Tell It the Audience and the Length First

A framing step: state who the summary is for and how long it should be before asking for it, so the model keeps what that reader needs and cuts the rest.

'Summarise this' has no target, so the model guesses at length and audience and usually returns a generic middle. Naming the reader tells it what to keep — an exec wants the decision, an engineer wants the mechanism — and naming the length forces real prioritisation instead of a vague trim.

Any summary meant for a specific reader or slot: a briefing for your boss, a one-liner for a channel, an abstract with a word limit.

A quick personal gist just to orient yourself, where audience and length don't matter and specifying them is overhead.

Summarise <document> for <audience — who they are, what they care about, what they already know>. Length: <exact — e.g. 3 bullets / 100 words / one sentence>. Keep what this reader needs to act; cut the rest.

'Summarise for our CFO in 3 bullets, focus on cost and risk' returns a sharp financial brief instead of an even-handed recap that buries the money in paragraph four.

• Asking to 'summarise' with no reader, getting a generic middle.
• Leaving length open, so you get a page when you needed a line.
• Naming an audience but not what they care about, so the emphasis is off.