Researchers have to do a lot of information-gathering. Their entire work is centred around gathering information and trying to find new stuff based on that information. Sometimes, the new stuff includes proving something right or wrong, and sometimes it includes finding something that has never been discovered before. 

Regardless, researchers always have to read a lot, aside from experimenting, to make these discoveries. Reading is a tedious and time-consuming task. It can take hours to read a research paper if it is decently long. The time is not long because the paper itself is long; it’s because understanding the nuances and intricacies of what is written is difficult. 

However, if a researcher could obtain a summary of the work, they would not have this problem. A summary is a succinct piece of copy that provides the gist of the matter in as few words as possible without actually harming the message of the text.

How can researchers use a summarising tool to get information from research content?

Today we are going to look at summarising tools and how they can help academics find information from research content quickly and efficiently. After all, that is one of the benefits of using tools. Let’s list some other benefits while we are at it, so you can understand why using tools is a good idea.

• Time efficient. A summarising tool is highly time-efficient. It can read the content and create a summary in mere moments. This saves researchers hours’ worth of time, which they can use more productively.
• Highly accurate.  A tool is less prone to making mistakes than humans. That’s why their output is almost always accurate. They can find out the key points in the text effectively. Most summarisers use AI to understand the context and then draw conclusions accordingly. That’s why their output is usually accurate.
• Unbiased. Unlike a human, a text summariser has no bias. Bias usually comes from emotions. So, an emotionless tool cannot feel positive or negative about anything. As such, its summaries are unbiased, which further adds to their accuracy and credibility.

Due to these benefits, it is highly advised to use a text summarizer for extracting information from research content. Now, let us see how that can be done. 

Find a decent text summariser

A text summarizer is an online tool. So, naturally, you will have to go to a search engine and ask for one. You can simply type in “text summarizer” or “summarise text online” or anything related to summaries, and you will get the relevant results. 

Our recommendation is to use a tool from the first page of the search results, and even among them, the top 10 are usually much better than the rest. Pick out a tool that you like. You can choose them based on looks, UI, and ease of use.

Input your content and create the summary

Now, you have to enter the research content that you need to summarise. In most summarising tools, there are multiple input options. You can input text in the following ways:

• Copying and pasting text into the text box
• Uploading a file to the tool
• Entering the URL of an online document or web page

You should use the method that is most convenient for you. Afterward, you should press the button that starts the summarization process. But before that, check if the tool has some options to be tweaked. For example, there could be an option to set the length of the summary, or there could be an option to change the formatting of the output. If such options are present, play around with them to understand how they work, and then create the summary. 

Cross-check the summary with the source  

Once the summary is created, you have to proofread it. Standard proofing, where you check for readability and coherence, is required because sometimes a tool can mess up. It is better to be safe than sorry, after all. The other thing you have to do is cross-check the summary with the source.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to read the source to cross-check it. You simply need to read the abstract and the discussion sections. They usually have all the information. As long as the summary agrees with them and contains all the points they make, it is correct. That is really all that needs to be done, and here you can end the summarization process.

Takeaway

So, there you have it: why it is important to use summarizers and how to use them. The process is simple and straightforward. The reasons for employing it are time-saving, accuracy, and unbiasedness. Here we conclude this article with summaries and research papers.

Ellen Diamond, a psychology graduate from the University of Hertfordshire, has a keen interest in the fields of mental health, wellness, and lifestyle.