Quick Reads: Best ChatGPT Prompts for Article Summaries

Summarizing articles can be time-consuming and overwhelming – especially when dealing with long, complex content. But with the best ChatGPT prompts for summarizing articles, you can turn walls of text into concise, insightful takeaways in seconds. Whether you’re tackling research papers, marketing guides, or industry news, this guide will help you master the art of prompt writing so ChatGPT gives you exactly what you need.

How to Write Effective Prompts for Article Summarization

If you want ChatGPT to summarize content exactly the way you like, the key is to refine your prompts. Think of it like explaining something to a friend – you want to be straightforward so there’s no confusion. The more well-structured your prompts are, the better summaries you’ll get.

How do you write effective prompts for article summarization? Here are some tried-and-true tips:

Be Clear and Specific

Requests like “Summarize this article” or “Give me the best summary of this article” are quite vague. Instead, try to be more detailed. You should let ChatGPT know how long you want the summary to be or be specific about what you want to highlight in the summary.

Example Prompt:

“Summarize the main points of this article in 150 words, highlighting the key arguments about AI’s impact on content creation.”

Using a Clear ChatGPT Prompt to Summarize an Article

Define the Level of Detail

Some situations call for a quick, high-level overview; others may require a deeper dive with detailed insights. So, think about how much information you need.

Example Prompts:

• High-level: “Summarize this article (about modern architecture), highlighting the key design principles.”
• Detailed: “Provide a detailed summary of this article (about climate change), including the scientific data presented, the key environmental impacts discussed, and the specific recommendations from environmental experts.”

Provide Context and Focus

Next, a bit of background will help ChatGPT understand what to focus on. It’s like preparing someone for a conversation by giving them background information.

For instance, if the article is about AI, let it know if you want to hear about trends, use cases, or other aspects.

Example Prompt:

“Summarize this article, focusing on the latest trends and predictions for machine learning.”

Or if the article is about climate change?

Example Prompt:

“Provide a concise overview of the key findings regarding the impact on ocean levels and the proposed solutions from environmental experts.”

Providing a focus for a ChatGPT Prompt

Consider Your Audience

It’s essential to think about who will read the summary. Are they experts, beginners, or general readers? As you tell the AI, it can adjust the tone and style based on your audience.

Example Prompt:

“Summarize the article on time management for beginners, focusing on practical tips and strategies.”

Set the Desired Format and Style

Last but not least, how do you want the summary to look? Bullet points for easy reading or a more formal paragraph for reports? Just tell the AI what format you prefer.

Example Prompts:

“Summarize this article in bullet points in around 100 words, focusing on the benefits and challenges discussed.”

Setting a Desired Format for ChatGPT Prompts

Best ChatGPT Prompts for Summarizing Articles

To help you save time and effort, we’ve crafted some prompt samples that you can use directly (or adjust a bit to suit the articles or your purposes). Check them out!

Research Article Summarization Prompts

Since academic articles are pretty tricky to understand, having these friendly prompts will help you break them down easily.

Prompts to use:

• “Summarize the abstract, methods, and conclusion of this research paper in under 150 words, using simple language.”
• “Explain this journal article as if I’m a high school student. What’s the main point, and what did the researchers discover?”
• “List the key points of this research paper in bullet points: hypothesis, methods, results, and conclusion.”
• “What’s important about this study? Write a 5-sentence summary for a general audience.”
• “Turn this research article into a 7-bullet-point summary for a science newsletter.”

A Research Article to Test ChatGPT Prompts

We found this article on the internet about “Age and cognitive skills”. Using the second prompt from the list above, we’ve received a clear summary by ChatGPT as shown below.

Testing Best ChatGPT Prompts for Summarizing Articles

In addition to LLMs like ChatGPT, several online tools can help summarize articles quickly and efficiently.

For example, you can upload files to Sharly, and it’ll generate a summary in seconds (without prompts), which helps you save a bit more time. However, since the results might not suit your needs, you may input our recommended templates as above to get better outputs.

Using Sharly to Summarize Articles

Try Sharly AI Today!

Long-Form Article Summarization Prompts

Long articles can cover a lot of ground. That’s why the following prompts can be your savior. Let them help you quickly clarify ideas and highlight the best information.

Prompts to use:

• “Summarize this blog post into 7 key takeaways for beginner readers.”
• “Break down this how-to article into an easy step-by-step list.”
• “Write a paragraph summarizing each section’s main message in this long article.”
• “Break down the core ideas of this article into 3-5 bullet points for social media sharing.”
• “Summarize this article in 100 words, focusing on the most useful insights.”

Marketing Article Summarization Prompts

Sometimes, you might need to pull out the important stuff in marketing articles, which might include lots of strategies, trends, and metrics. The following inputs might help:

Prompts to use:

• “Summarize the top 3 marketing strategies in this article and explain why they work!”
• “List 5 key takeaways from this article that a small business owner can use right away.”
• “Turn this case study into a summary that highlights the problem, solution, and result in 3 sentences.”
• “Summarize the marketing trends from this article in a way that’s easy to understand.”
• “Write a simple summary of this digital marketing guide in 80 words for beginners.”

Using ChatGPT Prompts to Condense Long-form Articles

And if you’re working with PDF versions of marketing whitepapers or strategy reports, you can also use tools like PDF AI to extract and summarize content directly — it’s especially helpful when dealing with formatted or scanned documents.

Using PDF.ai to summarize marketing article

Try PDF.ai For Free Today!

News & Media Article Summarization Prompts

Finally, if you want to summarize facts or opinions from the news articles quickly, check out these inquiries!

Prompts to use:

• “Summarize this article in 3 bullet points: what happened, who was involved, and what the outcome was.”
• “Write a brief paragraph summary of this news story for someone new to the topic.”
• “Turn this news piece into a short ‘What happened, Why it matters’ format.”
• “Summarize this opinion piece, outlining the main argument and supporting evidence.”
• “Condense this full news report into a tweet-style update with 280 characters.”

Conclusion

Using these best ChatGPT prompts for summarizing articles can save you tons of time while still helping you understand different types of content easily, from marketing articles to research papers.

Try out these templates by TechDictionary, and you’ll see how powerful they are. Leave a comment below to let us know the results.