Summary or structured extraction for research?

A summary prioritizes and compresses. Extraction preserves selected source fields for comparison. Decide which operation supports the next decision before choosing the task brief.

Compare the practical differences

Decision	Summary	Structured extraction
Best fit	Understanding the main answer and caveats	Comparing consistent fields across records
Useful property	Can connect findings into a narrative	Keeps source references beside each value
What to check	May omit details needed for later counting	Requires a clear schema and missing-value policy

A concrete choice

Interview themes can start with extracted observations and participant IDs, then move to a narrative once the evidence table is reviewed.

Verify the choice

Check a sample against the original source and distinguish quoted text from paraphrase in either output.

Write the reason for your choice into the task brief or setup notes. Then run a small representative task and compare the actual result with the requirement that drove the decision. Keep any unmet requirement visible rather than declaring the whole workflow ready from a single successful step.

Continue with the setup

The related desktop guide explains the relevant controls and limits. Use the current application state when applying this comparison; the presence of an option in a document does not mean every dependency on your computer is ready.