How to Summarize a Paragraph: Step-by-Step Instructions & Tools to Use

How to Summarize a Paragraph into a Single Sentence

Summarizing a paragraph involves quickly identifying the main ideas and rewriting them in a shorter form. The process of summarizing can help you learn to read more quickly, improve your reading comprehension, and communicate more clearly. This guide will teach you exactly what a paragraph summary is and how to do it yourself in 4 easy steps.

What Is Paragraph Summarization? 

Summarizing a paragraph is when you read through a paragraph and then restate the information in your own words. When you’re summarizing, you’re going to shorten the message of the paragraph to make it as short and concise as possible. An ideal paragraph summary should be one sentence long, but it may be as long as two sentences for a more descriptive paragraph. You don’t want to end up rewriting the paragraph rather than summarizing it. Summarizing is an important ability because it shows that you have a comprehensive understanding of what you’ve read. If you can accurately summarize a paragraph it demonstrates that you fully understand the topic of the writing. 

Steps to Summarize a Paragraph 

Paragraph summarization is a skill that anyone can learn. There is a simple 4-step method you can use to learn and practice the skill for yourself. Here are the 4 steps on how to summarize a paragraph:

1. Read and reread the paragraph: You need to understand the main points of the paragraph in order to summarize it. Read the paragraph once to get a general feel, then reread it several more times to see if you missed anything. 
2. List out the main ideas in a simple outline: Pick out the main facts stated in the paragraph and list them out. Make sure to identify the central idea of the paragraph and any supporting facts listed. It’s okay to list out as many facts as you want, since you’ll have plenty of time to trim down your list and revise before you’re done. 
3. Write your first summary draft: Take the information you’ve listed out and use it to write 1 or 2 complete sentences in your own words. These sentences should be concise, giving only the facts without any additional opinions or information. 
4. Reread and edit your summary: Read the first draft you wrote, checking for errors and revising it down to be as short as possible. The final, edited summary should accurately tell the facts of the paragraph in as few words as possible. It should be fully written in your own words. 

Following this method will help you learn the basic skills involved in summarizing. You’ll learn how to quickly analyze a section of text, identify the main ideas, and rephrase those ideas in your own words.

Examples of a Paragraph Summarization 

Here is a basic example of how to summarize a paragraph, showing just the original paragraph and the resulting summary.

‍Example paragraph to summarize: Many parents have a tradition of reading to their children before bedtime. Although it’s regarded as a fun activity for both children and their parents, research suggests that reading to your children is also instrumental to building language skills in early childhood. Reading to children helps them expand their vocabularies by hearing new words used in the proper context. It also gives them more general information about the world and helps them empathize with others. What feels like a simple bedtime routine for families is actually a powerful tool for children to learn how to interact with and contextualize the world around them.

‍How to summarize a paragraph example: Reading to children before bed can help them develop their language skills, learn empathy, and understand the world around them better.

Best AI Tools for Summarizing Paragraphs

If you need help summarizing paragraphs, you can use a summarization tool to make it easy. Here are 3 of the tools for summarizing paragraphs: 

1. ReadPartner AI
   ‍This tool allows you to get accurate, useful summaries of any kind of content in a matter of seconds. You can summarize large texts or websites, YouTube videos, offline documents, PDFs, news content, and more.
   ReadPartner has a web portal and a convenient Chrome extension that helps you summarize pages you want to read and get to the important parts more quickly.
2. Grammarly 
   Grammarly’s summarization tool is more of a paraphrasing tool that helps you improve your writing. Aimed mainly at students and working professionals, Grammarly’s tool is great for helping you write more confidently and learn to write better on your own. 
3. QuillBot 
   QuillBot is a simple web tool that summarizes pasted or uploaded content into paragraphs, bullet points, or custom formatted outputs. You can have a text summary within seconds on the web platform.

FAQs

What makes paragraph summarizing different from paraphrasing?

Summarizing involves reducing a large segment of text down into the very basic ideas only, leaving out extra details or opinions. Paraphrasing is different because you’re restating ideas in your own words while trying to maintain a similar level of detail. Instead of trying to be as concise as possible like with summarization, paraphrasing allows more room for opinion and extra context.

How to summarize a paragraph in one sentence?

Summarize a paragraph in one sentence by taking the most important information in the paragraph and rewriting it into one complete sentence. When summarizing into a single sentence, you need to cut out all extra information that’s not directly relevant to the central point of the paragraph. Every word matters.

How to summarize a body paragraph?

Essay body paragraphs are often longer than paragraphs in non-academic books. Follow the same method listed above, making sure you edit as many times as needed to trim all the unnecessary extra facts or information in favor of vital information only.

How can AI help with paragraph summarization?

AI tools can help you distill paragraphs down into their most basic ideas. If you’re getting stuck on a summary, you can use AI to help you write your first draft quickly. You will often have to rewrite and edit from there because AI can easily make mistakes.

How do I prevent plagiarism when summarizing paragraphs?

When you’re summarizing a paragraph, make sure you’re always rewriting ideas in your own words. Keep only the ideas of the paragraph, but change the actual words. Use a free plagiarism checker once you finish to ensure your summary is 100% plagiarism-free.

Conclusion

Learning how to summarize a paragraph is a helpful skill for students, professionals, and anyone who wants to read and write more quickly. Following a simple 4-step process, anyone can learn how to do it on their own! If you have to summarize on a regular basis, try out an AI tool like ReadPartner for free to speed things up.