Paraphrasing and Summarizing
PARAPHRASE
Definition: A paraphrase precisely restates in your own words the written or spoken
word of someone else.
Guidelines:
• Use your own words, phrasing, and sentence structure to restate the message. If
some words have only awkward synonyms, quote the original but do so sparingly.
You can use technical terms from the original.
• In your own words restate the source's order of ideas and emphases without adding
additional detail.
• Read your sentences over to make sure they do not distort the source's meaning.
• Expect your material to be as long as, and possibly longer than, the original.
• Avoid plagiarism. Document carefully. You are required to give the source of any
paraphrase, just as you do for quotations and summaries.
• Select for paraphrase only the passages that carry ideas you need to reproduce in
detail. Because paraphrasing calls for a very close approximation of a source, avoid
trying to paraphrase large chunks of text. Even one page is too much.
Source: Weiss, R. "Safety Gets Short Shrift on Long Night Shift." Science News, 21
May 1989, p. 37.
Original Material: In a pilot study of 28 medical interns, Weiss found that during
the past year more than one-quarter of them had fallen asleep while talking on
the telephone. Thirty-four percent reported at least one actual or near-miss
automobile accident during the year because of sleepiness – more than triple
that percentage they reported in the year before their internship (37).
Acceptable Paraphrase: In a study by Weiss of 28 medical interns observed
during late-night shifts over a one-year period, 25 percent admitted to falling
asleep while talking on the phone, and 34 percent had at least one accident or
near accident during that period (37).
SUMMARIZE
Definition: A summary differs from a paraphrase in one important way: a paraphrase
restates the original material completely, but a summary provides only the main point of
the original source and is much shorter. Summarizing is the technique you will probably
use most frequently, both for taking notes and for incorporating what you have learned
from sources into your own writing. A summary is written in your own words. If you use
a phrase verbatim from your source, you must put quotation marks around the phrase.
