Using Generative AI to Summarize Key Points

U-M tools can provide fast, accurate review of lengthy documents, freeing up valuable instruction time

Generative AI tools, such as U-M GPT, Gemini, or ChatGPT, are capable of condensing lengthy articles into concise summaries, capturing the core ideas and essential details. When faced with a verbose piece, you can prompt the tools to analyze the text and identify the main themes or arguments. GenAI tools can rephrase the key points in clear, straightforward language, ensuring the summary is easy to understand.

This ability is particularly useful for users who need to quickly grasp the substance of long articles without delving into all the intricacies. Whether it’s a complex academic paper, a detailed news article, or an extensive report, generative AI tools can distill the content into a digestible format, saving time and enhancing comprehension.

Here is an example prompt that you can use to get started: 

“Can you please take the following text and condense it into a bullet-pointed list of [number] key takeaways or main points: “[your text]”? Thank you!” 

Note: Many of these tools now have a file upload feature so you can upload your sources directly without having to copy and paste the entire text manually.

Example: An Online Course on Neuroscience

Drafting

As an example, let’s imagine you are a renowned neuroscientist and a highly regarded faculty member at Michigan Medicine.

You are working on an online neuroscience course primarily aimed at a lay audience. You plan to include several open-access journal articles in the online course, being mindful of copyright. However, you recognize that they are optional readings and learners may choose to skip them. You plan to include brief summaries of the articles within the course so learners still glean some key takeaways even if they choose not to read the material. 

You fill in the example prompt, being sure to indicate to the GenAI tool that you would only like a limited number of key takeaways or bullet points (3): 

“Can you please take the following text and condense it into a bullet-pointed list of three key takeaways or main points: 

A first-of-its-kind study led by the University of California, Irvine has revealed a new culprit in the formation of brain hemorrhages that does not involve injury to the blood vessels, as previously believed. Researchers discovered that interactions between aged red blood cells and brain capillaries can lead to cerebral microbleeds, offering deeper insights into how they occur and identifying potential new therapeutic targets for treatment and prevention.

The findings published online recently in the Journal of Neuroinflammation describe how the team was able to watch the process by which red blood cells stall in the brain capillaries and then observe how the hemorrhage happens.

Cerebral microbleeds are associated with a variety of conditions that occur at higher rates in older adults, including hypertension, Alzheimer’s disease, and ischemic stroke.

“We have previously explored this issue in cell culture systems, but our current study is significant in expanding our understanding of the mechanism by which cerebral microbleeds develop,” said co-corresponding author Dr. Mark Fisher, professor of neurology in UCI’s School of Medicine.

“Our findings may have profound clinical implications, as we identified a link between red blood cell damage and cerebral hemorrhages that occur at the capillary level.”

The team exposed red blood cells to a chemical called tert-butyl hydroperoxide that caused oxidative stress; the cells were then marked with a fluorescent label and injected into mice.

Using two different methods, the researchers observed the red blood cells getting stuck in the brain capillaries and then being cleared out in a process called endothelial erythrophagocytosis.

As they moved out of the capillaries, microglia inflammatory cells engulfed the red blood cells, which led to the formation of a brain hemorrhage.

“It has always been assumed that in order for cerebral hemorrhage to occur, blood vessels need to be injured or disrupted. We found that increased red blood cell interactions with the brain capillaries represent an alternative source of development,” said co-corresponding author Xiangmin Xu, UCI professor of anatomy & neurobiology and director of the campus’s Center for Neural Circuit Mapping.

“We need to examine in detail the regulation of brain capillary clearance and also analyze how that process may be related to insufficient blood supply and ischemic stroke, which is the most common form of stroke, to help advance the development of targeted treatments.”

Leveraging the broad, collaborative infrastructure and robust resources of the Center for Neural Circuit Mapping, other team members were Rachita Sumbria, co-first author/co-corresponding author and associate professor in the Chapman University School of Pharmacy; Hai Zhang, co-first author and postdoctoral researcher in UCI’s Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology; Rudy Chang, co-first author and Chapman University School of Pharmacy graduate student; Jiahong Sun, postdoctoral researcher at Chapman University; David Cribbs, professor-in-residence at UCI’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders; and Todd Holmes, UCI professor of physiology & biophysics (Science Daily, 2023).” 

Thank you!” 

Whichever chatbot you’re utilizing then proceeds to take the input you provided and summarize the key points into bullet points for your consideration: 

• A study by the University of California, Irvine, discovered that aged red blood cells interacting with brain capillaries, not just blood vessel injury, can cause cerebral microbleeds. This finding opens new possibilities for treatment and prevention.
• The research, detailed in the Journal of Neuroinflammation, observed how red blood cells stalling in brain capillaries lead to hemorrhages, providing new insights into the development of cerebral microbleeds associated with conditions common in older adults.
• The study challenges previous beliefs about cerebral hemorrhages, suggesting that increased interaction between red blood cells and brain capillaries is an alternative cause. This highlights the need for further research on brain capillary clearance and its relation to conditions like ischemic stroke, potentially advancing targeted treatment development.

Refining

There are times when these tools provide too much information or too many bullet points for your purposes. However, in this example, we were able to avoid that by specifying in the input how many key takeaways you wanted to pull out of the article. After reading over the bullet points, you may decide to add additional bullet points or remove bullet points. You can easily ask the GenAI tool to do this with the following prompt:

“Can you please revise the list to be [number] of bullet points? Thank you.” 

As with all outputs, it is important that you review the content of the bullet points to ensure they truly are the key takeaways from the article you submitted and no hallucinations or false information have been added by the assistant. Similarly, it is up to you as the content expert to decide the level of information to provide learners in the summary and the format of the summary. For example, you may choose to ask the tool to convert the bullet points into a succinct paragraph, table, or other format, depending on the content.

Practical Tips

Explore these tools and their capabilities, learn more about writing successful prompts, and read about other uses on the U-M Information and Technology Services AI Resources page.