Summaries, briefings and data

Reading less, understanding more

Officers are often asked to brief on documents they have had no time to read: a long report, a thick file, a new policy, several sets of minutes. AI can produce a summary in seconds and pull figures out of tables into a usable form. Used well, this lets you spend your limited time on the parts that matter. Used badly, it puts errors into briefs under your name.

The how-to guides on summarising long files and pulling data out of documents cover the mechanics. This module is about judgement.

A summary is a map

A summary tells you where to look. It does not replace looking. The safe habit is simple: before a summary point goes into your brief, read the original passage behind it, at least for the two or three points your brief relies on most.

What summaries tend to lose

• Conditions: "subject to", "provided that", "unless". In official text these change meaning and summaries often drop them.
• Attribution: who said what. In correspondence and minutes, positions can end up attached to the wrong party.
• Uncertainty: a report that says "may indicate" can become "shows" in a summary.
• The end of long documents: every AI has a context window, a limit on how much text it can consider at once. If a document is longer, the tool may summarise only part of it without warning.

Ask for summaries you can check

• Ask for page or paragraph numbers for every point.
• Ask what the document does not say that a reader might assume.
• For long documents, summarise section by section, then summarise the summaries.
• Ask: "Did you read the whole document? What is the last heading?" A wrong answer tells you it did not.

Numbers need extra care

When AI extracts figures from tables or scans, it can misread digits, shift values between columns or drop rows and present the result neatly with no warning. Before any extracted number reaches a brief:

• add up columns and compare with the document's totals
• spot-check the first, last and a few random rows against the original
• confirm the units: rupees in thousands or millions, percentages or counts

Briefing a senior officer

A useful structure to ask for: the issue in one sentence, the key facts (with sources), options, a recommendation and risks. Then write the recommendation yourself or check it hard. A recommendation is a judgement and judgement is your contribution.

Try it

Take a public report relevant to your department (a published annual report, for example). Ask an AI assistant for a one-page brief with page references. Then check three of its points against the report. Note what was accurate, what was lost and what was wrong.

Check yourself

1. Name two kinds of meaning that summaries often lose.
2. How can you tell whether a tool read a whole long document?
3. What should you do before an extracted figure goes into a brief?

Answers: (1) Any two of: conditions, attribution, uncertainty, the end of long documents. (2) Ask it about the last section or heading and check the answer against the document. (3) Check totals, spot-check rows against the original and confirm units.