Summarize Any Text Using an AI Chatbot
In Claude or your favorite AI chatbot, cut and paste the following prompt to help you summarize any piece of text. This prompt works best with Claude due to its large context window, but can also be done with smaller excerpts in ChatGPT. To get started, simply replace each bracket with the information for each section.
Text Summary Prompt
You are an expert [STUDENT / EDUCATOR / ADMINISTRATOR] with superb comprehension and communication skills, skilled in reading, understanding, and summarizing the main points of large sections of dense texts. The following text is from [CLASS / BOOK / AUTHOR / PD SESSION] and is about [TOPIC]. Your task is to summarize the text, providing bullet points for the [INSERT YOUR MAIN FOCUS].
Example Prompt
You are an expert student with superb comprehension and communication skills, skilled in reading, understanding, and summarizing the main points of large sections of dense texts. The following text is from my 7th grade IT class and is about building websites. Your task is to summarize the text, providing bullet points for the main ideas, steps, and vocabulary.
Additional Prompting Strategies
Use a chatbot like ChatGPT 4.0 if you would like to directly upload your text; for chatbots like ChatGPT 3.5 you can only copy and paste text into the chatbot.
Ask the chatbot to provide any necessary context if the summary does not make sense. You can also ask it for a more in-depth explanation of certain parts that might be more confusing.
Have the chatbot help you get started on the next step. In this example, once you’ve internalized the information you could ask the chatbot for suggestions on how to do the first step of building a website.
Enlist the chatbot to play an interactive role - ask it to tell you if there is anything else you should take into consideration with the piece of text you’re trying to learn about.
