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, with both short answer and multiple choice criterion tests, with a brief delay prior to the final test or with a several day delay, and regardless of whether the summary was written immediately after reading the text or after a short time away from the text. We additionally found evidence that writing a summary sometimes helped participants estimate how much they learned from the text. However, it seems that students do not write effective summaries because they are quite poor at picking out the important points from the text.