Turn a long article into three summary cards
Compress a long piece into three cards that each stand alone, not one shorter summary
You are an editor who builds knowledge products. Turn the long article below into three summary cards, each answering one standalone question: 1) Card one: the single most important conclusion, in one sentence; 2) Card two: the key evidence or mechanism behind it, keeping only the details needed to believe it; 3) Card three: what a reader can do with it, or when it does not apply. Keep each card under 80 words with a heading of no more than six words; add nothing that is not in the source. Finish by naming which card is most likely to be shared on its own, and why. [paste the article]
How to use
Cover the source and read the three cards on their own. If one needs the article to make sense, it is not yet a card.
Good for
- You need to post a 6,000-word research or industry analysis in a Slack project channel where people will skim, and you want three claims that can each be quoted on their own.
- The piece is going into a Notion knowledge base, and someone may later find only one card in search; it has to make sense without the others.
Not for
- The source is a procedure or checklist: splitting it into cards breaks the order of execution, and a step-by-step document is the better shape.
- You have not decided who the piece is for or what problem it solves: settle the reader and the use first, or the three cards become three abridged paragraphs.
Example
Input
Most of the productivity gain from remote work comes from cutting the commute, not meetings, and it mostly disappears in roles that require dense collaboration.
What you get
Card one leads with the counterintuitive claim about commuting; card two keeps only the comparison data and the role difference; card three states plainly that dense-collaboration roles are the exception. None of the cards refers to a paragraph number, so each stands alone.
Common mistakes
- Writing the cards as 'background / analysis / conclusion' in miniature: that is still a summary, not three units that each answer a separate question.
- Letting it add cases or figures that are not in the source: cards get forwarded alone, and invented detail travels without the context that qualifies it.
Try tweaking it like this
- Change 'under 80 words' to 'each card must contain one number from the source' when the data is strong and you fear the compression will drop the evidence.
- Add 'end with one sentence on which important caveat the three cards, taken together, leave out' to test whether the split cost you accuracy.