Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

What are the differences among quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing?

These three ways of incorporating other writers' work into your own writing differ according
to the closeness of your writing to the source writing.

Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They
must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author.

Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A
paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually
shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and
condensing it slightly.

Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the
main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source.
Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source
material.

Why use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries?

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to:

 Provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing

 Refer to work that leads up to the work you are now doing
 Give examples of several points of view on a subject
 Call attention to a position that you wish to agree or disagree with
 Highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage by quoting the original
 Distance yourself from the original by quoting it in order to cue readers that the words
are not your own
 Expand the breadth or depth of your writing

Writers frequently intertwine summaries, paraphrases, and quotations. As part of a summary

of an article, a chapter, or a book, a writer might include paraphrases of various key points
blended with quotations of striking or suggestive phrases as in the following example:

In his famous and influential work The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud argues
that dreams are the "royal road to the unconscious" (page #), expressing in coded imagery the
dreamer's unfulfilled wishes through a process known as the "dream-work" (page #).
According to Freud, actual but unacceptable desires are censored internally and subjected to
coding through layers of condensation and displacement before emerging in a kind of rebus
puzzle in the dream itself (page #).

How to use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries

Practice summarizing the essay found here, using paraphrases and quotations as you go. It
might be helpful to follow these steps:
  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.

There are several ways to integrate quotations into your text. Often, a short quotation works
well when integrated into a sentence. Longer quotations can stand alone. Remember that
quoting should be done only sparingly; be sure that you have a good reason to include a
direct quotation when you decide to do so. You'll find guidelines for citing sources and
punctuating citations at our documentation guide pages.

To paraphrase means to express someone else's ideas in your own language. To

summarize means to distill only the most essential points of someone else's work.
Paraphrase and summary are indispensable tools in essay writing because they
allow you to include other people's ideas without cluttering up your essay with
quotations. They help you take greater control of your essay. Consider relying on
either tool when an idea from one of your sources is important to your essay but
the wording is not. You should be guided in your choice of which tool to use by
considerations of space. But above all, think about how much of the detail from
your source is relevant to your argument. If all your reader needs to know is the
bare bones, then summarize. Ultimately, be sure not to rely too heavily on either
paraphrase or summary. Your ideas are what matter most. Allow yourself the space
to develop those ideas.

How do I paraphrase?
Whenever you paraphrase, remember these two points:
1. You must provide a reference.
2. The paraphrase must be entirely in your own words. You
must do more than merely substitute phrases here and there.
You must also completely alter the sentence structure.

It can be difficult to find new words for an idea that is already well expressed.
The following strategy will make the job of paraphrasing a lot easier:
1. When you are at the note-taking stage, and you come across
a passage that may be useful for your essay, do not copy the
passage verbatim unless you think you will want to quote it.
2. If you think you will want to paraphrase the passage, make
a note only of the author's basic point. You don't even need to
use full sentences.
3. In your note, you should already be translating the language
of the original into your own words. What matters is that you
capture the original idea.
4. Make sure to include the page number of the original
passage so that you can make a proper reference later on.

When it comes time to write the paper, rely on your notes rather than on the
author's work. You will find it much easier to avoid borrowing from the
original passage because you will not have recently seen it. Follow this simple
sequence:
1. Convert the ideas from your notes into full sentences.
2. Provide a reference.
3. Go back to the original to ensure that (a) your paraphrase is
accurate and (b) you have truly said things in your own words.
Scholars in the humanities tend to summarize, paraphrase, and quote texts; social scientists
and natural scientists rely primarily on summary and paraphrase.

When and How to summarize

When you summarize, you provide your readers with a condensed version of an author's key points.
A summary can be as short as a few sentences or much longer, depending on the complexity of the
text and the level of detail you wish to provide to your readers. You will need to summarize a source
in your paper when you are going to refer to that source and you want your readers to understand
the source's argument, main ideas, or plot (if the source is a novel or play) before you lay out your
own argument about it, analysis of it, or response to it.

Before you summarize a source in your paper, you should decide what your reader needs to
know about that source in order to understand your argument. For example, if you are making
an argument about a novel, you should avoid filling pages of your paper with details from the
book that will distract or confuse your reader. Instead, you should add details sparingly,
going only into the depth that is necessary for your reader to understand and appreciate your
argument. Similarly, if you are writing a paper about a non-fiction article, you will need to
highlight the most relevant parts of the argument for your reader, but you should not include
all of the background information and examples. When you have to decide how much
summary to put in a paper, it's a good idea to consult your instructor about whether you are
supposed to assume your reader's knowledge of the sources.
Example

This summary of Stanley Milgram's 1974 essay, "The Perils of Obedience," provides a brief
overview of Milgram's 12-page essay, along with an APA style parenthetical citation. You
would write this type of summary if you were discussing Milgram's experiment in a paper in
which you were not supposed to assume your reader's knowledge of the sources. Depending
on your assignment, your summary might be even shorter.

Stanley Milgram (1974) reports that ordinarily compassionate people will be cruel to each
other if they are commanded to be by an authority figure. In his experiment, a group of
participants were asked to administer electric shocks to people who made errors on a simple
test. In spite of signs that those receiving shock were experiencing great physical pain, 25 of
40 subjects continued to administer electric shocks. These results held up for each group of
people tested, no matter the demographic. The transcripts of conversations from the
experiment reveal that although many of the participants felt increasingly uncomfortable,
they continued to obey the experimenter, often showing great deference for the experimenter.
Milgram suggests that when people feel responsible for carrying out the wishes of an
authority figure, they do not feel responsible for the actual actions they are performing. He
concludes that the increasing division of labor in society encourages people to focus on a
small task and eschew responsibility for anything they do not directly control.

When you include a summary of a paper in your essay, you must cite the source. If you were
using APA style in your paper, you would include a parenthetical citation in the summary,
and you would also include a full citation in your reference list at the end of your paper. For
this essay by Stanley Milgram, your citation in your references list would include the
following information.

Milgram, S. (1974). The perils of obedience. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R.

Mandell (Eds.) The Blair reader (pp.725-737). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.

When and how to paraphrase

When you paraphrase from a source, you restate the source's ideas in your own words. Whereas a
summary provides your readers with a condensed overview of a source (or part of a source), a
paraphrase of a source offers your readers the same level of detail provided in the original source.
Therefore, while a summary will be shorter than the original source material, a paraphrase will
generally be about the same length as the original source material.

When you use any part of a source in your paper—as background information, as evidence,
as counterargument to which you plan to respond, or in any other form—you will always
need to decide whether to quote directly from the source or to paraphrase it. Unless you have
a good reason to quote directly from the source, you should paraphrase the source. Any time
you paraphrase an author's words and ideas in your paper, you should make it clear to your
reader why you are presenting this particular material from a source at this point in your
paper. You should also make sure you have represented the author accurately, that you have
used your own words consistently, and that you have cited the source.

Example

Source material

Milgram, S. (1974). The perils of obedience. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.) The
Blair reader (pp.725-737). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

The problem of obedience is not wholly psychological. The form and shape of society and the
way it is developing have much to do with it. There was a time, perhaps, when people were
able to give a fully human response to any situation because they were fully absorbed in it as
human beings. But as soon as there was a division of labor things changed.

--Stanley Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience"

Paraphrase

This paraphrase restates one of Milgram's points in the author's own words. When you
paraphrase, you should always cite the source. This paraphrase uses the APA in-text citation
style. Every source you paraphrase should also be included in your list of references at the
end of your paper. For citation format information go to the Citing Sources section of this
guide.

Milgram (1974) claims that people's willingness to obey authority figures cannot be
explained by psychological factors alone. In an earlier era, people may have had the ability to
invest in social situations to a greater extent. However, as society has become increasingly
structured by a division of labor, people have become more alienated from situations over
which they do not have control (p.737).
When and how much to quote

The basic rule of thumb in all disciplines is that you should only quote directly from a text when it's
important for your reader to see the actual language used by the author of the source. While
paraphrase and summary are effective ways to introduce your reader to someone's ideas, quoting
directly from a text allows you to introduce your reader to the way those ideas are expressed by
showing such details as language, syntax, and cadence.

So, for example, it may be important for a reader to see a passage of text quoted directly from
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried if you plan to analyze the language of that passage in
order to support your thesis about the book. On the other hand, if you're writing a paper in
which you're making a claim about the reading habits of American elementary school
students or reviewing the current research on Wilson's disease, you should paraphrase text
from your sources. In these cases, the information you're providing is more important than
the exact words used to make this claim. Whether you quote from your source or paraphrase
it, be sure to provide a citation for your source, using the correct format. (see Citing Sources
section)

You should use quotations in the following situations:

 When you plan to discuss the actual language of a text.

 When you are discussing an author's position or theory and you plan to discuss the wording
of a core assertion or kernel of the argument in your paper.
 When you risk losing the essence of the author's ideas in the translation from her words to
your own.
 When you want to appeal to the authority of the author and using his or her words will
emphasize that authority.

Once you have decided to quote part of a text, you'll need to decide whether you are going to
quote a long passage (a block quotation) or a short passage (a sentence or two within the text
of your essay). Unless you are planning to do something substantive with a long quotation—
to analyze the language in detail or otherwise break it down—you should not use block
quotations in your essay. While long quotations will stretch your page limit, they don't add
anything to your argument unless you also spend time discussing them in a way that
illuminates a point you're making. Unless you are giving your readers something they need to
appreciate your argument, you should use quotations sparingly.

When you quote from a source, you should make sure to use the correct citation style.

Example

Source material

On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the
bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs.
There was a steady rain falling, which made it difficult, but he used heat tabs and Sterno to
build a small fire, screening it with his body holding the photographs over the tight blue
flame with the tip of his fingers.

He realized it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid.
(23)

--O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1990.

Quotation

If you were writing a paper about O'Brien's The Things They Carried in which you analyzed
Cross's decision to burn Martha's letters and stop thinking about her, you might want your
reader to see the language O'Brien uses to illustrate Cross's inner conflict. If you were
planning to analyze the passage in which O'Brien calls Cross's realization stupid, sentimental,
and then stupid again, you would want your reader to see the original language.

Even as Jimmy Cross burns Martha's letters, he realizes that "it was only a gesture. Stupid, he
thought. Sentimental too, but mostly just stupid" (23).

Paraphrasing and Summarizing

Paraphrasing

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a paraphrase as “an expression in other words, usually
fuller and clearer, of the sense of any passage or text; a free rendering or amplification of a
passage. . . . [Paraphrasing is] to express the meaning of (a word, phrase, passage, or work) in
other words, usually with the object of fuller and clearer exposition; . . . . so as to bring out
the sense” (XI: 204).

Paraphrasing allows you to reproduce another writer’s argument and adapt the way it is
phrased. Its real purpose is to make the original text more easily understandable and to cast it
in a slightly different light – so that the rhetorical purpose of the passage fits in with your
own paper’s argument. It usually reproduces the original author’s idea in roughly the same
number of words as the original, and fits it in seamlessly with your own text. The
important things to remember are 1) that a paraphrase is in your own words, 2) that it cannot
change the author’s meaning or intent, and 3) you must cite the source accurately.

Example of a Paraphrase

Original Text: “[C]hronological consistency of cultural artifacts, including language, cannot

really be seen as a defining feature of the Tolkienian narrative, however much the author
seems to have wanted to make it so -- after the fact. As T.A. Shippey has pointed out, the
Shire is Edwardian England, with postal service, pipes after dinner, teatime and ‘weskits’”
(Straubhaar, 110).

Paraphrase: Although Tolkien believed that it was very important to link his antique world
of Middle Earth to real languages and cultures, this connection is not always an accurate one
in terms of time. As T.A. Shippey has noted, there are many examples of the cosy rituals of
everyday life in Edwardian England (smoking a pipe after a meal, tea, mail delivery, wearing
of vests) in the life of the Shire (Straubhaar, 110).

Summarizing

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the act of summarizing as “to sum up; to state briefly
or succinctly” and the characteristics of a summary as “containing or comprising the chief
points or the sum and substance of a matter; . (now usually with implication of brevity”
(XVII: 170).

When you are writing papers, it is often necessary to condense the gist of a long argument or
a passage into a short version. Summarizing is a particularly important skill for science
writers, who often have to refer in a sentence or two to research done by others, and it is a
necessary skill for those who are writing a review of literature or an annotated bibliography.
All of us use summaries at some point when we write, incorporating these allusions to other
people’s ideas or findings into our own papers to support our arguments. As with
paraphrases, 1) a summary is in your own words, 2) cannot change the author’s meaning or
intent, and 3) the source must be cited accurately.

So let’s look at our original sample again and see how different a summary would be from a
paraphrase.

Original Text: “[C]hronological consistency of cultural artifacts, including language, cannot

really be seen as a defining feature of the Tolkienian narrative, however much the author
seems to have wanted to make it so -- after the fact. As T.A. Shippey has pointed out, the
Shire is Edwardian England, with postal service, pipes after dinner, teatime and ‘weskits’”
(Straubhaar, 110).

Summary: Despite his intent, Tolkien’s work contains anachronisms, so even in Middle
Earth his characters live like Edwardian Englishmen.”

The great danger when paraphrasing or summarizing is that we will re-use the language of
the original text. This is something that must be avoided, although there are some words (in
this case “Edwardian” which describes the period in English history between 1901-1910
when Edward the Seventh was on the throne in England) that can be repeated because they
are, so to speak, in the public domain and it would be virtually impossible to refer to them in
any other way. Other examples would be DNA and other scientific terms, names of famous
people or events, dates, etc. Copying other words from the original is, however, plagiarism.
The general rule for paraphrasing and summarizing is that you should not repeat more than
four sequential words from the original text, although some authorities have limited the
number to three sequential words. Nor can you jumble the words from the original text into a
different order and consider that by changing the order in which you say something you have
avoided any charges of plagiarism. This particular method of plagiarizing even has its own
name: “the mosaic.”

Paraphrasing and Summarizing Tips

 Most people suggest that the best way to write a paraphrase or a summary is to read
the original text over, then put it aside. Write your own piece, then check back to see
if you have accurately reproduced the original ideas and have done so in your own
words without plagiarizing. Remember to include all of the necessary information
about the source.

 When summarizing a longer piece, it helps to ask the following questions as you read
through the text. If you are using a photocopy or if you own the text, underline the
places where you see the answers to the following questions. After you have done that
you can begin to write, using the answers to these questions as your focus.

o What was the problem or the focus of the original text?

o What was the hypothesis or thesis argument?
o What were the results or what evidence was given?

 If you are writing a summary for a specific purpose, such as an annotated

bibliography or review of literature you will also want to make note of the following,
marking it in your rough notes so that it will be highlighted as your own analysis.

o What was the author's method or line of approach?

o What was the author's bias, or what school of thought within the field does
s/he belong to?
o Is there anything in the author's text that would be important for my own
research project?