Summarise a text in your own words with Bonnie

Example: keep the reason and the uncertainty

Practice passage: 'A neighbourhood workshop used to accept bicycles without appointments. Queues formed on Saturdays, while some midweek hours were quiet. The workshop introduced time slots and retained a few places for urgent repairs. After a month, the team decided to continue: distributing the work was easier. They do not yet know whether the number of customers has increased.'

The workshop introduced appointments to distribute its workload across the week, keeping space for urgent repairs. Planning became easier, so the trial continues. An increase in customer numbers has not yet been established.

• The cause of the change remains: an uneven workload.
• The decision and the urgent-repair exception are included.
• Easier planning has not become an invented claim of higher sales.

Build a summary with a clear thread

With a long document, agreeing an outline first can help. You can then explore the relevant section without losing its connection to the rest.

1. Choose the goal: understanding the material, explaining it to someone or preparing a talk.
2. Identify the topic and main point. For a story, note the sequence of events.
3. Keep the causes, key facts and conclusions needed to preserve the meaning.
4. Remove secondary examples and repetition when they aren't needed for your goal.
5. Compare the summary with the original for added facts or missing qualifications.

Choose a useful output

Continue with a concrete request: 'Make it sound less like a textbook', 'Restore that important qualification' or 'I'll retell it; compare my version with the source'. The summary can become the start of a conversation about the material.