Quoting, Summarizing and Paraphrasisng

Taking Notes  There are three ways to take notes on your note cards:  Quoting  Summarizing  paraphrasing

Quoting:  What is it?  Copying the authors words, word for word  Must be surrounded by quotation marks and cited  Use few quotes  Why would I use it?  When material is especially well- stated or memorable  When material is of utmost importance

Quoting Example:  Original Passage: What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet, but the blocks that they had to carry to build the pyramids weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs.? What did they do... use cement? In fact, they used so much stone, that if you took all of the stone they used and cut it into 1 foot square blocks, it would extend 2/3 of the way around the earth!!! tml  Quote Example: Many questions surround the building of the pyramids. One such question raised by skeptics is “What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet, but the blocks that they had to carry weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs?” (Egyptian).

Summarizing:  What is it?  Taking longer sections of text and shortening them to highlight the main points IN YOU OWN WORDS.  Summary should be much shorter than original text  Think of the gist: who, what, when, why, where, and how.  Why would I use it?  To cut out the unnecessary details and get to the point  To convey information quickly  You must cite summaries!!!!!!!!!

Summarizing Example:  Original Text: What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet, but the blocks that they had to carry to build the pyramids weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs.? What did they do... use cement? In fact, they used so much stone, that if you took all of the stone they used and cut it into 1 foot square blocks, it would extend 2/3 of the way around the earth!!! tml  Summary: Since the wheel had not been invented yet, Egyptians would have struggled to lift and move the large amounts of heavy, 2 ton blocks used to build the pyramids (Egyptians).

Paraphrasing:  What is it?  Detailed restatement IN YOUR OWN WORDS of a written passage.  Should be about the same length and contain the same message as the original passage.  The preferred form of note taking (most of your cards should be paraphrases)  Must cite paraphrases!!!!  Why would I use it?  Demonstrates your grasp of the subject matter  Allows information to be conveyed in detail

How to Paraphrase:  Read the original passage to gain understanding  Once you understand the passage, place it to the side (so you can’t see it)  Write down as many details as you can remember  Rework these details into your own words and sentence structures  Compare your rewording to the original passage to make sure you have not plagiarized  You have plagiarized if:  You have more than 4 words in a row that are the author’s.  Your sentence structures are the same as the authors  You only changed a few select words in the passage  You just rearranged the author’s words into a different order

Example Paraphrase:  Original Text: What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet, but the blocks that they had to carry to build the pyramids weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs.? What did they do... use cement? In fact, they used so much stone, that if you took all of the stone they used and cut it into 1 foot square blocks, it would extend 2/3 of the way around the earth!! tml  Good Paraphrase: One question that skeptics often ask is how the Egyptians managed to transport and lift the massive amounts of heavy, 2 ton blocks used to construct the pyramids. The amount of stone used could have rounded 2/3 of the Earth if it was cut into 1 foot square blocks, so the Egyptians had to have had some sort of assistance in transporting the materials.

Example Paraphrase:  Original Text: What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet, but the blocks that they had to carry to build the pyramids weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs.? What did they do... use cement? In fact, they used so much stone, that if you took all of the stone they used and cut it into 1 foot square blocks, it would extend 2/3 of the way around the earth!! ml  Bad Paraphrase: One common question skeptics ask is how did the Egyptians move the blocks when they had not even invented the wheel yet? The blocks they had to carry weighed around 2 tons each. That is too heavy for the Egyptians to carry by themselves. In fact, if someone took all the stone they used and cut it down into 1 foot square blocks, it would stretch 2/3 of the way around our planet.  WHY IS THIS A BAD PARAPHRASE?

YOUR TURN TO TRY!!!!!!