Students learn more from summaries than entire chapters – research on summaries confirms
“In a series of experiments, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University compared five-thousand-word chapters from college textbooks with one-thousand-word summaries of those chapters. The textbooks varied in subject: Russian history, African geography, macroeconomics. But the subject made no difference: in all cases, the summaries worked better. When students were given the same amount of the time with each – twenty to thirty minutes – they learned more from the summaries than they did from the chapters. This was true whether the students were tested twenty minutes after they read the material or one year later. In either case, those who read the summaries recalled more than those who read the chapters.” from Errornomics, Why we make mistakes and what we can do to avoid them by Joseph Hallinan
Good summaries are short – like miniskirts – short enough to retain the interest but long enough to cover the subject.
We’ve been saying that for some time now – just download the FREE summary of 37 Speed Reading Techniques
Speed read about the importance of reading summaries (spd rdng technique #26) for getting overview firsts
Read the best book summaries
There have been several studies that have examined the effect of reading summaries versus full texts on memory and comprehension. Here are some relevant references:
- Bretzing, B. H., & Kulhavy, R. W. (1979). Notetaking and depth of processing. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 4(2), 145-153.
- This study found that students who read summaries performed better on comprehension tests than those who read the full text.
- Reder, L. M., & Anderson, J. R. (1980). A comparison of texts and their summaries: Memorial consequences. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19(2), 121-134.
- The results showed that participants who read summaries recalled more important information than those who read the full texts after one week.
- Sanchez, R. P., Lorch, E. P., & Lorch, R. F. (2001). Effects of headings on text processing strategies. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 26(3), 418-428.
- This study found that participants who read texts with summaries (in the form of headings) performed better on comprehension tests than those who read the full texts without headings.
- Hartley, J., & Trueman, M. (1983). The effects of summaries on the recall of information from prose materials. Human Learning, 2(1), 63-82.
- The results showed that participants who read summaries before and after the full text recalled more information than those who only read the full text.
- Bransford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11(6), 717-726.
- This study found that participants who received summaries before reading the full text had better comprehension and recall than those who did not receive summaries.
While these studies vary in their specific methodologies and findings, they generally support the idea that reading summaries can enhance memory and comprehension compared to reading full texts, particularly for retaining the most important information over time.
