In five experiments, we consistently found that items included in summaries were better remembered than items omitted from summaries. We did not, however, find evidence that summary writing was better than merely restudying the text. These patterns held with shorter and longer texts, when the text was present or absent during the summary writing,…

A review of current research in writing to learn in the content areas provides a basis for focusing on instructional strategies, use of text structure frames, and metacognitive writing strategies. Students can use writing to comprehend to learn content area text in a variety of ways based on their particular learning objectives for that particular…