Using Your Sources: to Quote, Summarize, or Paraphrase?
Essentially, there are three ways in which a source can be incorporatedinto your writing:
1.SUMMARY(to state a text’s main ideas and key supporting points simply, briefly, and accurately in your own words),
2.PARAPHRASE(to retell information from a text in roughly the same number of words but should be accurate and in your own words), or
3.DIRECT QUOTE(to use the exact words from a text with quotation marks around the words).
Important considerations:
- All writers need to carefully consider which method (summary, paraphrase, or direct
quote) to use when synthesizing the sources’ ideas with his or her own. Certain methods work better with particular content, types of source material, and writing purposes.- All summaries, paraphrases, and quotations must have source citations both in-text in parentheses and on a works cited page. Often writers will not correctly cite their source if they summarize or paraphrase because they mistakenly think that since they are using their own words it doesn’t need to be cited. Anytime a writer uses another author’s words or ideas, they must cite that author. A summary or paraphrase without a source citation is plagiarism!
What is the difference between Summary & Paraphrase:
- The main idea of an entire source is briefly and clearly communicated in a summary; however, a paraphrase gives a detailed restatement of a source’s idea in its completeness.
- Since a paraphrase includes all of the writer’s main ideas, it is often as long as, and sometimes longer than, the original source. Whereas, summaries are always shorter.
- Paraphrases are most useful when you want to present or examine an author’s ideas but you do not think the original words merit direct quotation. Paraphrasing is good because it can help you to control the temptation to quote too much from a source.
Example of a Successful Paraphrase:
Original Material:
The emergency room medical intervention provided to the subject was deemed suboptimal to best practices by legal counsel, so the facility and the on-shift physician received a legal suit declaring a therapeutic misadventure. From Jane Doe, p. 321
Paraphrase:
Jane Doe reports that after the accident, attorneys for the patient decided that the treatment given in the emergency room was substandard in comparison with that of other hospitals, so they filed a malpractice lawsuit against the doctor on duty and the hospital (321).
