How to perform text summarization using ChatGPT

Text summarization is converting a large text body into a shorter version. This short version includes only key points from the original version of the text and provides a concise summary of the text. There are two main types of text summarization:

  • Extractive summarization

  • Abstractive summarization

In extractive summarization, sentences or paragraphs from the original text are taken to create a summary. Whereas, in abstractive summarization, the original text is paraphrased by understanding the context and meaning behind the original text is often more challenging than extractive summarization.

ChatGPT summarizes text by using a process known as fine-tuning. In fine-tuning, the NLP model is trained by using a pre-trained model and adapting it to generate summaries of the text provided by extracting meaningful information. Let’s see the steps we must follow to summarize text using ChatGPT.

Set up ChatGPT

The first thing we need to do is set up ChatGPT. To do this, follow the steps given below:

  1. Navigate to OpenAI’s home page.

  2. Click the “Try ChatGPT” button.

  3. Log in or sign up by providing the required credentials.

  4. Start typing queries in the textbox at the page’s bottom.

Summarize the text using ChatGPT

  1. The first step is to provide the text we want to summarize in the ChatGPT input prompt.

  2. Enter the length for the summarized output text; for example, we can ask ChapGPT to summarize our text within 100 words. Following is a sample query we can use after providing our input text:

Summarize the text given above in less than 200 words
  1. Wait for ChatGPT to summarize the text.

  2. Review the output generated by ChatGPT. We can ask ChatGPT to include any other point in the summarized text from the original text.

Sample text summarized by ChatGPT
Sample text summarized by ChatGPT

Optimize the ChatGPT response

Once we receive a response from ChatGPT, we can fine-grain the response according to our requirements. Some of the things we can ask ChatGPT are given below:

  1. We can ask it to focus on a certain point in the text.

  2. We can ask ChatGPT to perform extractive or abstractive summarization of our text.

  3. We can ask ChatGPT to summarize it in a tone that is easier to understand for our audience. For example, we can provide an essay and ask it to summarize it so that a 10-year-old can easily understand it.

  4. We can give ChatGPT more details if we are not satisfied with its output. Let it know the use case for our text summarization and area of interest.

The following slides show us how ChatGPT summarizes our text based on our queries:

Using abstractive summarization to summarize the text
Using abstractive summarization to summarize the text
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One thing we must keep in mind is that the summarized text provided by ChatGPT depends greatly on the input we provide, so we should make sure to provide high-quality text as input and use multiple iterations to get the required results.

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