1. Summaries and Paraphrasing

2. A summary reduces a large text to a much shorter one.
People are suing fast food companies for making them obese, but Ninos P. Malek, in his article “Fast Food and Personal Responsibility,” argues that this ignores the responsibility that each person has for his or her choices.

3. How to summarize: Read carefully – usually several times.
Annotate and / or take notes
Use a dictionary
Big picture???
Topic?
What is the writer saying about the topic?
Clear thesis statement?
Main ideas?
Are there words that indicate important ideas (e.g. the most important thing to remember, another factor, the main point)?
Look closely for topic sentences.
Minor details and examples?

4. Work with classmates to understand the reading.
Put the text away and use your notes to summarize.
To the best of your ability – do not include phrases and sentences from text.
Make clear the author’s opinion.
DO NOT include your own opinion.
Summary Length = 10-20% of the original
If your summary is a complete assignment by itself, include the author and the title of the article in your text and add a complete reference at the bottom of the page or on a separate page.
e.g. In Tewfik Allal’s article (2004), “A Muslim Manifesto from France,” he states that…
e.g. The article, “A Muslim Manifesto from France” by Tewfik Allal (2004), discusses…
Reference (at the bottom of the page or on a separate reference page:
Tewfik, A. (2004). A Muslim Manifesto from France. In A. Shine, A. Abusalim,
S. Syed, J. McArdle, M.A. John, M. Brown, D. Frederick (eds.), Majlis of
the ‘Others’ (p.318). Essex, UK: Pearson Education Limited.

5. An acceptable summary:
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes.
Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976):
An acceptable summary:
Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).
Examples from Purdue OWL (

6. Dictionary.com defines paraphrasing as
“...a restatement of a text or passage giving the meaning in another form...”
A paraphrase says the same thing as the original text but with different words.
Used to reduce the number of quotations used
Can be same length as original

7. We like the original text. Why paraphrase?
Too many direct quotations
Original has a style we don’t like or uses archaic language
Original doesn’t fit grammatically
In our own writing:
Thesis Statement  Concluding Sentence
Get and use a dictionary or thesaurus.
Remember: Paraphrase – similar in length to original text
Remember: Don’t paraphrase long passages

8. Original Text:
Extensive research over the last half century on both smokers and non-smokers has shown unequivocally that smoking is dangerous.
Paraphrase:
Considerable scientific study in recent years indicates that smoking is harmful to both smokers and non-smokers.
Original Text:
Air quality in many areas has deteriorated considerably due to industrial and vehicular emissions.
Paraphrase:
In many places, the atmosphere has been severely polluted by factories and cars.

9. A plagiarized version:
Examples from Purdue OWL (
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes.
Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976):
A plagiarized version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So, it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

10. A legitimate paraphrase:
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes.
Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976):
A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

11. The End