The present study investigated the variety of summaries and the determinants of its goodness. In Experiment 1, subjects were given two stories and asked to write a summary under either of the following two conditions, the referring-text condition in which subjects were allowed to see the original text while writing a summary, and the referring-memory condition in which subjects had to remember the story and summarize it without seeing the original text. Qualitative differences of summaries were found according to conditions, and the varieties of summaries were also observed among subjects. In Experiment 2, subjects were required to evaluate the summaries obtained from Experiment 1. Results showed that the summaries produced in referring-memory condition were evaluated poorer than the summaries in referring-text condition, because they tended to contain inadequate information and a lack of important information. Evaluations were divided concerning some summaries. Finally, four types of strategies of summary production considered to cause a variety of summaries, were proposed and the relationship between the strategies and the goodness of summaries were discussed.