Summarizing and Paraphrasing English B1A Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Summarizing means reporting back in your own words the main ideas of a text. Summaries should be brief, no more than ¼ the length of the original. Summaries must be in the student’s own words and not the words of the original text. Summaries are helpful when your audience needs to know big concepts and not small details or specific examples from a source. Summarizing

Practice Summarize the following passage “Two out of three American adults—and one out of three children— are overweight or obese. Why? The answers are everywhere: In the Starbucks Zucchini Walnut Muffin (490 calories), the Turkey Artichoke Panini at Panera (750 calories), the Wild Mushroom and Grilled Chicken Pizza at California Pizza Kitchen (1,300 calories) and the small unbuttered popcorn at Regal Theaters (670 calories). Yet many people (not to mention the food industry) blame the overweight for eating too much and exercising too little.” Bonnie Lievman “In Your Face: How the Food Industry Drives Us to Eat” paragraph 1 Practice

Bonnie Lievman, author of “In Your Face: How the Food Industry Drives Us To Eat”, asserts that the majority of American adults and over thirty percent of America’s children struggle to maintain a healthy weight. Despite the notion that overweight people are lazy and gluttonous, restaurants’ high-calorie offerings are at least partially responsible (par. 1). Example Answer

Paraphrasing means restating part of a source in your own words. You should include all ideas, details, and examples from the original text in your paraphrase. The paraphrase should be about the same length as the original source. It must be in the student’s own words and not the words of the original text Paraphrases can help you avoid maxing out your quote limit. Paraphrase information that is necessary for your audience but is not particularly beautifully written. Paraphrasing

Practice Paraphrase the following text “The large concentration of animals, animal waste, and the potential for dead animals in a small space poses ethical issues. It is recognized that some techniques used to sustain intensive agriculture can be cruel to animals. As awareness of the problems of intensive techniques has grown, there have been some efforts by governments and industry to remove inappropriate techniques” Wikipedia “Factory Farming” paragraph 5. Practice

The Wikipedia entry on factory farming explains that the tight quarters where animals are kept is problematic. Their conditions are also less than ideal; they are often housed along with large amounts of feces and even dead animals. With increasing knowledge of the problems associated with the situation, government and business regulations have been put in place in order to house animals in a more ethically sound way(par. 5). Example Answer