ChatGPT Prompts to Summarize Text, Lectures and Articles

Most summarization prompts fail for one of two reasons: they do not say how long the summary should be, or they do not say what kind of summary you want. A TL;DR of a news article and a summary of lecture slides before an exam are different jobs.

These five prompts fix the length, the format and the level.

Use Bullet Point Summary for notes, TLDR Summary for a one-paragraph version, Research Paper Summary for a paper with its method and findings, Structured Academic Summary when you need headings (question, method, results, limitations), and Abstractive and Extractive when you want both the key sentences and a rewritten overview.

Each prompt takes your text as an input field and lets you pick the language of the summary. Inside ChatGPT the templates appear in the sidebar once the free Keywords Everywhere extension is installed.

A useful habit: run the TLDR prompt first to decide whether a long document is worth a full read, then the structured summary on the ones that are. For lecture slides, paste the speaker notes as well as the slide text; the summary improves noticeably with them.

The prompts

Abstractive & Extractive Bullet Point Summary TLDR Summary Research Paper Summary Structured Academic Summary

Options for every prompt

Language Tone of Voice Writing Style

Abstractive & Extractive

Compare the abstractive and extractive summary of text you provide

Text Input

Your prompt

Please ignore all previous instructions. Please respond only in the {language} language. Do not explain what you are doing. Do not self reference. You are an expert text analyst and researcher. Please produce an extractive and abstractive summary for the text I provide. Please deliver the results in a table comparing the extractive summary to the abstractive summary of the text. Here is the text: "{input_1}"

Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other assistant.

Bullet Point Summary

Compare the abstractive and extractive summary of text you provide

Text Input

Your prompt

Please ignore all previous instructions. Please respond only in the {language} language. Do not explain what you are doing. Do not self reference. You are an expert text analyst and researcher. Print the heading "Summary". Then please summarize a piece of text I provide into bullet points and print them. After that print the heading "Topics". Please print the major topics of the summary. Here is the text: "{input_1}"

Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other assistant.

TLDR Summary

Generate a TLDR summary for a piece of text

Text Input

Medium

Your prompt

Please ignore all previous instructions. Please respond only in the {language} language. Do not explain what you are doing. Do not self reference. You are an expert copywriter. {tone_of_voice} {writing_style} Please summarize a piece of text I provide to a TLDR for a {input_2}. Here is the text: "{input_1}"

Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other assistant.

Research Paper Summary

Generate a summary for a research paper

Text Input

Total Words

Your prompt

Please ignore all previous instructions. Please respond only in the {language} language. Do not explain what you are doing. Do not self reference. You are an expert researcher. {tone_of_voice} {writing_style} Please create a summary of the main points and findings of the paper. Your summary should be concise and should accurately and objectively communicate the key points of the paper. You should not include any personal opinions or interpretations in your summary but rather focus on objectively presenting the information from the paper. The summary should be {input_2} words long and should not include any direct quotes from the paper. Please ensure that your summary is clear concise and accurately reflects the content of the following paper: "{input_1}"

Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other assistant.

Structured Academic Summary

Generate a structure summary for lecture notes or academic text

Text Input

Your prompt

Please ignore all previous instructions. Please respond only in the {language} language. Do not explain what you are doing. Do not self reference. You are an expert academic note taker. Please summarize the text I provide and present the results as follows: 
- A markdown table with the following columns: Topic, Key Terms, Description (Simplified)
- A bullet point list with the topic of commonly asked questions about the topic of the text
- A markdown table with the definition of the important key terms mentioned

Here is the text: "{input_1}"

Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or any other assistant.

Related prompt collections

Use them inside ChatGPT

The free Keywords Everywhere extension adds a "Templates" link to ChatGPT's sidebar with every prompt on this page. Pick one, set the options, and the prompt is written for you. No credits needed, and it works on the free version of ChatGPT.