When you
have finished this section, you will be able to
§ paraphrase texts;
§ summarise texts;
§ quote from secondary
sources;
§ cite with the APA
referencing style.
Resource List
2) How to
paraphrase a source:
4) Tips
for summary writing:
Key Concepts
§
Turning
reading into writing
§ Paraphrasing
§
Summarising
§ Citing Avoiding
plagiarism
Procedure
A. Before class
1. Familiarise yourself with paraphrasing, summarising and the APA Guide by reading the
1. Familiarise yourself with paraphrasing, summarising and the APA Guide by reading the
websites
in the Resource List.
2. Consider the following questions as you look
through the resource list.
a. With reference to Resource 1, what
percent of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material?
b. With reference to Resource 2, in paraphrasing, what
elements should be changed in addition to vocabulary?
c. With reference to Resource 3, what are the key features
of a summary?
d. With reference to Resource 4, fill in the blanks below.
Definition: A summary is a __________ of
someone else's words in your own words.
… For all types of summary, the writer is responsible for generally
__________, in his or her own words, the main __________ or __________ of
another writer.
e. With reference to Resource 5, how many types of in-text
quotations are given? How many types of end of text references are given?
3. Read the items listed in Tasks A to D.
B. In class
1. In light of what
you have read on the websites from the Resource List, discuss with a
partner the differences between paraphrasing
and summarizing. Be prepared to share
with the whole class.
2. Do Tasks A to D, discussing the exercises in
groups.
C. After class
Reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of your
paraphrasing and summarizing skills. Read actively. When you are reading a
newspaper article, mentally sum up the gist of the article in one or two
sentences.
Tasks
A. Paraphrasing
Read the information below and do the related practice.
Writing for academic purposes often involves conducting secondary research and incorporating the findings into original work through paraphrasing others’ ideas. In a paraphrase, a writer simply puts another writer’s ideas into his or her own words.
A1
Paraphrasing Strategies
After reading a short text (i.e., a clause, a sentence or several sentences), to write a paraphrase you:
·
highlight the main points;
·
use a sufficient amount of different vocabulary while maintaining
the original meaning;
·
change sentence structures;
·
change the order of major ideas;
·
use synonyms which are appropriate for academic writing. For
example, avoid phrasal verbs such as point
out when a one word equivalent, explain,
can be used.
·
avoid repetition;
·
compare the two versions to ensure enough rewording has taken
place and the meaning is the same, with the paraphrase being the shorter of the
two versions;
·
credit the original author(s) using the APA style.
A2 Examples of Paraphrased Texts
The following show how a paraphrased text is substantially different
from the original with regard to changes in vocabulary, sentence structure, and
sequence of ideas.
Example i.
Example i.
Original
text: “Most people who work
closely with animals, such as animal trainers, take it as a matter of fact that
animals have emotions.”
Source: Masson, J., & McCarthy, S.
(1995). When elephants weep: The emotional lives of animals. New York,
NY: Dell Publishing.
Paraphrase: Masson and McCarthy (1995) state that almost all people who have interacted intimately with animals know that they have the capacity to feel.
Example ii.
Original text: “The current constitutional debate over
heavy metal rock and gangsta rap music is not just about the explicit language
but also advocacy, an act of incitement to violence.”
Source: Kennedy,
M.L. & Smith, H.M. (2000). Reading and writing in the academic community.
New York, NY: Prentice Hall College Division.
Paraphrase: According to Kennedy and Smith (2000), lyrics
that are obscene or promote violence have generated constitutional debate.
Example iii.
Original Text: “The biggest potential
setback to English as a global language, it has been said with more than a
little irony, would have taken place if Bill Gates had grown up speaking
Chinese.”
Source:
Crystal, D. (1997). English as a global language.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Paraphrase: Crystal (1997) ironically suggests that the continued dominance of
English in global society would have only been lessened if Bill Gates had been
born a Chinese speaker.
A3 Paraphrasing Practice
Paraphrase the paragraphs in the boxes below.
1. In this short excerpt from David Crystal’s English as a Global Language, take note of the way that power
relationships rather than the number of speakers influenced Latin language use.
“Latin became an international language throughout the Roman Empire, but
this was not because the Romans were more numerous than the peoples they
subjugated. They were simply more powerful.”
Your paraphrase
Now proofread the paragraph to ensure that there is a smooth flow, conjunctions
have been used, there are not too many short sentences, the main point is
clearly made and the restated information in the text is clearly integrated.
2. As you paraphrase the
following paragraph, present the “expected”
general features of the nuclear reactors from Declan Butler’s “Nuclear power’s new
dawn,” taken from Nature, 20 May,
2004 (Vol. 429, p. 238).
“These new reactors
would all operate at high temperatures, improving their efficiency. And they would include simplified safety
features that do not rely on sophisticated backup systems or experienced
operators — all are, in principle, ‘meltdown proof’ and can cool themselves
down in the event of an accident with minimal, if any, human intervention. . .
. Experts agree that
reactors will need to be a lot cheaper to run. And to sway a nuclear-averse
public, the next generation of reactors will need to produce much less
radioactive waste at terrorist-proof facilities.”
Your paraphrase
B. Summarising
Read the information on below and do the related practice.
In
a summary, a writer distils the main ideas from a written text while
incorporating key relevant information, often times to support or refute an
argument. The main purpose of a summary for academic purposes is to show an understanding
of the text’s thematic discussion. It has less detail than the original text
due to the removal of extraneous information such as examples, anecdotes and
illustrations, which means it takes a broad overview
of the source material, making it significantly
shorter than the original. The vocabulary is changed as it is in
paraphrasing. The source of information is also acknowledged.
B1 Summarising Strategies
After reading a passage (i.e., a sentence, a
paragraph, several paragraphs, a chapter, an essay, a report or even a longer
piece of writing such as a book), you
- distinguish the
main ideas from supporting ideas. The main ideas are usually in topic sentences. Non-essential supporting ideas
help to elaborate the main ideas in the form of examples, anecdotes,
illustrations, data and so on;
- extract and express
the main ideas in your own words;
- rewrite the sentences into a continuous text.
B2 Examples of Summarised Texts
Example i.
Original Text: “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.”
Source: Lester, J.D. (1976). Writing research papers (2nd ed.). pp. 46-47.
|
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, 1976).
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Summary: Students should only make a limited
amount of notes in direct quotation in order to help minimize the amount of
quotes used (Lester, 1976).
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Example
ii.
Original Text: “Overall, the first two quarters have been profitable for the
company. Nineteen of twenty departments report cutting costs at least
twenty percent, and sales from fifteen departments have risen five percent, or
about $5 million. Despite these positive developments, most department
heads believe that they will not be able to maintain these levels for the
remainder of the year.”
Summary: While the first half of the year has
been profitable, the next six months are not expected to be as lucrative.
Source:
Retrieved from Purdue Online
Writing Lab. (2013). Paraphrasing and Summary. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/976/1/
B3 Summarising Practice
Summarise
the paragraphs in the boxes below.
1. “In any one nation, there are both very wealthy and very poor
individuals and families. When sociologists conduct research on these
disparities, they frequently analyze secondary data that originally were
collected by the World Bank and the United Nations. These data focus on
quality-of-life indicators such as wealth; income; life expectancy; health;
sanitation; the treatment of women; and education for high-income,
middle-income and low income nations.”
Source: Kendall, D. (2004). Social problems in a diverse society (3rd ed.).
Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Your
summary
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2. “Why a language becomes a global language has little to do with the
number of people who speak it. It is much more to do with who those speakers
are. Latin became an international language throughout the Roman Empire, but
this was not because the Romans were more numerous than the peoples they
subjugated. They were simply more powerful. And later, when Roman military
power declined, Latin remained for a millennium as the international language
of education, thanks to a different sort of power – the ecclesiastical power of
Roman Catholicism.”
Source: Crystal, D. (1997). English
as a global language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press.
Your Summary
B4 Quoting in a Summary
Please note that the original text must be used word for
word when quoting. A short quotation
of a few words can be integrated into a sentence while longer ones stand alone.
Only use quotes sparingly. Consider the
quotes from the examples above.
i.
In his book on social problems, Kendall mentions a number of “quality-of-life
indicators”.
ii. According to
Crystal, the Latin language dominated in education for a thousand years thanks
to “the ecclesiastical power of Roman Catholicism”.
B5 Incorporating
Information into a Larger Body of Text
Summaries are usually incorporated into a larger
body of text. See the example below
Globalization
has made an impact not only in business and politics, but also in people’s
diet and the nature of food businesses. Large scale migration and foreign
travel have been catalysts which have introduced new types of food and
cuisines. According to Tan (2010), through travels abroad, Singaporeans have developed a liking for exotic and foreign
cuisines and this has resulted in a wide range of restaurants being set up
here to cater to their tastes.
Summary
in bold
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C. Reporting
Read the information below and do the related practice.
C1 Reporting Verbs
When incorporating information from an outside
source, select verbs to convey your attitude towards the quotation and/or the
author’s attitude towards the subject. The verbs in the list below can be
classified according to their levels of certainty as certain, neutral or
tentative. Some of them need to be followed by a “that (or noun) clause.”
Here is one example: He implied that this
work is not useful.
Look
at the list of reporting verbs. Do you know which verbs on the list below demonstrate
certainty? Circle the verbs that should be followed by ‘that’.
| allege |
imply |
remark |
reject |
| argue |
insist |
say |
examine |
| assert |
discuss |
state |
propose |
| believe |
mention |
suggest |
find |
| claim |
note |
survey |
postulate |
comment
|
observe
|
write
|
hypothesize
|
Which of
the verbs from the list above could be used to report the statement made by Tan
in the excerpt below?
Globalization
has made an impact not only in business and politics, but also in people’s
diet and the nature of food businesses. Large scale migration and foreign
travel have been catalysts which have introduced new types of food and
cuisines. According to Tan (2010), through travels abroad,
Singaporeans have developed a liking for exotic
and foreign cuisines and this has resulted in a wide range of restaurants
being set up here to cater to their tastes.
Your
reporting verb choices
|
C2 Citation Conventions
When
introducing an idea, acknowledge the source from which it is taken, using the
APA (American Psychological Association) convention: http://www.waikato.ac.nz/data/assets/pdf_file/0017/51632/APA_Referencing_6th_ed.pdf .
Example
Surname (year of publication) reporting verb summary
Moisse
(2010) states that children conceived
via assisted reproductive technology are more likely to be plagued with
obesity, hypertension and Type 2 diabetes.
Label
the various parts (summary/author/date) of the following paraphrase:
Children conceived via
assisted reproductive technology are more likely to be plagued with obesity,
hypertension and Type 2 diabetes later in life (Moisse, 2010).
C3 Reporting Information Practice
Look
at the example summary sentences you saw earlier on page 5 & 6 and report
the information.
1. Lester (1076) asserts that students
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2.
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D. Summarising Information Selectively
Read
the information below and do the related practice.
When
a text is long with many points, you need to summarise selectively. In the
following passage, “people who take part
in encounter groups” is the main idea and the relevant ideas have been
underlined and rewritten.
Encounter Groups
Because of the unstructured nature
of the group, the major problem faced by the participants is how they are
going to use their time together - whether it be eighteen hours of a weekend
or forty or more hours in a one-week group. Often there is consternation,
anxiety, and irritation at first − particularly because of the lack of
structure. Only gradually does it become evident that the major aim of nearly
every member is to find ways of relating to other members of the group and to himself.
Then as they gradually, tentatively, and fearfully explore their feelings
and attitudes towards one another and towards themselves, it becomes
increasingly evident that what they have first presented are fakes, masks. Only cautiously do the real
feelings and real persons emerge. The contrast between the outer shell and
the inner person becomes more and more apparent as the hours go by. Little by
little, a sense of genuine communication builds up, and the person who
has been thoroughly walled off from others comes out with some small segment
of his actual feelings. Usually his attitude has been that his real feelings
will be quite unacceptable to other members of the group. To his
astonishment, he finds that he is more accepted the more real that he
becomes. Negative feelings are often especially feared, since it seems
certain to each individual that his angry or jealous feelings cannot possibly
be accepted by another. Thus one of the most common developments is that a sense of trust slowly
begins to build, and also a sense of warmth and liking for other members of
the group. A woman says on Sunday afternoon, 'If anybody had told me Friday
evening that by today I would be loving every member of this group I would
have told him that he belonged in the nut house.' Participants feel a
closeness and intimacy which they have not felt even with their spouses or
members of their own family, because they have revealed themselves here more
deeply and more fully than to those in their own family circle.
Thus, in such a group the individual
comes to know himself and each of the others more completely than is
possible in the usual social or working relationships. He becomes deeply
acquainted with the other members and with his own inner self, the self that
otherwise tends to be hidden behind his facade. Hence he
relates better to others, both in the group and later in the everyday life
situation.
Rogers, C. (1970). Encounter
Groups. New York: Harper Collins.
|
A
brief summary might look like this:
In encounter groups, participants learn to
trust other people and show their real selves.
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D1 Summarising
Information Selectively Practice
Read
the passage below. Summarise the effect of spending too much time on Facebook
in one or two sentences, using the underlined information, which needs to be expressed
in your own words.
Facebook users may feel socially
successful in cyberspace but they are more likely to perform poorly in
exams, according to new research into the academic impact of the social
networking website.
The majority of students who use
Facebook every day are underachieving by as much as an entire grade compared
with those who shun the site.
Researchers have discovered how students who
spend their time accumulating friends, chatting and “poking” others on the
site may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work.
The findings will confirm the worst fears of
parents and teachers. They follow the ban on social networking websites in
many offices, imposed to prevent workers from wasting time. About 83% of
British 16 to 24-year-olds are thought to use social networking sites such as
Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, to keep in touch with friends and organise their
social lives.
“Our study shows people who spend more
time on Facebook spend less time studying,” said Aryn Karpinski, a
researcher in the education department at Ohio State University. “Every
generation has its distractions, but I think Facebook is a unique
phenomenon.”
Karpinski and a colleague questioned
219 US undergraduates and graduates about their study practices and general
internet use, as well as their specific use of Facebook.
They found that 65% of Facebook
users accessed their account daily, usually checking it several times to see
if they had received new messages. The amount of time spent on Facebook at
each log-in varied from just a few minutes to more than an hour.
The Ohio report shows that
students who used Facebook had a “significantly” lower grade point average (the
marking system in US universities) than those who did not use the site.
“It is the equivalent of the difference
between getting an A and a B,” said Karpinski, who will present her findings
this week to the annual meeting of the American Educational Research
Association. She has not yet analyzed whether a student’s grades continue to
deteriorate the longer he or she spends on Facebook.
Some UK students have already
spotted the potential danger. Daisy Jones, 21, an undergraduate in her final
year at Loughborough University, realised the time she was spending on
Facebook was threatening her grades - prompting her to deactivate her
account. “I was in the library trying to write a 2,000-word essay when I
realised my Facebook habit had got out of hand,” she said.
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