掐头去尾 remove the head and tail
Explanation
比喻除去事物前后的不重要部分，留下精华。也比喻除去无关紧要的部分，留下重点。
Metaphor: To remove the unimportant parts of something and leave the essence. Also: To remove the unimportant parts and leave the focus.
Origin Story
从前，有个秀才，准备参加科举考试。他写了一篇很长的文章，洋洋洒洒几千字。可是，他担心文章冗长，会影响考官的阅卷效率，于是他便请教一位老秀才。老秀才看完文章后，建议他“掐头去尾”，只保留文章最精华的部分。秀才听了老秀才的建议，将文章中一些啰嗦的语句、不必要的描写，以及一些与主题关系不大的内容都删去了，只留下最能体现中心思想的部分。最终，他的文章简洁明了，重点突出，赢得了考官的好评，并取得了优异的成绩。这个故事告诉我们，有时候，适当“掐头去尾”，才能更好地展现事物的本质，更有效地传达信息。
Once upon a time, there was a scholar who was preparing for the imperial examination. He wrote a very long essay, several thousand characters long. However, he was worried that the length of the essay would affect the efficiency of the examiners' grading, so he consulted an old scholar. After reading the essay, the old scholar suggested that he “remove the head and tail”, keeping only the most essential part of the essay. Following the old scholar's advice, the scholar deleted some verbose sentences, unnecessary descriptions, and content unrelated to the topic, leaving only the part that best reflected the central idea. In the end, his essay was concise and clear, with a strong emphasis on the main points, and it won the praise of the examiners, achieving excellent results. This story teaches us that sometimes, appropriately “removing the head and tail” can better reveal the essence of things and more effectively convey information.
Usage
用于比喻去掉事物中不重要的部分，保留精华。
Used to illustrate how to remove unimportant parts of a thing and keep the essence.
Examples
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这段文字，掐头去尾，主要意思就是说……
zhè duàn wén zi qiā tóu qù wěi zhǔ yào yì si jiù shì shuō……
This text, after removing the beginning and end, mainly means…
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这篇文章，掐头去尾，只保留了核心内容。
zhè piān wén zhāng qiā tóu qù wěi zhǐ bǎo liú le hé xīn nèi róng
This article, after removing the beginning and end, only retains the core content.