Guidelines
Attribution & house style
Why not AI summary?
AI summary is not the same as a perception of a human being. On Synopses, we want to know what a writing can mean in short form, sometimes it can be perceived differently to different people. And different people can relate to different synopses.
We can discuss, debate and appreciate each others perceptions. You can give a sticker if someone's synopsis can relate to your view/understanding of the full work, or just write your own.
Synopses exists to make knowledge more accessible. Simplifying difficult work is valuable; presenting someone else's work without credit is not. Both principles guide what is published here, and attribution is treated strictly.
Attribution
- 01
Name the original work and its author
Every synopsis carries a credit block: the original title, the person or team who created it, and the type of work. Without it, a synopsis cannot be published.
- 02
Link the source
Readers should be able to reach the full work in one click. If a work is offline, name the publisher, edition or DOI so it can still be found.
- 03
Summarise, don't copy
Restate the idea in your own plain words. Long verbatim passages are not a summary; any short quotes should be marked as quotes.
- 04
Represent findings honestly
If the original says 'may', your synopsis says 'may'. Simplifying is encouraged; overstating is not.
- 05
Only add a full work you have the right to share
Users may submit Full Works only when they have the right to make them available on Synopses. Publicly accessible does not automatically mean freely redistributable. Public-domain works, openly licensed works and your own writing can go in whole; anything else goes in as an external link to where it can be read or bought.
- 06
Enforcement
Missing or inaccurate credit will result in the synopsis being removed. Repeated violations may restrict an account — first from publishing, then from commenting.
House style
- Use the easiest words that still carry the real knowledge — write for as many people as possible, not for specialists.
- Short words beat long ones. If a plain word exists, use it.
- Make each paragraph earn its place, and stop when the idea is done.
- Explain jargon the first time or drop it entirely.
- Lead with the finding, not the history of the field.
- A reader with no background should follow you to the end.
- The more readers who understand and relate to it, the better the synopsis.
The library
Long works added to the library stay there for everyone. Several writers may publish their own synopsis of the same work, and that is intended: readers take the same material differently, and each reading has value. A synopsis should still carry the whole idea, with nothing important dropped, so it can serve as a first read or a revision later.
Library entries are member-maintained. Anyone can propose a correction or a fuller description of a work; a moderator reviews it before the entry changes.
The review desk
New library entries and new synopses pass an automatic review against these rules before they appear. Nothing is thrown away: if something needs changing, the work stays a draft on your drafts page with a note saying what to fix and which rule it touches. Edit it and republish, and it goes back through review. Moderators can also step in on anything.
Stickers
A sticker means "this made an idea clearer for me". Each one adds a sticker point to the writer's profile. You cannot sticker your own writing, and one reader can award one sticker per synopsis. Points are the only ranking on this site — there are no follows and no algorithm-tuned feeds.