Paraphrasing and summarizing
Part 3: Chapter 9
Questions to consider
A. What are the qualities of a strong summary?
B. What, when, and why do scholars summarize?
A summary is a condensed version of a longer text. Summaries of different lengths are useful in research writing because they provide readers with an explanation of supporting material. The first step in writing a good summary is to do a thorough reading of the text. Even the strongest readers sometimes find very new, very complex, or very dense work difficult to process.
Read for comprehension by remaining engaged. Continuously ask and answer a few basic questions.
A. What is the unique point here?
B. Which ideas come from the author; which material is support cited from other sources?
C. How are the ideas connected (e.g. cause and effect? chronologically?)?
D. What is the likely conclusion?
Three steps to producing a strong summary
- Read for main ideas;
- articulate the primary message without relying too heavily on the original language (including vocabulary and sentence structure); then,
- draft a paraphrase that includes a citation giving credit to the source in the appropriate format.
Other summarizing guidelines
A quote is a direct restatement of the exact words from the original source. Using three or more words exactly as they appear in the original source is a quote. In contrast, a paraphrase is a restatement of the information or point of the original source. Paraphrases and quotes must always accompanied by a proper citation of the source.
Long and direct quotations are discouraged in research writing, especially in the STEM fields. Material incorporated from an outside source should be paraphrased in almost all situations. The use of direct quotes should be limited to when
- the exact words of the source are important, particularly with technical language, terms, or very specific word choices; or
- the author or speaker of the original language is uniquely powerful.
In higher level summaries, source information is generally restricted to the citation; it is not necessary to mention the author or their credentials, the article title, or the publication name in the summary. This is contrary to what many students learn in earlier writing instruction.
Following the order of the original source information is often tempting, as it seems well organized and effective (indeed, it has been published). However, summary writers may omit what they do not need and reorganize material to suit their purposes. These efforts can contribute to the freshness of the paraphrase when they are implemented well.
Finally, research writers must only summarize from an original source (the primary source) and NOT the reference material (the secondary sources) included for support.
Exercise #1 – Practice Summary
Read this discussion section from Does international work experience pay off? The relationship between international work experience, employability and career success: A 30-country, multi-industry study and then respond to the questions below.
1Adopting a HCT perspective (Becker, 1993, 2008; Tan, 2014), we proposed and found that IWE, as an investment in human capital, is associated with higher perceived external employability, which in turn is positively related to promotions and subjective financial success. 2Although this mediated relationship was not moderated by economic freedom as hypothesised, supplementary analyses that differentiated between short-term and long-term IWE however showed that, in countries with low economic freedom, the indirect relationships between short-term IWE and career success indicators through perceived external employability were more pronounced. 3The present study thus highlights the role of perceived external employability as a core mediator underlying the IWE–career success link. 4Including promotions and subjective financial success as indicators of both OCS and SCS provides a more nuanced picture of how IWE relates to career success. 5Although the study focuses on specific indicators of OCS and SCS, the empirical findings have greater generalisability compared to much of research that precedes our study given that our results hold across a large-scale sample of employees in four broad occupational groups from 30 countries and more than 20 industries. 6While empirical evidence overrepresents countries from the Anglo, Latin European and/or Germanic European clusters, our study incorporates a sample that includes countries from all GLOBE clusters (House et al., 2004) and thus many countries that have never been researched with respect to international assignments and career outcomes.[1]
HCT: human capital theory suggests education and training contribute to a person’s earning power
IWE: international work experience
OCS: objective career success
SCS: subjective career success
- What is the main idea here? Is there only one?
- What language (words or phrases) cannot be paraphrased without compromising meaning?
- What material should not be included in the summary? Why?
- Draft two versions of a complete summary of this material including a citation in an appropriate format. Strive to make them grammatically distinct from each other and from the original.
The opinions or interpretation of the summary writer do not belong in a summary. When the assignment is an evaluative review, the author may inject information beyond the main idea of the summarized material.
Writers quote and paraphrase from research in order to support their points and to persuade their readers. A quote or a paraphrase from a piece of evidence in support of a point answers the reader’s question, “Says who?” This is especially true in academic writing since scholarly readers are most persuaded by effective research and documented evidence. For example, readers of an article about a new cancer medication published in a medical journal will be most interested in the research and statistics that demonstrate the effectiveness of the treatment. Conversely, they will not be as persuaded by emotional stories from individual patients about how a new cancer medication improved the quality of their lives. The real art to research writing is using evidence effectively to support the point. Certain rules of style are applied as prescribed by academic departments and publication editors, including which citation system to use.
Language in Action
A. How common are direct quotations in scholarly publications found in academic journals? Are they more or less common in publications meant for general consumption, like newspapers or internet blogs?
B. What is the strongest incentive for including and citing material from other sources?
Plagiarism awareness
Plagiarism is the unauthorized or uncredited use of the writings or ideas of another. While it might not be as tangible as stealing a car or robbing a bank, plagiarism is still a form of theft. The use of artificial intelligence programs (like Chat GPT) does not produce original writing a researcher can call their own. As these resources become increasingly available, it is important for writers to focus on producing their own sentences, paragraphs, theses and ideas that they can explain and defend.
In the academic world, plagiarism is a serious matter because ideas in the forms of research, creative work, and original thought are highly valued. As it is a form of academic dishonesty, most schools have strict rules about what happens when someone is caught plagiarizing.
Like theft, plagiarism can take several different forms. The most well-known, purposeful plagiarism is submitting work written by someone else or material copied word for word from a source.
A much more common and less understood phenomenon is accidental plagiarism. Accidental plagiarism is the result of insufficient paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, or citing in academic writing. This occurs when writers simply do not know or fail to follow the rules for giving credit to the ideas of others in their writing.
Both purposeful and accidental plagiarism are wrong, violate established rules, and often result in harsh punishments. Ignoring or not knowing the rules of how to properly cite evidence might be explanations, but they are not acceptable excuses.
Here are examples that use quotations and paraphrases from this original text from Cyberculture as translated by Robert Bononno:
1Those who denounce cyberculture today strangely resemble those who criticized rock music during the fifties and sixties. 2Rock started out as an Anglo-American phenomenon and has become an industry. 3Nonetheless, it was able to capture the hopes of young people around the world and provided enjoyment to those of us who listened to or played rock. 4Sixties pop was the conscience of one or two generations that helped bring the war in Vietnam to a close. 5Obviously, neither rock nor pop has solved global poverty or hunger. 6But is this a reason to be “against” them? (ix).
Source: Lévy, P. (2001). Cyberculture. Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.
Examples of plagiarized work
First, an obvious example of plagiarism from that article.
1Those who denounce cyberculture today strangely resemble those who criticized rock music during the fifties and sixties.
The writer has literally taken one of Lévy’s sentences and represented it as her own.
Another example:
1The people who criticize cyberculture are the same kind of people who criticized rock and roll music back in the fifties and sixties. But both cyberculture and rock music inspire and entertain young people.
While these aren’t Lévy’s exact words, they are certainly close enough to constitute a form of plagiarism.
Examples of acceptable paraphrasing
These are stronger paraphrases, although the use of a direct quotation is not ideal.
1Pierre Lévy suggests that people who criticize cyberculture are the same kind of people who criticized rock and roll music back in the fifties and sixties. But both cyberculture and rock music inspire and entertain young people (ix).
1In the introduction of his book Cyberculture, Pierre Lévy observes that “Those who denounce cyberculture today strangely resemble those who criticized rock music during the fifties and sixties” (ix).
Note that changing these passages from examples of plagiarism to acceptable examples of a quotation and a paraphrase is only achieved by properly citing the source.
Often, students are unclear as to whether they need to cite a piece of evidence because they believe it to be common knowledge or because they are not sure about the source of information. What is common knowledge in a field is typically seen without a citation in a range of publications (from journal articles to dissertations and textbooks).[2]
Review and Reinforce
A. How does the research of others influence readers?
B. How much material from outside sources is required to support a message or thesis statement?
Exercise #2
1In Taiwan, the delayed graduation of graduate students has become an important educational issue of social concern (Ho et al., 2020). 2 Gardner (2009) found that the reasons for the low graduation rate of doctoral students include being unable to complete their degree theses, among others. 3The completion of the degree thesis is an important milestone and the biggest obstacle for graduate students (Blum, 2010). 4Muszynski (1990) found that graduate students who fail to graduate in time may be uninterested in the research topic, have low academic confidence, or have too many research papers to complete. 5Spaulding and Rockinson-Szapkiw (2012) interviewed 76 doctoral graduates and found that motivation, persistence factors, and completion strategies were necessary to complete their dissertations.[3]
1. Consider the above opening paragraph from A Study of Graduate Students’ Achievement Motivation, Active Learning, and Active Confidence Based on Relevant Research.
2. Then look at a paragraph from one of its primary sources (sentence #4 above), Hearing their Voices: Factors Doctoral Candidates Attribute to their Persistence.
1When participants were interviewed, they worked in different states and professional settings across the United States and earned their degrees from varying institutions across the span of five decades (Participant 3 – 1976; Participant 36 – 2011); however, each participant shared one common experience—doctoral persistence, evidenced by the completion of an educational doctorate. 2Though the contexts differed and motivations for pursuing the degree varied, participants all cited various personal sacrifices along the way, often found their completion expectations to be unrealistic due to a myriad of intervening factors, and largely found the dissertation to be the most challenging aspect of the degree completion process. 3However, because they were both personally and professionally motivated to begin the degree, had compelling reasons to persist, developed an array of resilience mechanisms, and generated strategies for dissertation completion, these participants evaded becoming an attrition statistic, unlike presumably half of their peers (Ivankova & Stick, 2007; Nettles & Millet, 2006), and currently hold a terminal degree in their discipline.[4]
3. Evaluate how and why the supporting material was incorporated.
Media Attributions
- masks © Edmonton Economic Development Corporation is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license
- Andresen, M., Lazarova, M., Apospori, E., Cotton, R., Bosak, J., Dickmann, M., Kaše, R., & Smale, A. (2022). Does international work experience pay off? The relationship between international work experience, employability and career success: A 30-country, multi-industry study. Human Resource Management Journal, 32(3), 698–721. https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12423 ↵
- Adapted from Krause, S. (2021, March 23). The Process of Research Writing Retrieved June 2, 2021, from https://human.libretexts.org/@go/page/6460 ↵
- Chang, J.-C., Wu, Y.-T., & Ye, J.-N. (2022). A Study of Graduate Students’ Achievement Motivation, Active Learning, and Active Confidence Based on Relevant Research. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 915770–915770. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.915770 ↵
- Spaulding, L. S., & Rockinson-Szapkiw, A. (2012). Hearing their Voices: Factors Doctoral Candidates Attribute to their Persistence. International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 7, 199-219. https://doi.org/10.28945/1589 ↵
a condensed version of a longer text
a direct restatement of the exact words from the original source
a restatement of the information or point of the original source in entirely new wording
a reference presenting their own data and information
reference material used and cited by a primary source
to act of presenting another source of information or ideas as one's own work; literary theft
