Summarizing Informational Text
Learn to write an objective summary of informational text: find the central idea, keep only supporting details, cut opinions, and restate it briefly in your own words.
What you'll do in this lesson
A voice-first session with the Crimsora tutor on Summarizing Informational Text, then targeted practice and FRQs — with the tutor adapting to where you get stuck.
What this lesson covers
You have already practiced finding a central idea and the details that back it up. Summarizing is what you do with that skill next: you take a two-page article and shrink it into a few clear sentences that a person who never read it could actually understand. A good summary is not a shorter copy of the article and it is not your reaction to it. It is a fair, neutral report of what the text says.
This lesson breaks summarizing into moves you can repeat on any article, textbook section, or news story: state the central idea first, keep only the details that hold that idea up, drop everything else, and say it all in your own words in far fewer words than the original. You will also see the three mistakes that sink most summaries — copying, opinion-adding, and detail-dumping — and how to catch them in your own writing before you turn it in.
This lesson breaks summarizing into moves you can repeat on any article, textbook section, or news story: state the central idea first, keep only the details that hold that idea up, drop everything else, and say it all in your own words in far fewer words than the original. You will also see the three mistakes that sink most summaries — copying, opinion-adding, and detail-dumping — and how to catch them in your own writing before you turn it in.
What Makes a Summary "Objective"
An objective summary reports what a text says without adding what you think about it. The word objective means based on the text, not on you. If a reader can tell from your summary whether you liked the article, agreed with it, or found it boring, the summary is no longer objective.
Watch for these three intruders. First, opinion words: interesting, boring, amazing, sad, important, should. Writing "This fascinating article explains why sharks matter" tells your reader about you, not about sharks. Second, first- and second-person pronouns: I, me, my, we, you. "I learned that sharks are older than trees" is a reaction sentence, not a summary sentence. Third, new information from your own head. Even if you happen to know an extra fact about sharks, it does not belong in a summary of an article that never mentioned it.
There is one important exception that confuses students. If the author states an opinion, you may — and should — report it, as long as you make clear it is the author's. "The author argues that cities should ban plastic bags" is objective, because you are accurately describing a claim the text makes. "Cities should ban plastic bags" is not objective, because now the claim is coming from you with no attribution.
Useful attribution phrases: the author explains, the article reports, the writer claims, according to the text. These keep the summary anchored to the source. A quick self-check: read your draft and underline every word that could not be traced back to the article. If you underline more than a word or two, revise.
Watch for these three intruders. First, opinion words: interesting, boring, amazing, sad, important, should. Writing "This fascinating article explains why sharks matter" tells your reader about you, not about sharks. Second, first- and second-person pronouns: I, me, my, we, you. "I learned that sharks are older than trees" is a reaction sentence, not a summary sentence. Third, new information from your own head. Even if you happen to know an extra fact about sharks, it does not belong in a summary of an article that never mentioned it.
There is one important exception that confuses students. If the author states an opinion, you may — and should — report it, as long as you make clear it is the author's. "The author argues that cities should ban plastic bags" is objective, because you are accurately describing a claim the text makes. "Cities should ban plastic bags" is not objective, because now the claim is coming from you with no attribution.
Useful attribution phrases: the author explains, the article reports, the writer claims, according to the text. These keep the summary anchored to the source. A quick self-check: read your draft and underline every word that could not be traced back to the article. If you underline more than a word or two, revise.
The Four Moves of Summarizing
Summarizing goes wrong when students start writing at sentence one of the article and stop when they get tired. Use a repeatable order instead.
Move 1: State the central idea in one sentence. After reading the whole text, ask what the article is mostly about and what the author wants you to understand about it. Write that as a complete sentence. This becomes the first line of your summary and the filter for everything else.
Move 2: List the details that support that idea. Go section by section. Most informational texts give two to four major supporting points, often signaled by headings, topic sentences, or transitions like another reason or in addition.
Move 3: Cut. Remove examples, statistics, quotations, anecdotes, and repeated ideas that only illustrate a point you have already stated. Keep the point; drop the decoration.
Move 4: Restate in your own words and check the length. Rewrite each kept idea using your own sentence structure. A common classroom target is a summary about one-quarter the length of the original or shorter — roughly five to seven sentences for a two-page article.
Doing Move 1 last is the most common process error. Without a central idea to filter by, every detail looks equally important, and the summary balloons.
Move 1: State the central idea in one sentence. After reading the whole text, ask what the article is mostly about and what the author wants you to understand about it. Write that as a complete sentence. This becomes the first line of your summary and the filter for everything else.
Move 2: List the details that support that idea. Go section by section. Most informational texts give two to four major supporting points, often signaled by headings, topic sentences, or transitions like another reason or in addition.
Move 3: Cut. Remove examples, statistics, quotations, anecdotes, and repeated ideas that only illustrate a point you have already stated. Keep the point; drop the decoration.
Move 4: Restate in your own words and check the length. Rewrite each kept idea using your own sentence structure. A common classroom target is a summary about one-quarter the length of the original or shorter — roughly five to seven sentences for a two-page article.
| Move | Question you ask | What you produce |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What is this mostly about, and what does the author say about it? | One central-idea sentence |
| 2 | Which points hold that idea up? | Two to four supporting points |
| 3 | Which details only decorate? | A shorter list |
| 4 | Can I say this my way, briefly? | The finished summary |
Deciding What Stays and What Goes
The hardest judgment in summarizing is which details survive. A detail earns a place only if removing it would leave the central idea unsupported or unclear.
Suppose an article's central idea is that light pollution harms migrating birds. The paragraph about a specific warbler that circled a stadium light for six hours is memorable, but it is one illustration of a point the summary can state directly: bright city lights disorient birds at night. The illustration goes; the point stays.
Two cautions about the cut column. A statistic stays if it is the point rather than an example — if an article's whole argument is that bird deaths rose sharply, the size of the increase is essential. And a definition stays if the reader cannot follow the summary without it; if the text is about light pollution, name what light pollution means in a few words.
Where students go wrong: treating length as the only goal and cutting a whole supporting reason to save space. A three-sentence summary that mentions only one of the author's four reasons is not concise, it is incomplete. Trim details first, whole ideas last. Also watch for accidentally promoting a small detail into the main point because it was the most interesting thing you read.
Suppose an article's central idea is that light pollution harms migrating birds. The paragraph about a specific warbler that circled a stadium light for six hours is memorable, but it is one illustration of a point the summary can state directly: bright city lights disorient birds at night. The illustration goes; the point stays.
| Usually keep | Usually cut |
|---|---|
| The central idea | Vivid anecdotes and personal stories |
| Each major supporting reason or cause | Individual statistics used as examples |
| A conclusion or solution the text proposes | Direct quotations from experts |
| Definitions the argument depends on | Repeated restatements of the same point |
| Key sequence in a process or history | Minor names, dates, and side facts |
Where students go wrong: treating length as the only goal and cutting a whole supporting reason to save space. A three-sentence summary that mentions only one of the author's four reasons is not concise, it is incomplete. Trim details first, whole ideas last. Also watch for accidentally promoting a small detail into the main point because it was the most interesting thing you read.
Putting It in Your Own Words
Restating means changing both the words and the sentence structure, not swapping a synonym into the author's sentence. Compare these responses to the original sentence "Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor but shelter roughly a quarter of all marine species."
Weak: "Coral reefs cover under one percent of the sea floor but house about a quarter of all ocean species." That is the author's sentence wearing a hat. The order, structure, and rhythm are identical.
Stronger: "Although reefs take up a tiny share of the ocean, an enormous number of sea creatures depend on them for habitat." The idea survives; the sentence is genuinely new.
A technique that works: read a paragraph, look away from it, and say the idea out loud as if explaining it to a friend. Write down what you said. Looking away breaks the pull of the author's phrasing. Then glance back to confirm you did not change the meaning.
Some words cannot be swapped. Domain-specific terms like photosynthesis, tariff, or migration have no everyday substitute, and replacing them makes the summary less accurate, not more original. Keeping technical vocabulary is fine; keeping the author's whole clauses is not.
Finally, check for accuracy drift. Paraphrasing sometimes strengthens or weakens a claim by accident. If the text says some scientists believe, your summary cannot say scientists have proven. If the text says the practice may reduce flooding, do not write it prevents flooding. Words like may, often, some, and most are doing real work, and an accurate summary carries them over.
Weak: "Coral reefs cover under one percent of the sea floor but house about a quarter of all ocean species." That is the author's sentence wearing a hat. The order, structure, and rhythm are identical.
Stronger: "Although reefs take up a tiny share of the ocean, an enormous number of sea creatures depend on them for habitat." The idea survives; the sentence is genuinely new.
A technique that works: read a paragraph, look away from it, and say the idea out loud as if explaining it to a friend. Write down what you said. Looking away breaks the pull of the author's phrasing. Then glance back to confirm you did not change the meaning.
Some words cannot be swapped. Domain-specific terms like photosynthesis, tariff, or migration have no everyday substitute, and replacing them makes the summary less accurate, not more original. Keeping technical vocabulary is fine; keeping the author's whole clauses is not.
Finally, check for accuracy drift. Paraphrasing sometimes strengthens or weakens a claim by accident. If the text says some scientists believe, your summary cannot say scientists have proven. If the text says the practice may reduce flooding, do not write it prevents flooding. Words like may, often, some, and most are doing real work, and an accurate summary carries them over.
Checking and Revising Your Summary
Before you call a summary finished, run four checks.
The stranger check. Would someone who never read the article understand what it was about? Summaries that begin "He explains that this is a serious problem" fail immediately — the reader does not know who he is or what problem. Name the subject in the first sentence.
The mirror check. Put your summary beside the text. Is any string of five or more words identical to the original? If so, rewrite that stretch. Exact wording belongs in a quotation, and quotations rarely belong in a short summary.
The neutrality check. Circle I, we, you, and every judgment word. Each one either gets deleted or gets turned into attribution: "the most important reason" becomes "the reason the author emphasizes."
The proportion check. Count sentences. If your summary is more than about a quarter of the original's length, you are still carrying examples you can drop. If it is one sentence long for a long article, you have probably lost supporting points.
A reliable structure for a short summary: one sentence naming the text and its central idea, two to four sentences giving the supporting points in the order the text presents them, and one closing sentence stating the author's conclusion, solution, or final claim if the text has one.
This skill keeps returning all year. Comparing two articles on the same subject, writing a research paper, or taking notes for a science lab all start with the ability to say, briefly and fairly, what a source actually said.
The stranger check. Would someone who never read the article understand what it was about? Summaries that begin "He explains that this is a serious problem" fail immediately — the reader does not know who he is or what problem. Name the subject in the first sentence.
The mirror check. Put your summary beside the text. Is any string of five or more words identical to the original? If so, rewrite that stretch. Exact wording belongs in a quotation, and quotations rarely belong in a short summary.
The neutrality check. Circle I, we, you, and every judgment word. Each one either gets deleted or gets turned into attribution: "the most important reason" becomes "the reason the author emphasizes."
The proportion check. Count sentences. If your summary is more than about a quarter of the original's length, you are still carrying examples you can drop. If it is one sentence long for a long article, you have probably lost supporting points.
A reliable structure for a short summary: one sentence naming the text and its central idea, two to four sentences giving the supporting points in the order the text presents them, and one closing sentence stating the author's conclusion, solution, or final claim if the text has one.
This skill keeps returning all year. Comparing two articles on the same subject, writing a research paper, or taking notes for a science lab all start with the ability to say, briefly and fairly, what a source actually said.
Key terms
- Objective summary.
- A brief restatement of a text's central idea and key supporting details, written in your own words, with no personal opinions, reactions, or outside information added.
- Central idea.
- The most important point a writer makes about the topic — what the author wants the reader to understand overall, not just what the text is about.
- Supporting detail.
- A fact, reason, example, or explanation the author uses to hold up the central idea. Major supporting reasons belong in a summary; individual examples usually do not.
- Paraphrase.
- Restating an idea from a text using your own words and your own sentence structure while keeping the original meaning exactly.
- Attribution.
- A phrase such as "the author argues" or "according to the article" that makes clear a claim belongs to the text rather than to you.
- Plagiarism.
- Presenting another writer's exact words or sentence patterns as your own. Copying phrases into a summary without quotation marks counts as plagiarism.
- Domain-specific vocabulary.
- Technical terms tied to a subject area, such as ecosystem or amendment. These may be kept in a summary because no everyday synonym is as accurate.
- Accuracy drift.
- An error in which a paraphrase makes a claim stronger or weaker than the original, such as changing "may reduce" to "prevents."
Worked example
Write an objective summary of the following passage in four sentences or fewer.
"Sleep and the Middle School Brain"
Most middle schoolers need nine to ten hours of sleep each night, but surveys suggest the average seventh grader gets closer to seven. The gap matters. During deep sleep, the brain moves information from short-term storage into long-term memory, which is why a student who studies vocabulary and then sleeps well remembers more words the next morning than a student who stays up. Sleep loss also affects mood. Dr. Elena Ruiz, a pediatric sleep researcher, describes teenagers who run short on sleep as "emotionally raw," quicker to anger and slower to bounce back from small setbacks. There is a biological reason the problem is hard to fix. At puberty, the body's internal clock shifts later, so a thirteen-year-old may not feel sleepy until 11 p.m. even when the alarm is set for 6 a.m. Some districts have responded by pushing middle school start times to 8:30 a.m. or later, and early studies of those schools report better attendance and fewer late arrivals.
"Sleep and the Middle School Brain"
Most middle schoolers need nine to ten hours of sleep each night, but surveys suggest the average seventh grader gets closer to seven. The gap matters. During deep sleep, the brain moves information from short-term storage into long-term memory, which is why a student who studies vocabulary and then sleeps well remembers more words the next morning than a student who stays up. Sleep loss also affects mood. Dr. Elena Ruiz, a pediatric sleep researcher, describes teenagers who run short on sleep as "emotionally raw," quicker to anger and slower to bounce back from small setbacks. There is a biological reason the problem is hard to fix. At puberty, the body's internal clock shifts later, so a thirteen-year-old may not feel sleepy until 11 p.m. even when the alarm is set for 6 a.m. Some districts have responded by pushing middle school start times to 8:30 a.m. or later, and early studies of those schools report better attendance and fewer late arrivals.
Move 1 — Central idea. The passage is about middle school sleep, but what does it say about it? Every paragraph returns to the same point: students are not getting enough sleep, and that shortage causes real problems. Draft sentence: Most middle schoolers sleep less than they need, and the shortage affects how they learn and feel.
Move 2 — Supporting points. Scanning for the points that hold that idea up: (a) deep sleep moves information into long-term memory, so short sleep hurts learning; (b) sleep loss makes students more irritable and less resilient; (c) puberty shifts the internal clock later, making early bedtimes hard; (d) some districts start school later and report better attendance.
Move 3 — Cut. The nine-to-ten versus seven hour numbers are examples of the shortage, but here the size of the gap is the whole reason the article exists, so one brief mention of it is worth keeping. Dr. Ruiz's name and the quotation "emotionally raw" go — the point is that sleep loss hurts mood, and the quotation only illustrates it. The vocabulary-studying example goes; the memory point stays. The specific 8:30 time and the 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. details go.
Move 4 — Restate briefly. Look away from the passage and say each point in your own structure.
Finished summary: The article reports that most seventh graders sleep about two hours less than the nine to ten hours they need. According to the text, that shortage interferes with memory, because deep sleep is when the brain stores what a student has learned, and it also leaves students more irritable and less able to recover from frustration. The author explains that the problem is difficult to solve because the body's internal clock shifts later during puberty. Some districts have moved start times later, and early research on those schools shows improved attendance.
Check it. Four sentences, roughly a quarter of the original length. No I, we, or you. No judgment words. Dr. Ruiz's claim about mood is reported without her name because the idea, not the source, is what supports the central idea. No five-word string matches the original.
Move 2 — Supporting points. Scanning for the points that hold that idea up: (a) deep sleep moves information into long-term memory, so short sleep hurts learning; (b) sleep loss makes students more irritable and less resilient; (c) puberty shifts the internal clock later, making early bedtimes hard; (d) some districts start school later and report better attendance.
Move 3 — Cut. The nine-to-ten versus seven hour numbers are examples of the shortage, but here the size of the gap is the whole reason the article exists, so one brief mention of it is worth keeping. Dr. Ruiz's name and the quotation "emotionally raw" go — the point is that sleep loss hurts mood, and the quotation only illustrates it. The vocabulary-studying example goes; the memory point stays. The specific 8:30 time and the 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. details go.
Move 4 — Restate briefly. Look away from the passage and say each point in your own structure.
Finished summary: The article reports that most seventh graders sleep about two hours less than the nine to ten hours they need. According to the text, that shortage interferes with memory, because deep sleep is when the brain stores what a student has learned, and it also leaves students more irritable and less able to recover from frustration. The author explains that the problem is difficult to solve because the body's internal clock shifts later during puberty. Some districts have moved start times later, and early research on those schools shows improved attendance.
Check it. Four sentences, roughly a quarter of the original length. No I, we, or you. No judgment words. Dr. Ruiz's claim about mood is reported without her name because the idea, not the source, is what supports the central idea. No five-word string matches the original.
Practice questions
An article's central idea is that community gardens improve neighborhoods. Which sentence belongs in an objective summary of that article?
- I think every neighborhood should build a community garden right away.
- The author explains that gardens give neighbors shared space and increase access to fresh vegetables.
- One gardener named Mr. Alvarez grows tomatoes, peppers, and three kinds of basil in his plot.
- This article about community gardens was interesting but a little too long.
Answer: The author explains that gardens give neighbors shared space and increase access to fresh vegetables.
An objective summary states supporting reasons in neutral language with attribution, which is exactly what the correct sentence does. The first choice adds your opinion and uses the word I. The third choice is a single vivid example — the kind of decoration you cut once you have stated the general point about fresh food. The fourth choice is a reaction to the article, not a report of what it says.
A student summarizing an article writes: "Scientists have proven that planting trees along city streets eliminates the urban heat island effect." The original text said: "Several studies suggest that street trees may reduce the urban heat island effect in some neighborhoods." Explain what went wrong and rewrite the sentence accurately.
Answer: The student overstated the claim. A corrected version: "According to the article, several studies suggest that street trees may lower the urban heat island effect in some neighborhoods."
This is accuracy drift. Three hedging words in the original — suggest, may, and some — were replaced with certainty words: proven, eliminates, and an implied all neighborhoods. Those small words carry real meaning, because the text is describing possible findings, not settled fact. A faithful paraphrase can change the wording and structure freely, but it has to preserve how confident the author actually was.
Why is it a problem to write a summary by copying the first sentence of each paragraph in an article?
Answer: Because those sentences are the author's exact words rather than your own, and because paragraph openers are not always the ideas that support the central idea.
Two things break at once. First, stringing together the author's sentences is copying, not paraphrasing, even if you leave sentences out. Second, the method skips the thinking. Some paragraphs open with an anecdote, a question, or a transition rather than a main point, so the resulting patchwork can include decoration while missing a key reason buried later in a paragraph. Deciding on the central idea first and then testing each point against it is what makes a summary both shorter and more accurate.
FAQ
- How long should a summary be?
- A common guideline is about one-quarter the length of the original or less — roughly five to seven sentences for a two-page article, and three or four for a single page. If your teacher gives a specific sentence or word count, follow it. If your summary is much longer than that target, you are still carrying examples, quotations, or statistics that only illustrate points you have already made.
- What is the difference between a summary and a paraphrase?
- A paraphrase restates one passage in your own words at roughly the same length, keeping all the detail. A summary is much shorter than the original and keeps only the central idea and the major supporting points. Every good summary uses paraphrasing as a tool, but not every paraphrase is a summary.
- Can I ever quote the article in my summary?
- Usually you should not. Short summaries have no room for quotations, and the whole point is to show you can restate ideas yourself. The rare exception is a phrase so specific that no paraphrase is accurate — a coined term or an exact wording the article's argument depends on. If you do use it, put it in quotation marks.
- How do I find the central idea if the article has no thesis sentence?
- When no single sentence states it, build the idea yourself. Read the title, headings, and first and last paragraphs, then ask what point every section keeps returning to. Write that point as one sentence in your own words. If a section of the article does not fit the sentence you wrote, your central idea is probably too narrow and needs to be widened.
Learn this with a teacher, not a page
The Crimsora tutor teaches Summarizing Informational Text live — explaining on a whiteboard, asking you questions, and adapting to where you get stuck.