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Shorten a long article

A long article is easier to judge after you can see the point. Free Claude can shorten text you paste, for your own notes. You still check one claim, and you do not publish the summary as a substitute for the piece.

Time
About 8 minutes
Checked
Tool
Claude

If a button name on the screen does not match this guide, follow the action. These products rename buttons often.

Steps

  1. Copy the text, not the whole internet

    Select the article and copy it. Skip the comments, the ads, and the related links. If the piece is behind a login that is not yours, do not paste it. A summary for your own reading is the task. Do not ask for a rewrite you could publish as if you wrote the article.

  2. Open Claude

    Go to claude.ai and start a new chat on the free plan. Claude can search the web on the free plan, but a pasted article is more reliable than “go read this,” which may hit a paywall or the wrong page.

  3. Ask for a short version and a reading guide

    Paste the article under the prompt.

    Prompt to paste

    I am summarizing this for myself. Do not write something I could publish in place of the article.

Give me:
1. Five bullets of what the piece actually says
2. A 3-sentence summary
3. Any number, name, or claim I should check against the original
4. Which section is worth reading in full if I only have time for one

If the pasted text is cut off, say so. Do not fill in the missing ending from the web.

Article:
[paste it here]

  4. Check one claim

    Pick the most important number or accusation in the summary and find it in the original. If it is not there, the summary added it. Ignore that line and tell Claude to remove anything it cannot point to in the paste.

  5. Keep your notes, and keep the source

    Save the five bullets in your notes with the article’s title and date. If you are going to repeat a fact to someone else, go back to the original wording. A summary is not a source.

Tips

  • Very long pastes can hit the free plan’s context limit. Paste the section you care about, then a second section, instead of one giant block.

  • Ask “what is the author unsure about?” when the piece is an argument. A summary that only keeps the loudest claim is misleading.

  • Gemini is a good second choice for a long PDF of an article. The PDF guide is the one to follow if you have a file instead of a page you can copy.

  • Do not paste someone else’s private email or a leaked document. Shortening it does not make the sharing fine.

Common questions

Can I give it only the link?

You can ask, and it may not be able to open the page. Pasting the text is the step that works. If the paste is too long, paste the introduction and the section you were sent to read.

I need to quote it in a school paper.

Use the original sentences, in quotation marks, with the citation your teacher asked for. A chat summary is not a quote and not a source you can cite as the article.

The summary is longer than I wanted.

Reply: “Cut the summary to 60 words. Keep the five bullets.”

It disagreed with the article.

Tell it to stop editorializing: “Do not say whether the author is right. Say only what the article claims.”

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