Summarize a Long Document Into Key Points
Condense long documents into an executive summary, key bullets, and quotable stats.
This prompt distills a long document into four layers: a tight executive summary, key takeaways, quotable data, and the open questions left unanswered — all scoped to a stated audience and held strictly to what the text actually says. Reach for it when you need to brief someone (or yourself) on a report, contract, or research paper without reading every page. The 'no interpretation beyond the document' rule is the guardrail that keeps it from inventing conclusions the source never made.
You are an expert at distilling complex documents. Summarize the document below. Provide: (1) a 3-sentence executive summary, (2) 5-7 key takeaways as bullets, (3) any data, statistics, or quotes worth citing, (4) open questions the document leaves unanswered. Target audience: [DESCRIBE AUDIENCE]. Do not add interpretation beyond what the document states. DOCUMENT: [PASTE TEXT]
What you can expect back
Executive summary The market grew 12% in Q3, driven almost entirely by the APAC region while North America stayed flat. Two competitors cut prices, compressing margins across the segment. The report projects continued growth into Q4 but flags pricing pressure as the main risk to profitability. Key takeaways - APAC accounted for roughly 80% of total growth this quarter. - North American revenue was flat quarter-over-quarter. - Competitor A and Competitor B both cut list prices by 10-15%. - Average segment margin fell from 34% to 29%. - Q4 growth is projected at 8-10%. Data worth citing - 'Segment-wide gross margin declined to 29%, down five points from Q2.' - APAC growth rate: 21% YoY. Open questions - The report does not say whether the competitor price cuts are promotional or permanent. - No breakdown is given for why North America stalled. - Q4 projections assume current pricing holds, but the report does not model a further price war.
Illustrative example — your results will vary by tool and inputs.
Get sharper results
- 01Define the audience precisely — 'a non-technical CEO' and 'a compliance lawyer' should produce very different summaries of the same document.
- 02If the document has sections you don't care about, say so up front so the model spends its attention on the parts that matter to you.
- 03Ask it to quote statistics verbatim with the surrounding sentence, so you can trust the numbers without re-reading the source.
- 04For very long documents, summarize in chunks and then ask for a summary-of-summaries, which preserves detail better than forcing one giant pass.
- 05The 'open questions' section is the most underused part — push on it by asking what a skeptical reader would still want to know.
Adapt it for your case
Drop sections 2-4 and ask only for the 3-sentence executive summary when you just need the gist.
Add a fifth section: 'a list of concrete next steps or decisions the document implies, each tagged with who would own it.'
Paste two sources and ask for a summary of each plus a short list of where they agree and disagree.
Common questions
How do I keep it from making things up?
The 'no interpretation beyond what the document states' clause is doing that work — keep it, and spot-check any statistic against the source. If a claim isn't in the text, the model shouldn't be asserting it.
What's the longest document I can summarize at once?
It depends on the model's context window. If the document is too long, split it into sections, summarize each, then summarize the summaries — this also tends to preserve more detail.
Can it summarize a PDF or just pasted text?
This prompt expects pasted text. If your tool accepts file uploads you can attach the PDF directly; otherwise copy the text in, ideally cleaning up headers and page numbers first.
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