Medium’s New Feature: “Article Summary”
I have a hard time remembering what I read. The morning articles are faint in the afternoon and vanish by the bedtime.
I applied the technique called, “Recap”, to solve this issue. A recap is the summary of an article’s key points and my opinions upon them. It improves reading engagement, solidifies memories and eases a revision.
I store recaps on Evernote. Each recap has its corresponding article’s link for a future reference. It is inconvenient as an article and its recap are separated.
Lately, Medium has been my mainstream of articles. I found a hack on Medium that can house together an article and its recap using a private note.
A private note is a short note on the selected text of an article.
I select the headline of an article and insert a recap as its private note.
Hooray. I would love to write “The end.” here and move on with my life. However, this brilliant hack poses three problems.
Firstly, the private note is not editable. The only way to edit it is by replacing an existing note with a new one.
Secondly, the private note is semi-private. The author and editors of an article can also see the note. It inhibits the creativity of my recaps, which is often quite dark and dirty.
Thirdly, the author of an article can turn off the private note which leaves me with no choice but to go back to my old friend, Evernote.
Medium should have an “Article Summary” by which users can attach their personal summary to an article.
There is one catch though. If the article is removed, so is the article summary, but I will leave this issue in capable hands of Medium team.
I published this article to gather opinions and refine my request before submitting it to Medium. Moreover, As Medium is a social media for blogging, this is the Medium way of a feature request.
Before you go:
- What is your hack on summarizing an article?
- What do you think about an “Article Summary” feature?
If you like my handwriting, here are a few more:
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 285,454+ people.
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