Summary vs. Paraphrasing
- Summary and paraphrase are two writing terms that confuse many writers. Students tend to use the two terms interchangeably, but summary and paraphrase are different. A primary difference is that summaries are shorter and less detailed. A writer may use summary or paraphrase because either element may integrate into the writer’s original work more smoothly than a direct quotation.
What Is a Summary?
- Your own words and sentence structures express the author’s ideas in a form substantially shorter than what appeared in the author’s original text.
- It focuses on the main ideas presented in a text.
- It does not include your personal opinions.
- The source is not cited
How Do You Write a Summary?
- Read the text that you want to summarize; then put it away.
- Explain what you’ve just read to yourself; this is a good basis for a summary.
- Write the main ideas in your own words and omit examples or lengthy explanations.
- Integrate those sentences into your own sentences that precede and follow the summary.
- Compare what you have written to the original text.
- Are the main ideas still the same?
- Have you kept the author’s general ideas and purpose?
- Have you directly copied any words or phrases from the original text? If so, you need to either rewrite those parts or enclose them in double quotation marks.
Example
Original Quotation
Every day we are bombarded with images— pictures on billboards, commercials on television, graphs and charts in newspapers and textbooks, to name just a few examples. Most images slide by without our even noticing them, or so we think. But images, sometimes even more than text, can influence us covertly. Their creators have purposes, some worthy, some not, and understanding those purposes requires that we think critically.
Summary
Aaron explains how the things we see around us, whether we realize it or not, can affect us greatly, so we need to be aware of the meanings of the visualizations surrounding us.
What Is a Paraphrase?
- A paraphrase restates someone else’s complete idea in your own words.
- It is about the same length as the original text.
- Sentence structure and wording are entirely altered.
- The source is cited.
- If words or phrases are quoted, they should be enclosed in double quotation marks.
How Do You Write a Paraphrase?
- Read the original text; then put it away.
- State the author’s idea in your own words; paraphrases are usually one sentence in length at most.
- The sequence of ideas and the sentence structure or syntax need to be different from the source.
- Compare your paraphrase with the original. Make sure the author’s meaning is still clear and that any words or phrases that have been copied directly are within quotation marks.
Example
Original Quotation
- Although the amount of writing on the job varies by type of employment and rank, many workers say that when they were in school, they underestimated the amount of writing they
would need to do in their jobs.
Paraphrase
- Many employees are realizing that their assumptions about writing less once outside of academia were incorrect (Anson 7).
- This example uses an MLA in-text citation.
Direct Quotations vs. Paraphrasing
- A general rule of thumb is that no more than fifteen percent of your paper should be quoted material. Therefore, when you can convey the ideas just as effectively in your own words through the use of summary or paraphrase, do so. If the information, not an author’s particular wording, is what is important for your purposes, paraphrases, rather than direct quotations, should be used.
What Is a Direct Quotation?
- A word-for-word reproduction of a source.
- Sentence structure and wording are entirely the same as the original source.
- Should be enclosed in double quotation marks.
- The source is cited.
- Should be formatted in block quotation format when:
- MLA: the quotation spans longer than four lines in your work
- APA: the quotation contains 40 words or more
- Chicago: the quotation spans longer than five lines or contains 100 words or more
How Do You Write and Integrate a Direct Quotation?
- To increase readability or flow, include a linking sentence or phrase that introduces the quote, an author identification (within the text or a parenthetical citation), and an explanatory or interpretive sentence.
Example
- Frederick Douglass bases his identity as an American man on his rejection of the enslavement that began late in his own childhood; he viewed that period in life as his metaphorical birth. As an enslaved child, Douglass was denied the typical sources of identification that most other children are given. Maynard Mack explains this further in his introduction to the narrative: “Most children develop their sense of who they are by precisely the clues missing in Douglass’s experience: age, parentage, such ritual occasions as birthdays… Everything in Douglass’s experience denies his lack of particularized identity” (725). Douglass’s metaphorical birth occurs late in childhood, not only because of his rejection of slavery but also because of the absence of early childhood milestones.
- The above presents only one way of integrating sources. All quotations should have material before and/or after them that relates them to the point of the paragraph in which they appear, but there are a variety of ways to present that material.
How Can I Alter a Direct Quotation to More Seamlessly Fit into My Sentence?
- If you need to omit words from an original text to maintain the flow of the sentence containing the quotation, use an ellipsis.
Example
- Alice attempts to be cordial to Dumpty, but he declares, “You needn’t go on making remarks like that … they’re not sensible, and they put me out” (Carroll 172).
- If you need to clarify meaning, edit/change verb tense, or add words to a direct quotation, use brackets.