ABSTRACT
Summaries can help individuals grasp the most important facts about events without being distracted by peripheral information. A good summary not only includes central ideas, but presents these ideas in a succinctly organized manner that results in a coherent representation of an event. If given this smaller, general representation, readers can begin to create a knowledge structure for the summarized event, this structure can later guide the reader in understanding the event's details. We would like to understand how “good” summaries can be generated and how these summaries can be used to aid comprehension. Initially, however, we need to investigate the more general aspects of summarization.
