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Summarizing
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In many situations, you will not have to provide the level of detail that the original writer did. At such times, you should summarize, or remove minor details. Here’s an example:
Example: Overall, the first two quarters of 2008 have been profitable to the company. Nineteen of twenty departments report cutting costs at least twenty percent, and sales from fifteen departments have risen five percent, or about $5 million. Despite these positive developments, most department heads believe that they will not be able to maintain these levels for the remainder of the year.
Revision: The company has driven profits from January to June of 2008, but the rest of the year is not expected to be as good.
Unlike paraphrasing, the basic order of the original text is maintained. However, some words have been changed to close synonyms. When summarizing, avoid cutting too much important information.
For more information on paraphrasing, visit the OWL’s resource, Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing .
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Read the entire text, noting the key points and main ideas. Summarize in your own words what the single main idea of the essay is. Paraphrase important supporting points that come up in the essay. Consider any words, phrases, or brief passages that you believe should be quoted directly.
Your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form. One legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source. A more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.
Basic-level Paraphrase and Summary Writing Paraphrasing. Paraphrasing refers to rewriting a given sentence using your own words. When we need to use a sentence in our writing that someone else wrote, we paraphrase it. That is, we use the same idea(s) in that sentence and write it differently.
When you paraphrase, you say the same thing someone else said, but using different words. The other thing you can do is to summarize what someone else has said. When you summarize, you use different words and state the main idea. Your summary will be shorter than the original text.
This resource provides a sample essay with a summary, paraphrase and a quotation drawn from the sample essay. Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words. Also from the OWL at Purdue, this resource walks students through the steps of writing effective paraphrases.
Learn how paraphrasing is different from quoting and summarizing, and how to paraphrase what you read so that you can check your understanding of what the author says and improve your memory of it. Video Transcript
What are the benefits of paraphrasing? The paraphrase accomplishes three goals: Like the summary, it contextualizes the information (who said it, when, and where). It restates all the supporting points used by Thoreau to develop the idea that man is hurt by focusing too much on labor.
When summarizing, avoid cutting too much important information. For more information on paraphrasing, visit the OWL’s resource, Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing. This resource provides guidelines for paraphrasing and summarizing the sources you have researched.
Read the entire text, noting the key points and main ideas. Summarize in your own words what the single main idea of the essay is. Paraphrase important supporting points that come up in the essay. Consider any words, phrases, or brief passages that you believe should be quoted directly.
By summarizing and paraphrasing you demonstrate a full understanding of the topic, identify the most important information, and explain using your own words. Paraphrasing and summarizing help you learn languages much faster!