Using Sources Effectively:

Summary and Paraphrasing

Return to English 111 Homepage

What Is Summarizing?

• You summarize when you condense an author’s main points in your own words.
• A summary does not include every detail of the text; instead, it highlights the main points and ideas. It presents the reader with an overall view of the text.
• Summaries tend to be very brief and capture only the main points or gist of a text.

Tips for Summarizing

• Try to remain as objective as possible; unless you are asked to do so, you should not give your opinion on the author’s viewpoint or argument.
• If you use any direct words or phrases from the original text, you must put them in quotation marks and cite them correctly.
• You need to include any texts you summarize on your Works Cited page.
• Using active reading strategies, such as highlighting, underlining, and annotating, is a good way to start your summary.
• It’s a good idea to be able to write a summary for any essay you read; this is an effective way to test your own reading comprehension.

What Is Paraphrasing?

·         Paraphrasing is a way to restate an author’s words or ideas in your own words.

•  A paraphrase differs from a summary in that it usually focuses on a very specific section or sentence. A summary, meanwhile, focuses on the article or essay in its entirety.
• A paraphrase must include all the same information as the original source material and is not necessarily shorter than the original wording. On the other hand, a summary avoids specific details or examples, and should be more concise than the original source material.

·         It is a wonderful way of understanding complex material and, often, making it clearer to your reader.

·         Paraphrasing is a good alternative to directly quoting in your paper.

Tips for Paraphrasing

·         Place the information in a new order.

·         Break the complex ideas into small units.

·         Use concrete, direct vocabulary in place of technical jargon.

·         Use synonyms for words in the source.

·         Accompany each important fact or idea in your notes with the source author and page number.

·         Try to incorporate the paraphrase smoothly into the grammar and style of your own writing

·         Paraphrases still need to be introduced well and cited correctly.

·         You still need to include the source on your Works Cited page if you paraphrased.

Example of Summary

·         Original: Parents often say their kids turn into emotional yo-yos once adolescence sets in. “My friend claims her daughter had PMS for three years until she finally had her period. Then everything fell into a rhythm and life was fine,” says Sue Hammerton, a nurse who works at Centennial High School and teaches classes on puberty for Poudre Valley Hospital. Part of the emotional rollercoaster is caused by hormones, Hammerton says, but much of it is caused by trying to manage busy, complicated social lives. “Kids, especially pre-teens, constantly worry about whether they fit in or not. They think they are at the center of the universe and everyone is watching them,” says Hammerton. “ When they feel insecure, they might throw dirt on their home life, because that is where they can let it all hang out.” That’s the time to remember it’s probably not about you. Your teen is going through emotional changes that are often frightening. “Teens feel isolated. They are no longer kids and not quite adults. They don’t know where to fit in,” says [Dr.] McGinnis. This can make for some chaotic moments. The challenge for parents, jokes McGinnis, is to “try to maintain your self-esteem while being totally devalued by your children.” He recommends being deaf during heated moments. In other words, don’t be pulled into a fight. That doesn’t mean giving in, but rather saying you’ll discuss the situation at a different time.

Excerpted from Lynn Utzman-Nichols, “Surviving the Teen Years”

·         Summary: As Lynn Utzman-Nichols argues in her article, “Surviving the Teen Years,” parents can cope with the extreme moodswings of their adolescent children by understanding that the main reason their children sometimes lash out is because they are frightened and unsure of their place in society. Thus parents should not take their teenager’s anger personally, but remain calm and postpone talking about the source of the anger until a calmer moment arrives.

All the elements of an effective summary are here. The summary covers only the passage’s main ideas: why adolescents have emotional outbursts and what parents can do about them. Notice that it is also objective (we can’t tell the writer’s attitude towards Utzman-Nichols’ ideas), very concise (only 2 sentences), and does not include specific details or examples (like the fact that the author quoted a doctor and a nurse). (Courtesy Writing at Colorado State University: Writing Guide).

Examples of Paraphrases

·         Original: “The ‘perfect’ search engine would guide users to every relevant location, ranked in order of usefulness, without leaving anything out and without including anything irrelevant. That engine doesn’t yet exist” (Schwartz 29).

·         Paraphrase: Schwartz states that no Internet search tool is yet able to be “perfect.” If it were, it would lead to all the appropriate locations on your topic. It would rank all the Web sites by how useful they were. It would never leave something out that was relevant. It would never include anything that was “irrelevant” (29).

·         Original: “If the existence of a signing ape was unsettling for linguists, it was also starting news for animal behaviorists” (Davis 45).

·         Unacceptable for phrases: The existence of a signing ape unsettled linguists and startled animal behaviorists (Davis 45).

·         Unacceptable for structure: If the presence of a sign-using chimp was disturbing for scientist studying language, it was also surprising to scientists studying animal behavior (Davis 45).

·         Acceptable paraphrase: When they learned of a an ape’s ability to use sign language, both linguists and animal behaviorists were taken by surprise (Davis 45).

Original text:  “Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all” (280).

• This section comes from Dr. Martin Luther King’s speech, “Three Ways of Meeting Oppression,” found on page 280 of the textbook Between Worlds.

Effective paraphrase: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believes that peaceful means are the only way by which to achieve racial equality. He believes that the use of violence causes a downfall in society from which it is impossible to recover (280)

• This is a good example of a paraphrase because it retains Dr. King’s original ideas while using the student writer’s own words to express those points. It also contains a correct in-text citation that shows where the reader can find this section in Dr. King’s original text.

Plagiarized: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes and speaks about issues of discrimination and oppression. He thinks that violence is an impractical and immoral way to achieve racial justice.

Even though the student states that these ideas are Dr. King’s, the text is missing direct quotes to show which ideas and words come directly from the original source. It also does not contain the proper in-text citation.