A research summary is a concise, accurate account of a completed study, research paper, or body of evidence. It states the problem or purpose, briefly explains the methods, reports the most important findings, and identifies the conclusions or implications. Its length and emphasis should be adapted to the assignment, audience, discipline, and intended use.
A research paper may contain thousands of words, extensive evidence, statistical analyses, theoretical discussions, figures, and references. A research summary reduces that material to the information a particular reader needs most.
This guide explains how to identify the main message of a study, choose an appropriate structure, write accurately and concisely, cite the source, avoid plagiarism, and use digital or AI-based tools responsibly.
Key Takeaways
- A research summary presents the purpose, methods, principal findings, and conclusions of a study.
- Its structure and length depend on the intended reader and use; there is no universal word-count formula.
- An objective summary reports what the source says, while a critical review also evaluates the source.
- Different research designs require different emphasis.
- Paraphrased ideas still need attribution when the summary is based on another author’s work.
- AI may assist with extraction or editing, but a human must verify every statement against the original source.
What Is a Research Summary?
A research summary is a shortened and logically organized representation of research. It communicates the study’s central question, approach, evidence, findings, and meaning without reproducing every detail.
The term can describe either:
- A summary of another researcher’s publication.
- A summary of the writer’s own completed project.
- A brief description of proposed research.
- A concise synthesis of several related studies.
- An accessible version prepared for non-specialist readers.
A strong research summary is not merely a collection of sentences copied from an abstract, introduction, and conclusion. It shows that the writer understands how the research problem, method, evidence, and conclusions connect.
Definition
A research summary is a concise and accurate account of the most important elements of a study or body of research, written for a defined purpose and audience.
The word accurate is as important as concise. Removing too much context can make a technically brief summary misleading. For example, reporting that an intervention “improved performance” without identifying the population, comparison, outcome, or limitations may exaggerate what the study established.
What Is the Purpose of a Research Summary?
The purpose of a research summary is to help readers understand the essential contribution of research without immediately reading the full document.
A summary may help readers:
- Decide whether a paper is relevant.
- Review evidence efficiently.
- Prepare for a seminar or examination.
- Record reading notes for a dissertation or literature review.
- Communicate findings to a supervisor or research team.
- Explain results to policymakers, practitioners, funders, or the public.
- Present a project in an application or proposal.
- Support evidence-based decisions.
The intended reader determines what receives the most attention.
An academic reader may need information about design, sample, analytical method, and limitations. A policymaker may need the problem, principal findings, practical implications, and recommended action. UCL’s policy guidance recommends putting the most relevant information first, using accessible language, and focusing primarily on findings and implications rather than giving a long methodological account.
Types of Research Summaries
1. Single-study summary
This format summarizes one journal article, report, dissertation, conference paper, or book chapter.
It usually includes:
- Source identification
- Research problem
- Objective or argument
- Method
- Main findings
- Conclusion
- Important limitations
2. Summary of your own completed research
This version communicates what you investigated, how you conducted the study, what you found, and why the findings matter.
Because you are summarizing your own work, first-person language may be acceptable when permitted by the required style:
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 participants.
A journal, institution, or supervisor may prefer impersonal or third-person phrasing, so local requirements should take priority.
3. Proposed-research summary
A proposed-research summary describes research that has not yet been completed. It therefore presents:
- The research area
- Problem or gap
- Question and objectives
- Proposed methods
- Expected contribution
- Potential significance
It should not present anticipated results as established findings. Utah Valley University’s proposal guidance distinguishes expected outcomes from completed findings and recommends explaining the context, objectives, variables, methods, and potential significance.
4. Multi-study research summary
This form condenses evidence from several publications. It does more than list one paper after another. The writer groups studies by:
- Theme
- Method
- Population
- Finding
- Agreement or disagreement
- Strength of evidence
- Research gap
A multi-study summary approaches a brief evidence synthesis, although it is usually less extensive and less critical than a full literature review.
5. Plain-language or lay summary
A plain-language summary translates research for readers who may not possess specialist training. It retains the central evidence while replacing unexplained jargon, dense statistical language, and discipline-specific assumptions.
Peer-reviewed research shows that plain-language summaries use varied names and formats and that guidance remains inconsistent across publications. This makes explicit audience definition especially important.
6. Policy or stakeholder summary
A policy summary concentrates on:
- The current problem
- Why the research matters
- Principal findings
- Implications for decisions
- Practical recommendations
- Relevant limitations
Recommendations should follow from the evidence rather than from unsupported preference.
What Should a Research Summary Include?
Most summaries need five core elements: context, purpose, methods, findings, and conclusion. Other elements may be added when relevant.
| Component | Question answered | What to include |
|---|---|---|
| Source identification | What is being summarized? | Author, year, title, project, or report |
| Context | What problem does the research address? | Essential background or knowledge gap |
| Purpose | What did the study seek to discover or explain? | Objective, research question, hypothesis, or central argument |
| Methods | How was the evidence produced? | Design, data source, participants, procedure, measures, and analysis |
| Findings | What did the researchers find? | Results that directly answer the research question |
| Conclusion | What do the authors conclude? | Interpretation grounded in the reported findings |
| Significance | Why does the research matter? | Theoretical, practical, policy, or methodological contribution |
| Limitations | What restricts interpretation? | Important design, sample, measurement, or generalizability limitations |
| Recommendations | What action or research follows? | Include only when required and supported by the evidence |
Context
Provide only the background necessary to understand the research problem. A summary does not need to reproduce the full literature review.
Weak:
Many researchers have studied education for a long time, and technology is now very important in education.
Stronger:
The study examined whether low-bandwidth mobile learning could improve course participation among students with unreliable internet access.
Purpose or research question
State exactly what the researchers investigated.
Useful verbs include:
- Examined
- Compared
- Tested
- Explored
- Estimated
- Evaluated
- Developed
- Synthesized
- Interpreted
Avoid vague phrases such as “the research was about” when a more precise verb is available.
Methods
The method section should be brief but informative enough for the reader to judge what kind of evidence was produced.
Depending on the study, mention:
- Quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, experimental, observational, or review design
- Population or data source
- Sample size when important
- Data-collection method
- Comparison groups
- Time period
- Main analytical approach
Do not list every instrument, software package, statistical test, interview question, or procedural detail unless it affects interpretation.
Findings
Prioritize findings that answer the research question. Secondary findings should appear only when they are necessary to understand the study.
For quantitative studies, retain the direction and practical meaning of the result. Include exact numerical estimates when they are central to the claim or required by the assignment.
For qualitative studies, identify the major themes or interpretive findings without turning a few participant comments into universal conclusions.
Conclusion and implications
Distinguish between:
- Result: What the data showed.
- Interpretation: What the authors believe the result means.
- Implication: Why the finding matters.
- Recommendation: What should be done next.
A summary should not silently turn a correlation into causation or a tentative interpretation into certainty.
Research Summary vs. Abstract and Related Formats
A research summary overlaps with several academic formats but is not identical to them.
| Format | Main purpose | Typical content | Evaluation included? | Usual audience |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Research summary | Explain the essential content of research | Purpose, methods, findings, conclusion, implications | Usually no, unless requested | Students, researchers, professionals, stakeholders |
| Abstract | Represent a paper at the point of publication or submission | Highly compressed overview of the paper | Normally no independent evaluation | Database users, journal readers, reviewers |
| Executive summary | Support decisions about a longer report | Problem, findings, conclusions, recommendations | May prioritize action and organizational implications | Managers, clients, policymakers |
| Literature review | Synthesize and evaluate a field of research | Themes, methods, debates, gaps, evidence quality | Yes | Academic readers |
| Critical review | Summarize and assess a source | Main claims plus strengths, weaknesses, and judgement | Yes | Instructors and scholarly readers |
| Annotated bibliography | Record and sometimes evaluate individual sources | Citation plus short description or assessment | Sometimes | Researchers and students |
| Conclusion | Close a specific paper or report | Answer, significance, limitations, recommendations | Interprets the writer’s own work | Readers of the full document |
| Plain-language summary | Make research understandable to non-specialists | Purpose, methods, findings, meaning in accessible language | Normally explanatory rather than critical | Public, patients, practitioners, community groups |
Is a research summary the same as an abstract?
No. An abstract is a standardized part of a paper, thesis, conference submission, or database record. A research summary is a broader category that can be longer, separately commissioned, tailored to a particular audience, or written about someone else’s work.
An abstract can serve as one source of information when preparing a summary, but copying or lightly rewriting the abstract is not an adequate method. The full paper may contain limitations, qualifications, and findings not visible in the abstract.
Is a research summary a critical review?
Not unless evaluation is requested.
An objective summary reports the source faithfully. A critical review first summarizes and then evaluates the source’s argument, method, evidence, assumptions, and contribution.
Keep these functions visibly separate:
Summary: The authors found that participants in the intervention group completed more weekly practice tasks.
Evaluation: However, the voluntary recruitment process may have produced a sample with unusually high motivation.
How Long Should a Research Summary Be?
A research summary should be long enough to communicate the essential evidence accurately and short enough to remain useful to its intended reader.
There is no universal rule that a summary must equal a fixed percentage of the original document.
| Use case | Practical working range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Brief reading note | 100–200 words | Useful for a research journal or source database |
| Classroom article summary | 250–500 words | Follow the assignment instructions |
| Structured single-study summary | 500–1,000 words | Appropriate when methods and limitations require explanation |
| One-page stakeholder summary | About one page | Put the principal message and findings first |
| Project or proposal summary | One to two pages | May include objectives, proposed methods, outcomes, significance, and resources |
| Extended evidence summary | Two or more pages | Suitable for several studies or a complex report |
UCL suggests that a single page is ideal for many policy-facing summaries, while Utah Valley University uses a one- or two-page format for project and proposal summaries. These examples demonstrate why audience and purpose are more useful than a universal percentage rule.
When the instructor, journal, funder, or institution provides a word limit, that requirement overrides general advice.
How to Write a Research Summary
Step 1: Clarify the assignment and audience
Before reading in detail, determine:
- Are you summarizing your own study or another author’s work?
- Is the source completed research or a proposal?
- Is evaluation required?
- Who will read the summary?
- What is the word limit?
- Are headings required?
- What citation style is expected?
- Should recommendations or limitations be included?
These decisions affect what you extract from the source.
Step 2: Identify the source and research type
Record the full citation and classify the source:
- Empirical quantitative study
- Empirical qualitative study
- Mixed-methods study
- Systematic or scoping review
- Theoretical paper
- Methodological paper
- Case study
- Research report
- Proposed project
Classification prevents you from forcing every source into an inappropriate experimental structure.
Step 3: Read strategically
A useful first pass is:
- Read the title and abstract.
- Read the introduction’s final paragraphs to locate the objective.
- Examine headings, figures, and tables.
- Read the methods.
- Read the results.
- Read the discussion and conclusion.
- Return to difficult sections.
University paper-summary guidance recommends an initial skim, a complete reading, and then a return to technically important details such as equations, algorithms, or analyses.
Step 4: Complete an extraction sheet
Use a short worksheet rather than drafting immediately.
| Extraction question | Notes |
|---|---|
| What problem is addressed? | |
| What is the research question or objective? | |
| What design was used? | |
| Who or what was studied? | |
| How were data collected? | |
| How were data analysed? | |
| What are the two or three principal findings? | |
| What do the authors conclude? | |
| What limitation most affects interpretation? | |
| Why does the study matter? |
Write notes in your own words. This reduces the risk of reproducing source phrasing.
Step 5: Identify the study’s central message
Complete this sentence:
This study used [method] to investigate [question] and found [main result], suggesting [carefully qualified implication].
This is not necessarily the final opening sentence. It is a test of whether you understand the study.
Step 6: Create a proportionate outline
A 400-word empirical summary might allocate approximately:
- 50–70 words to context and purpose
- 70–100 words to methods
- 140–180 words to findings
- 60–90 words to conclusion, implications, and limitations
These are planning proportions, not mandatory rules. A methodological paper may need more space for the approach; a policy summary may devote more space to implications.
Step 7: Draft from notes rather than copying the paper
Close or minimize the original source while writing the first draft. Use your extraction sheet and outline.
This practice encourages genuine paraphrasing because you reconstruct the meaning rather than editing the author’s sentences word by word.
Useful reporting phrases include:
- The study examined…
- The researchers used…
- Data were collected through…
- The analysis identified…
- The results indicated…
- The authors concluded…
- The findings may suggest…
- A major limitation was…
Step 8: Verify every statement
Compare the draft with the original source.
Check:
- Numbers
- Population
- Direction of relationships
- Comparison groups
- Time period
- Statistical significance
- Theme labels
- Limitations
- Causal wording
- Conclusions
Ask whether the authors themselves would recognize the summary as a fair account of their work.
Step 9: Revise for relevance and concision
Delete material that does not help the reader understand:
- The research question
- Evidence
- Main finding
- Interpretation
- Significance
- Essential limitations
Combine repetitive sentences and replace long introductory language with direct statements.
Wordy:
It is important to point out the fact that the researchers in this particular study made use of interviews as the main method through which they collected the data.
Concise:
The researchers collected data through interviews.
Step 10: Check attribution, style, and requirements
Confirm that:
- The source is cited.
- Direct wording is quoted.
- Paraphrases are genuinely rewritten.
- The required citation style is consistent.
- Headings, word count, and formatting meet the assignment.
- AI assistance has been disclosed when required.
How to Adapt the Structure to Different Research Types
Quantitative empirical study
Prioritize:
- Objective or hypothesis
- Design
- Population and sample
- Measures or variables
- Analytical method
- Principal numerical findings
- Interpretation and limitations
Avoid reporting only whether a result was “significant.” Where space permits, explain its direction and practical meaning.
Qualitative study
Prioritize:
- Research purpose
- Context and participant group
- Qualitative approach
- Data-collection method
- Analytical approach
- Principal themes or interpretations
- Reflexivity, transferability, or contextual limitations
Do not present themes as if they were population-wide statistical estimates.
Mixed-methods study
Explain:
- Why quantitative and qualitative methods were combined.
- The sequence or relationship between the components.
- The main result from each component.
- What the integration added.
Systematic review or meta-analysis
Include:
- Review question
- Eligibility criteria
- Databases or evidence sources
- Number and type of included studies
- Synthesis method
- Main pooled or thematic findings
- Certainty, heterogeneity, or risk-of-bias concerns
- Conclusion
Theoretical or conceptual paper
Replace participant and data-collection details with:
- Central problem
- Thesis or proposed concept
- Major premises
- Reasoning or evidence used
- Relationship to existing theory
- Principal contribution
- Limitations or unresolved questions
Methodological paper
Focus on:
- Problem with existing methods
- Proposed method or framework
- How it works
- Validation or demonstration
- Advantages
- Assumptions
- Limitations
- Appropriate applications
Proposed research
Use future-oriented language:
- The project will examine…
- Data will be collected…
- The proposed analysis will…
- The study is expected to contribute…
Do not write “the study found” when no data have yet been collected.
Research Summary Template
Template for summarizing a completed empirical study
Reference:
Provide the complete citation in the required style.
Background and purpose:
[Author or research team] investigated [specific problem] because [brief context or gap]. The study aimed to [objective, question, or hypothesis].
Methods:
The researchers used a [design] involving [participants, cases, records, documents, or dataset]. Data were collected through [method] and analysed using [analytical approach].
Findings:
The study found that [principal result]. It also identified [second important result]. These findings [supported, did not support, or partially supported] the original expectation.
Conclusion and significance:
The authors concluded that [carefully stated conclusion]. The research is important because [theoretical, practical, policy, or methodological significance].
Limitations:
Interpretation is limited by [most important limitation].
One-paragraph template
[Author] ([year]) examined [research problem or question] using [design and data source]. The study involved [sample or material] and analysed [main variables, texts, experiences, or outcomes] through [method]. The results showed [principal finding], while [secondary finding]. The authors concluded that [conclusion or implication]. However, [important limitation] restricts [generalizability, causal interpretation, certainty, or transferability].
Research Summary Example
Hypothetical source
The following example is fictional and is provided only to demonstrate structure. It does not represent a real study or real dataset.
Hypothetical title: Retrieval Practice and Weekly Quiz Performance Among First-Year University Students
Example research summary
A hypothetical study examined whether short retrieval-practice activities improved weekly quiz performance among first-year university students. The researchers used a twelve-week quasi-experimental design involving two introductory courses. Students in one course completed three low-stakes retrieval questions after each lecture, while students in the comparison course reviewed a lecturer-prepared summary covering the same material.
The researchers compared weekly quiz scores and end-of-term retention-test performance while accounting for students’ initial diagnostic scores. Students in the retrieval-practice course achieved higher average weekly quiz scores and retained more material at the end of the term. However, the difference between intact courses made it difficult to determine whether retrieval practice alone caused the improvement.
The hypothetical authors concluded that brief retrieval activities may support learning when integrated into regular teaching. They recommended a randomized multi-course study to test whether the effect remains after controlling more fully for instructor, course, and student differences.
Why the example works
The example:
- Identifies the research problem.
- Describes the design and comparison.
- Reports the main findings.
- Avoids invented technical statistics.
- Distinguishes association from firm causal proof.
- Includes a design limitation.
- Ends with a qualified implication and future-research recommendation.
Citation, Paraphrasing, and Plagiarism
Does a research summary need citations?
A summary of another person’s work normally requires citation because the ideas, evidence, and conclusions belong to the original authors even when expressed in new words.
Use a narrative citation:
Rivera and Chen (2025) examined how doctoral students evaluated AI-generated references.
Or a parenthetical citation:
The study examined how doctoral students evaluated AI-generated references (Rivera & Chen, 2025).
The citation format should follow the required style. This article recommends APA 7th edition for the target academic audience.
Paraphrasing is more than replacing words
Patchwriting occurs when a writer keeps the original sentence structure and substitutes a few synonyms.
Original-style structure:
The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to investigate participants’ experiences of remote supervision.
Weak patchwriting:
The investigators carried out semi-structured interviews to explore the participants’ experiences with online supervision.
Stronger paraphrase:
Participants described their experiences of remote supervision during individual interviews guided by a flexible question schedule.
The stronger version reconstructs the meaning and sentence structure.
Use quotations sparingly
A short quotation may be justified when the original wording is:
- A formal definition
- A distinctive theoretical claim
- A participant quotation
- A phrase being analysed
Most research summaries should rely mainly on paraphrase. University guidance notes that borrowed wording requires quotation and attribution and warns that excessive quotation may indicate that the writer has not fully processed the source.
Do not cite an AI summary as the evidence source
Read and cite the original paper, report, dataset, or official document. An AI system’s description is not a substitute for the underlying evidence.
Advantages and Limitations of Research Summaries
Advantages
A well-designed summary can:
- Save readers time.
- Improve recall of a source.
- Make complex research easier to discuss.
- Support literature searching and screening.
- Communicate evidence to non-specialists.
- Create a record for later synthesis.
- Help researchers detect the central contribution of a paper.
- Encourage precise distinctions between method, result, and interpretation.
Limitations
A summary inevitably removes information. This can lead to:
- Loss of methodological detail.
- Omission of uncertainty.
- Oversimplification of conflicting results.
- Reduced visibility of minority or negative findings.
- Misrepresentation of qualitative context.
- Excessive confidence in tentative conclusions.
- Dependence on the summarizer’s judgement about importance.
A research summary should therefore not be treated as a complete substitute for the original source when decisions require close evaluation.
Common Research-Summary Mistakes
1. Rewriting only the abstract
The abstract is useful for orientation, but it may not contain all limitations, secondary findings, definitions, or methodological qualifications.
2. Including too much background
A summary does not need a miniature literature review unless context is essential to the research question.
3. Listing methods without explaining the design
Naming software or tests is less useful than identifying what evidence was collected and how it addressed the research question.
4. Reporting every result
Select the findings that answer the principal question. Do not reproduce a results table in prose.
5. Adding personal opinion to an objective summary
Comments such as “the article was very interesting” or “the authors should have studied more people” belong in an evaluation, not an objective summary.
6. Omitting limitations
A concise limitation can prevent serious overinterpretation. This is especially important when a small, non-random, cross-sectional, or context-specific study is being summarized.
7. Using causal language for correlational evidence
“Was associated with” and “predicted” do not automatically mean “caused.”
8. Copying source language
Changing a few words does not make a sentence original. Read, understand, close the source, and reconstruct the idea.
9. Applying one format to every discipline
A humanities argument, laboratory experiment, ethnography, legal analysis, and meta-analysis require different summaries.
10. Trusting automated output without verification
AI tools can omit negations, merge separate findings, invent details, misunderstand tables, and produce nonexistent citations. Verification against the full source is essential.
Research Summaries in Modern Research Communication
Research summaries now appear in more formats than traditional classroom assignments.
Plain-language summaries
Journals, funders, public agencies, and research organizations increasingly use accessible summaries to explain research to non-specialists. Plain-language writing should preserve scientific meaning rather than merely replace technical words with simpler vocabulary.
NIH guidance organizes plain-language practice around planning, connecting with readers, presenting information, visual clarity, testing, and revision.
Policy summaries
A policy summary should connect findings to a defined policy question. It should make clear:
- What evidence was examined.
- What the evidence supports.
- What remains uncertain.
- Which recommendations follow from the findings.
UCL emphasizes targeting a specific audience, prioritizing findings and implications, using accessible language, and making recommendations actionable rather than vague.
Reporting guidelines
A summary cannot correct incomplete research reporting, but reporting checklists can help a writer identify information that should not be omitted.
The EQUATOR Network describes reporting guidelines as structured tools that identify the minimum information readers need to understand and use research. Its library includes guidelines for randomized trials, observational studies, systematic reviews, qualitative research, case reports, diagnostic studies, and AI-related research.
Examples include:
- CONSORT for randomized trials
- STROBE for observational studies
- PRISMA for systematic reviews
- COREQ and SRQR for qualitative research
- STARD for diagnostic-accuracy studies
- CARE for case reports
A summary writer does not need to reproduce an entire checklist. The relevant guideline can instead be used to verify that the summary identifies the design, participants, intervention or exposure, outcomes, and important limitations accurately.
Visual and multimedia summaries
Research may also be communicated through:
- Graphical abstracts
- Research posters
- Infographics
- Video abstracts
- Slide summaries
- Interactive evidence dashboards
These formats should be based on a verified written summary. Visual simplicity must not remove essential qualifications or make findings appear stronger than they are.
Digital Tools and Responsible AI Use
Useful digital tools
Researchers may use:
- PDF annotation software
- Reference managers
- Research-note databases
- Spreadsheets for extraction tables
- Qualitative coding tools
- Statistical software
- Word processors with revision tracking
- Readability and grammar checkers
- AI-assisted summarization systems
Tools can improve organization, but none replaces subject knowledge and source verification.
Responsible uses of AI
AI may assist with:
- Producing an initial list of candidate findings.
- Turning extraction notes into a provisional outline.
- Identifying repeated wording.
- Suggesting a shorter sentence.
- Translating specialist language into a draft plain-language explanation.
- Checking whether required components appear.
Unsafe or unreliable uses
Do not rely on AI to:
- Read only the abstract and infer the full study.
- Generate numerical results from incomplete information.
- Decide independently which limitations matter.
- create or “complete” missing citations.
- summarize confidential or unpublished work in an unsecured system.
- determine whether a causal claim is justified without human review.
- replace close reading of the source.
Human-verification workflow
- Read the original source.
- Complete the extraction sheet manually.
- Provide only permitted material to the tool.
- Ask for a provisional structure rather than a final authoritative summary.
- Check every sentence against the source.
- Verify all numbers, citations, and quotations separately.
- Rewrite unclear or generic language.
- disclose AI assistance when required.
- Retain responsibility for the final text.
UNESCO’s guidance recommends a human-centred approach to generative AI in education and research, with attention to privacy, ethical validation, equity, and meaningful human control.
ICMJE states that AI tools should not be credited as authors, that human authors remain responsible for accuracy and originality, and that AI use should be disclosed according to the relevant publication requirements.
Final Research-Summary Checklist
Before submitting, confirm that the summary:
- Identifies the source or project.
- States the research problem or objective.
- Describes the design accurately.
- Identifies the population, sample, documents, or data.
- Reports the most important findings.
- Separates findings from interpretation.
- Uses qualified language.
- Includes a significant limitation when relevant.
- Explains why the research matters.
- Contains no unsupported opinion.
- Uses genuinely original phrasing.
- Cites the source correctly.
- Meets the required word count and format.
- Defines technical terms needed by the audience.
- Has been checked against the full source.
- Contains no fabricated references or statistics.
- Discloses AI assistance when required.
Conclusion
A research summary is a purpose-built, condensed explanation of research rather than a mechanically shortened paper. The best summaries preserve the connection between the research question, method, evidence, conclusion, and limitations while removing secondary detail. Accuracy, audience awareness, clear attribution, and careful verification matter more than following a universal word-count formula.
