Working with long text
Turn a long document into something you can use: a summary written for a purpose, a table of the facts, exact quotes you can confirm, and a list of what the text leaves out.
QUESTION ONE
Summarise with a purpose
A summary means deciding what to leave out, and the model can't decide well without knowing what you'll do with it. Tell it who the summary is for and what decision or action it feeds. The same report summarised for the finance team and for a new intern should look quite different.
"Summarise this lease for me as the tenant. I'm deciding whether to sign. Focus on what I must pay, what I'm not allowed to do, and how either side can end it."
Same document, two requests
Weak prompt
"Summarise this report."
You get: "This report discusses the company's performance, challenges and future plans..." True, and no use to you.
Improved prompt
"I'm presenting this report to the sales team for 5 minutes tomorrow. Give me the 4 findings that affect their work, each in one sentence with its page or section, then the one number they should remember."
A reader, a use, a shape.
Check yourself
Omid has a 25-page supplier proposal and a meeting in an hour where he must decide whether to shortlist it. Which prompt serves him best?
- "Summarise this proposal in detail, section by section, covering everything important, so I don't miss anything before my meeting in an hour, and then tell me whether it looks like a good deal overall."
- "What do you think of this proposal?"
- "I decide in an hour whether to shortlist this supplier. Summarise only: total cost, delivery time, what they don't cover, and any condition that could cost us later. Name the section for each."
- "Give me a short summary of this proposal."
Show the answer
"I decide in an hour whether to shortlist this supplier. Summarise only: total cost, delivery time, what they don't cover, and any condition that could cost us later. Name the section for each."
Right. He named the decision and the four things it hangs on, and asked where each one is so he can glance at the original.
QUESTION TWO
Extract into a table
Often you don't want prose at all. You want the facts pulled out and lined up: every date, every amount, every obligation, every name with its role. Name the columns yourself. A table is quick to scan and, just as usefully, quick to check against the original, row by row.
From a long email thread: "Make a table of every decision taken: what was decided, who decided, on what date, and whether anyone objected."
From the rental contract below, extract every payment I have to make. Table columns: what for | amount | when due | clause number. Use only the contract. If something isn't stated, write "not stated".
[contract text pasted here]What for | Amount | When due | Clause
Monthly rent | 12,000,000 | 1st of each month | 3.1
Deposit | 200,000,000 | On signing | 3.2
Building service charge | not stated | Monthly | 5.4
Late payment penalty | 1% of rent per day | After the 5th | 3.5"not stated" is doing real work here. Clause 5.4 says you pay a service charge and never says how much. That is a question for the landlord before you sign, and a prose summary would probably have hidden it.
QUESTION THREE
Make it quote the exact passage
Whenever the answer matters, add: "Quote the exact sentence from the text that supports each point, and say where it is." Now every claim comes with something you can search for in the original. Thirty seconds with the find function tells you whether the quote is really there and whether it means what the summary says it means.
If the model can't produce a quote for a point, treat that point as its own opinion or as a mistake, not as something the document says.
Check yourself
Asking for an exact quote is still worth it even though the quote itself can be slightly off, because a quote is something you can search for in the original.
Show the answer
True
Models sometimes paraphrase inside quotation marks or merge two sentences into one. That isn't a reason to skip the quote; it's the reason the quote helps. A distinctive phrase takes thirty seconds to find in the original, and then you know whether the point is really in the document.
QUESTION FOUR
Ask what's missing
A summary tells you what the text says. The more valuable question is often what it doesn't say. The model knows what documents of this type usually contain, so it can notice gaps: "What would a careful reader expect to find here that isn't covered? What questions does this leave unanswered?"
A job offer that never mentions working hours. A project plan with no budget line. A proposal that talks about benefits and never about risks. Absences like these are hard to spot when you read from start to finish.
Check yourself
Match each goal to the request that fits it
Show the answer
- Decide quickly whether a report is relevant to you → A summary written for your role and your decision
- See every deadline in a contract at a glance → A table with columns you name
- Be able to confirm a claim in the original → The exact quoted sentence and where it is
- Prepare questions before signing → A list of what the text leaves unanswered
How the four fit together
- Start with the purposeful summary to get your bearings.
- Use extraction for anything you'll act on: money, dates, duties.
- Add quotes to every point that matters, then confirm them with the find function.
- Finish with what's missing. For a contract or anything legal, the assistant helps you read and prepare questions; it doesn't replace a professional when the stakes are high.
Check yourself
Elham pastes her university's 30-page exam regulations and asks whether she can defer an exam for a family emergency. The assistant says yes. What should her next message be?
- "Thanks!", then email her professor that the regulations allow it and ask him to arrange a new date
- "Quote the exact sentence that allows this, with its article number, and any conditions attached."
- "Are you completely sure?"
- "Summarise the whole document again, but shorter."
Show the answer
"Quote the exact sentence that allows this, with its article number, and any conditions attached."
Yes. With the article number and the quoted wording she can find it in the document, read the conditions herself, and cite the rule in her email.
Lesson recap
- "Summarise this" is a weak request. Say who the summary is for and what decision it feeds.
- Pull facts into a table with columns you name, and ask for "not stated" where the text is silent.
- Ask for exact quotes with their location, then search for them in the original.
- Ask what's missing, and check that a long file was actually read in full.