# Beyond Text Generation: Supporting Writers with Continuous Automatic Text Summaries

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.09323 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.09323/

## Key facts

- Cited by 47 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 14 of its 61 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Aug 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10683/) (2019)
- [Get To The Point: Summarization with Pointer-Generator Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1704.04368/) (2017)
- [CoAuthor: Designing a Human-AI Collaborative Writing Dataset for Exploring Language Model Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.06796/) (2022)
- [Neural Text Summarization: A Critical Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.08960/) (2019)
- [Screen2Words: Automatic Mobile UI Summarization with Multimodal Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.03353/) (2021)
- [Gmail Smart Compose: Real-Time Assisted Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00080/) (2019)
- [The Impact of Multiple Parallel Phrase Suggestions on Email Input and Composition Behaviour of Native and Non-Native English Writers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.09157/) (2021)
- [Designing Creative AI Partners with COFI: A Framework for Modeling Interaction in Human-AI Co-Creative Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.07666/) (2022)
- [Smart Reply: Automated Response Suggestion for Email](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04870/) (2016)
- [Controllable Neural Story Plot Generation via Reward Shaping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.10736/) (2018)
- [CharacterChat: Supporting the Creation of Fictional Characters through Conversation and Progressive Manifestation with a Chatbot](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.12314/) (2021)
- [Conversations with Documents. An Exploration of Document-Centered Assistance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.00747/) (2020)
- [Hierarchical Summarization for Longform Spoken Dialog](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09597/) (2021)
- [Scones: Towards Conversational Authoring of Sketches](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.07781/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 47)

- [Co-Writing with Opinionated Language Models Affects Users' Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00560/) (2023)
- [A Design Space for Intelligent and Interactive Writing Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14117/) (2024)
- [Luminate: Structured Generation and Exploration of Design Space with Large Language Models for Human-AI Co-Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.12953/) (2023)
- [Can AI writing be salvaged? Mitigating Idiosyncrasies and Improving Human-AI Alignment in the Writing Process through Edits](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14509/) (2024)
- [VISAR: A Human-AI Argumentative Writing Assistant with Visual Programming and Rapid Draft Prototyping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07810/) (2023)
- [Writer-Defined AI Personas for On-Demand Feedback Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.10433/) (2023)
- [The RealHumanEval: Evaluating Large Language Models' Abilities to Support Programmers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02806/) (2024)
- [DataTales: Investigating the use of Large Language Models for Authoring Data-Driven Articles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04076/) (2023)
- [RELIC: Investigating Large Language Model Responses using Self-Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16842/) (2023)
- [The AI Ghostwriter Effect: When Users Do Not Perceive Ownership of AI-Generated Text But Self-Declare as Authors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03283/) (2023)
- [GhostWriter: Augmenting Collaborative Human-AI Writing Experiences Through Personalization and Agency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.08855/) (2024)
- [Position: Towards Bidirectional Human-AI Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09264/) (2024)
- ["It Felt Like Having a Second Mind": Investigating Human-AI Co-creativity in Prewriting with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10811/) (2023)
- ["It was 80% me, 20% AI": Seeking Authenticity in Co-Writing with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.13032/) (2024)
- [Co-Writing with AI, on Human Terms: Aligning Research with User Demands Across the Writing Process](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12488/) (2025)
- [Generative Echo Chamber? Effects of LLM-Powered Search Systems on Diverse Information Seeking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05880/) (2024)
- [Authors' Values and Attitudes Towards AI-bridged Scalable Personalization of Creative Language Arts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00439/) (2024)
- [Collage is the New Writing: Exploring the Fragmentation of Text and User Interfaces in AI Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17217/) (2024)
- [Storyfier: Exploring Vocabulary Learning Support with Text Generation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03864/) (2023)
- [Exploring Perspectives on the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Creativity of Knowledge Work: Beyond Mechanised Plagiarism and Stochastic Parrots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.10751/) (2023)
- [CatAlyst: Domain-Extensible Intervention for Preventing Task Procrastination Using Large Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05678/) (2023)
- [Generative AI in Knowledge Work: Design Implications for Data Navigation and Decision-Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18419/) (2025)
- [Parachute: Evaluating Interactive Human-LM Co-writing Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06333/) (2023)
- [Mapping the Design Space of Interactions in Human-AI Text Co-creation Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06430/) (2023)
- [LMCanvas: Object-Oriented Interaction to Personalize Large Language Model-Powered Writing Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15125/) (2023)
- [TutoAI: A Cross-domain Framework for AI-assisted Mixed-media Tutorial Creation on Physical Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08049/) (2024)
- [Language Models as Critical Thinking Tools: A Case Study of Philosophers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.04516/) (2024)
- [CorpusStudio: Surfacing Emergent Patterns in a Corpus of Prior Work while Writing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12436/) (2025)
- [StorySage: Conversational Autobiography Writing Powered by a Multi-Agent Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14159/) (2025)
- [A Systematic Review of Human-AI Co-Creativity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.21333/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We propose a text editor to help users plan, structure and reflect on their writing process. It provides continuously updated paragraph-wise summaries as margin annotations, using automatic text summarization. Summary levels range from full text, to selected (central) sentences, down to a collection of keywords. To understand how users interact with this system during writing, we conducted two user studies (N=4 and N=8) in which people wrote analytic essays about a given topic and article. As a key finding, the summaries gave users an external perspective on their writing and helped them to revise the content and scope of their drafted paragraphs. People further used the tool to quickly gain an overview of the text and developed strategies to integrate insights from the automated summaries. More broadly, this work explores and highlights the value of designing AI tools for writers, with Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities that go beyond direct text generation and correction.