Text summarization has been studied for over a half century but traditional methods process
texts empirically and neglect the fundamental characteristics and principles of language use
and understanding. Automatic summarization is a desirable technique for processing big data.
This reference summarizes previous text summarization approaches in a multi-dimensional
category space introduces a multi-dimensional methodology for research and development
unveils the basic characteristics and principles of language use and understanding
investigates some fundamental mechanisms of summarization studies dimensions on
representations and proposes a multi-dimensional evaluation mechanism. Investigation extends
to incorporating pictures into summary and to the summarization of videos graphs and pictures
and converges to a general summarization method. Further some basic behaviors of summarization
are studied in the complex cyber-physical-social space. Finally a creative summarization
mechanism is proposed as an effort toward the creative summarization of things which is an
open process of interactions among physical objects data people and systems in
cyber-physical-social space through a multi-dimensional lens of semantic computing. The
author's insights can inspire research and development of many computing areas.
