact text or document you want ChatGPT to summarize. You can either paste the text directly into the chat or provide a link to the file. Make sure to explicitly state that you want a summary.

Good example: “Please summarize the key points from this research paper: [paste text or link]”

Set Length and Detail Expectations

Tell ChatGPT how long you want the summary to be or how much detail to include. For example:

“Summarize this 2000-word article in 250 words”
“Provide a detailed 5-paragraph summary of this report”

Define the Purpose and Audience

Providing context about why you need the summary and who it’s intended for can help ChatGPT hone in on the most relevant information.

Good example: “I need a 100-word summary to give readers a quick overview of this research paper before they decide whether to read the full text. Assume the audience has some background knowledge in the field.”

Give Formatting Guidelines

Instruct ChatGPT to format the summary appropriately, like using bullet points or headings to organize key takeaways.

Good example: “Present this summary in bullet points under three headings: Key Findings, Methodology, and Recommendations.”

Useful Summarization Prompts and Examples

Here are some handy prompts you can try out with ChatGPT:

TLDR

TLDR: [paste text or link to article/paper]

This prompt tells ChatGPT you want a concise “too long, didn’t read” style summary.

Executive Summary

Provide an executive summary of this report, covering the key findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The summary should be under 250 words. [paste text or link]

Perfect for distilling long business documents into actionable insights.

Literature Summary

Briefly summarize the plot of this novel in one paragraph, including the main characters, central conflict, and resolution. [paste text or link]

Helps digest novels, short stories, plays quickly.

Meeting Minutes Summary

Summarize the key discussion points and action items from these meeting minutes in bullet points. [paste text]

Great for extracting crucial information from long meetings.

Abstractive vs Extractive Summaries

You can also specify whether you want an abstractive or extractive summary:

Abstractive: Condenses and paraphrases important information from the text in own words.

Provide an abstractive summary of this research paper focusing on the key findings and conclusions. The summary should be under 150 words. [paste text or link]

Extractive: Creates summary by extracting and stitching together verbatim excerpts from the original text.

Create a 150-word extractive summary of this article by pulling key sentences and passages directly from the text. [paste text or link]

Advanced Summarization Prompts

As you get comfortable with basic summarization, try these advanced prompts to take it up a notch:

Conditional Summaries

Customize summaries by providing if-then conditions:

If this text discusses topic X, summarize it in 250 words focused on points A, B and C. If it does not discuss topic X, provide a 100-word overview. [paste text]

Multi-Document Summarization

Combine insights across multiple texts:

Compare and summarize these three research papers on the efficacy of vaccine Y, highlighting areas of agreement and disagreement in the findings. Keep the summary under 500 words. [paste or link to 3 texts]

Query-Based Summarization

Answer specific questions to create focused summaries:

What were the key strategies used? Summarize the approaches in bullet points under three headings: Pricing, Distribution, and Targeting. [paste case study text]

Summary Evaluation

Assess summary quality and provide feedback for improvement:

On a scale of 1-10, how well does this summary capture the key details from the original text? Provide 2-3 suggestions for improving the summary. [paste original text and summary]

Tips for Creating Better Summarization Prompts

Follow these tips when framing summarization prompts:

Be concise yet specific – Clearly state needs without excessive detail
Provide context – Explain purpose and audience
Set expectations – Define length, style, level of detail
Experiment and iterate – Try variations to improve quality

With practice, you’ll be able to craft prompts that produce high-quality, customized summaries from ChatGPT in seconds.