Summarizing is a useful skill to have. It involves presenting key points extracted from large information, concisely and coherently. This is something that students, teachers, researchers, and even professionals frequently have to take on at work.
However, summarization can be a challenging task. This is because there are multiple approaches to summarization and users may get confused: Abstractive and Extractive summarization.
This article explains how to write good summaries using both abstract and extractive ways. Our goal is to help you improve your summarizing skills so that you are able to convey key concepts effectively. Before we get into the steps, let us define abstract and extractive summaries.
What is Abstractive and Extractive Summarization?
Abstractive and extractive summarization are the types of text summarization.
The abstract summary is the process of summarizing and conveying the important points or thoughts of a certain piece of information, article, or blog post in your own words. Extracted summaries, on the other hand, take the important concepts or points of the original content and convert them into a summary.
So, now that you have understood both abstractive and extractive summaries. Let us move toward the main topic.
How to Write Abstractive Summaries
Below, we have discussed a few simple steps that will help you in writing effective abstract summaries.
1. Understand Source Text and Key Points
Before we begin summarizing, we must first understand the source text and its primary ideas. To gain better comprehension, read the original text at least three times. This will assist you in understanding the writer’s intent and purpose.
Understanding the key points can also help you know what to include in your summary. You will be able to produce abstract, clear, and brief summaries if you follow this step correctly.
2. Extract The Main Points
You should write down the main points once you have understood both the original text and the main idea. Doing it is crucial so, so you do not forget when you are summarizing the text.
The quality of a summary paragraph suffers when essential details are left out. Furthermore, it raises the risk of the content being summarized, compromising its original meaning.
Therefore, it is a better option to write each of the vital concepts individually.
3. Write The Summary in Your Words
This is a critical stage. Once you have pinned down the core ideas and arguments, you should begin summarizing the original content in your own words. Users must compose abstracts using novel vocabulary (words and phrases) that may not exist in the original text, as stated in the abstract definition.
To do so, replace the original text’s words with their appropriate synonyms. If you have a large vocabulary in your memory, you can efficiently create abstract summaries by incorporating relevant synonyms. If you do not have creative and innovative words and phrases in your vocabulary, seek up appropriate synonyms in a dictionary or thesaurus.
Whether you use your vocabulary to come up with them or look into an online dictionary, it’s always valuable to utilize new words and phrases while writing abstract summaries.
4. Ensure The Summary Captures the Essence of The Original Text
Finally, carefully review the summarized text to ensure that it delivers the same meaning as the original text. This step is critical for keeping the summary consistent and coherent.
How to Extractive Summaries
Now that you have understood how to write an abstract summary in a few simple steps. It is time to look at how you can write an extractive summary.
1. Understand Source Text and Extract Main Points
This heading may be recognizable to you because it represents the first phase in the extractive summarization process. It is crucial to read the source to get the main ideas of it before crafting a summary or an excerpt. Repeat the process, reading the content several times and noting the primary concepts on which the extractive summary will be based.
2. Write A Summary Using the Best Sentences from The Source
This phrase distinguishes between an extractive summary and an abstract summary. You must select and extract important ideas and points from the source text to generate an excerpt or extractive summary. Please take note that you should use no new words or phrases while writing an excerpt summary.
Writers often struggle with this phase, especially when summarizing difficult topics. Because you have to select and use the most important sentences and phrases without jeopardizing the flow or original meaning.
If you are also facing this problem, do not worry. There is a solution. You can get help from a text summarizer that quickly and accurately summarizes long paragraphs of text into shorter paragraphs using the best sentences from the original source. Such a tool is fueled by Artificial Intelligence and that is why it quickly understands the context. It can extract power sentences from the given text to generate a robust extractive summary in just seconds.
3. Make Sure the Summary Is Delivering the Same Meaning as The Original One
Finally, after writing the summary using the best sentences/points from the original text, you then need to ensure that it is delivering the exact meaning or not.
Final Thoughts
Writing abstract and extractive summaries might be difficult. You may, however, master the art of summarizing with the right technique. It is critical that you understand the difference between a summary and an extracted summary. You can efficiently construct a solid and concise summary of long texts by following the methods outlined above. Remember that practice is essential for honing your summarizing abilities. Keep practicing!