Page Summarizer for Students

If you need a free and effective page summarizer for academic purposes, search no further! With the tool on this page, you’ll quickly generate a summary for any study project.

✍️ How to Use This Page Summarizer?

Did you know that more than half of an average academic text consists of summaries of other research documents? Now think how much time you can save by automating this part.

This online tool is as simple as your calculator app. Just look at this action plan:

1. Paste the text for the one-page summary into the respective blank field.
2. Mind the length: it should not exceed 15,000 characters.
3. Indicate the number of sentences the result should contain.
4. Press the big button below and enjoy the result.

🤔 Why Is Summarizing Important in Academic Writing?

Summarizing serves many purposes. In academic writing, it can be used for the following:

• To provide background for a direct quotation;
• To add credibility to your report;
• To mention a text that inspired your ideas;
• To exemplify various opinions on the studied problem;
• To draw attention to a statement that your project supports or refutes;
• To distance yourself from the source and tell the reader that these are not your words and you may not share the author’s opinion.
• To deepen or broaden your strategic plan of research.

Summarizing vs. Paraphrasing vs. Quoting

Let’s now compare quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing in academic writing.

• Summarizing means transmitting the central ideas in your own words. The process involves only the essential information. Anything that can be left out should be ignored. That’s why a summary is noticeably shorter than the original (and paraphrasing or quotation). It takes a broader view of the original.
• Paraphrasing puts a small part of another writer’s text into your own words for further integration into your writing. It tends to be shorter than the source passage by taking a broader view.
• Quoting is identical to the original segment of a text. It matches the source word-for-word and is highlighted with quotation marks.

📄 Making a One-Page Summary: The 5 Ws Technique

The 5Ws technique is a popular information-gathering and problem-solving approach among journalists, crime investigators, and researchers. Its creation is attributed to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. In this work, the philosopher called the 5 Ws “the elements of circumstance” that constitute forensic speech.

In research writing, the technique helps to gather information on a subject matter. Many scientists won’t consider a paper complete before all the 5 Ws have been answered. After all, they bring an understanding of the full scope of the discussed topic. What stands behind the abbreviation?

• Who indicates the subject of the action.
• What stands for the object of the action.
• When specifies the time frame.
• Where means the described location.
• Why analyzes the motifs or reasons for the act or its consequences.

These question words create a framework for information that otherwise would be unmanageable. They are particularly helpful in transforming large texts, from a journal article to a novel, into a one-page summary.

🖋️ One-Page Summary Example

Below you’ll find a summary of Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes based on the 5 Ws technique. This book is a philosophical and political treatise on the government and its people.

In his Levithan, Thomas Hobbes defends monarchy as a style of ruling a country. In particular, he analyzes the nature of man, social contracts, religion, and ignorance or “the kingdom of darkness.” The book was published in 1651 and became the author’s most influential work. Hobbes drew inspiration from the disagreement between the Royalists and Parliamentarians in England during the English Civil Wars. The author stressed that a powerful governor was indispensable to protecting the population from themselves and outside peoples. For this purpose, he believed that monarchy was the best.

✅ Bonus: 6 Summarizing Tips

1. Don’t include the following information in your summary:
   • Descriptive language (adjectives, metaphors, comparisons, etc.);
   • Names and dates (unless the overall meaning would be incomplete without them);
   • Your assumptions or opinion;
   • Facts that interested you personally but are irrelevant to the general message.
2. Shorten the chunks of material you read before summarizing it. Do that depending on the difficulty of the text. For example, a scientific article would require you to read in one or two-paragraph-long chunks.
3. Use a highlighter. This simple trick will accelerate the writing considerably. Use one to three highlighted phrases per chunk.
4. Look at the paragraph structure. The main ideas are always presented in the first sentence of a paragraph and restated in the last one. If it’s not your first reading, you can skip the examples and rationalization, using only these sentences.
5. Check the result. If you write the summary from memory (which is recommendable), recheck it against the highlights. You’ve surely missed something.
6. Edit your text. Once you are done, look through your summary as your readers will. Is it coherent, and does the language flow naturally?

Thank you for reading this article! You are welcome to check other writing tools prepared by Politzilla team:

• Paragraph Rewriter;
• Speech Topic Generator;
• Word Summary Generator.

❓ Page Summarizer FAQ

Updated: Apr 9th, 2024

🔗 References

1. Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting | Writing Handouts
2. Understand Citations — Quoting, Paraphrasing, Summarizing
3. How to Summarize an Article (with Pictures) - wikiHow
4. How to Summarize a Research Article - Writing Center
5. Article Summary | How to Summarize an Article - Study.com