Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing

1. Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing Research and Writing

2. More reasons to include source material In your own writing • Below are some reasons you might want to incorporate source material into your own writing: • Provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing • Refer to work that leads up to the research you are now presenting • Give examples of several points of view on a subject • Call attention to a position that you wish to agree or disagree with • Highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage by quoting the original • Expand the breadth or depth of your writing

3. General guidelines when using sources • Source material should not make your points for you. YOU are responsible for making the points you want to make in your paper. Use your sources to help support your points or provide evidence for you to argue against. When you incorporate sources correctly, you will be forced to comment on or analyze your source material, thereby ensuring that your own thoughts are the driving force behind your essay. • Be selective in what information you incorporate from your sources; make sure it is important and significant enough to effectively relate to or support your points.

4. Guidelines, Continued • 3. Remember to always be truthful to the source material you’re using. In other words, do not use it out of context or skew its meaning for the purpose of your own writing. • 4. Be sure to always cite your sources appropriately. It is important to remember that you do NOT only cite when using a direct quote. You also cite when paraphrasing or even summarizing. We will learn how to cite in both MLA and APA format.

5. Differences between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing • Quote: the exact wording of source material; they match the original source word for word • Paraphrase: a detailed restatement in your own words that is nearly identical in meaning and length to the original passage, but different in wording, organization, and sentence structure • Summary: a condensed version of a passage in your own words, that only presents the most important ideas (rather than all of the ideas)

6. When should you use quotes? • Quotes should be used carefully and sparingly. You should also be careful not to rely too heavily on a single source for all of your quotes. However, here are 4 good reasons you might want to use a quote: • Accuracy: you are not able to summarize or paraphrase without changing the author’s intent (meaning) • Authority: a quote may help provide expert authority to back up your claims

7. When should you use quotes? • Conciseness: if you have tried summarizing and paraphrasing, and what you’ve written is way too long, you may want to use a quote to be briefer • Unforgettable language: you find the actual words the author used to be particularly significant or effective, or you find the words to be unique and memorable

8. When should you paraphrase? • Paraphrase when the wording provided by the source is less important than the meaning of the source. • Paraphrasing allows you to maintain your personal voice and style when writing, rather than inserting someone else’s voice into your paper. It also shows that you have a thorough understanding of the source material. • You may prefer paraphrasing to summarizing because paraphrasing is more detailed and specific. However, be careful not to add your own ideas into the paraphrase– make sure you are true to the source material.

9. When should you paraphrase? • Here are 3 reasons you might want to paraphrase: • To change the organization of ideas for emphasis: you may want to change the way some of the ideas are organized so that you can better emphasize the points related to your paper • To simplify the material: it may be clearer and easier to read if you can simplify more complex vocabulary and sentence structure • To clarify the material: you may need to clarify technical passages or jargon into a language that is more suitable to your audience

10. When should you summarize? • Like paraphrasing, summarize when the wording of the source is less important than the source’s meaning, and when you want to maintain your own continuity of style. • Summaries may be preferred over paraphrasing because they are briefer and allow more flexibility. For example, you can summarize an entire novel into 1-2 sentences, a paragraph, several paragraphs, or several pages. The length of your summary depends on the purpose of your paper and your audience.

11. When should you summarize? • Here are 3 reasons you might want to summarize: • To condense the material: you may need to condense/shorten the source material in order for it to appropriately fit into the length of your paper and to highlight the points you deem necessary • To omit extras from the material: you may want to take out extraneous information in order to focus only on the author’s main points • To simplify the material: depending on your audience and your writing style, you may want to summarize to simplify more complex arguments, sentence structure, and vocabulary

12. Summary vs. paraphrase chart

13. Example • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/1/ • 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. • Acceptable 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).

14. Example, continued • 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. • 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). • 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.

15. Paraphrasing and summarizing practice • Paraphrase and summarize each of the following passages: • Passage 1 • The twenties were the years when drinking was against the law, and the law was a bad joke because everyone knew of a local bar where liquor could be had. They were the years when organized crime ruled the cities, and the police seemed powerless to do anything against it. Classical music was forgotten while jazz spread throughout the land, and men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie became the heroes of the young. The flapper was born in the twenties, and with her bobbed hair and short skirts, she symbolized, perhaps more than anyone or anything else, America's break with the past. From Kathleen Yancey, English 102 Supplemental Guide (1989): 25.

16. Passage 2 • Of the more than 1000 bicycling deaths each year, three-fourths are caused by head injuries. Half of those killed are school-age children. One study concluded that wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent. In an accident, a bike helmet absorbs the shock and cushions the head. From "Bike Helmets: Unused Lifesavers," Consumer Reports (May 1990): 348.

17. Passage 3 • Matisse is the best painter ever at putting the viewer at the scene. He's the most realistic of all modern artists, if you admit the feel of the breeze as necessary to a landscape and the smell of oranges as essential to a still life. "The Casbah Gate" depicts the well-known gateway Bab el Aassa, which pierces the southern wall of the city near the sultan's palace. With scrubby coats of ivory, aqua, blue, and rose delicately fenced by the liveliest gray outline in art history, Matisse gets the essence of a Tangier afternoon, including the subtle presence of the bowaab, the sentry who sits and surveys those who pass through the gate. From Peter Plagens, "Bright Lights." Newsweek (26 March 1990): 50.

18. Passage 4 • While the Sears Tower is arguably the greatest achievement in skyscraper engineering so far, it's unlikely that architects and engineers have abandoned the quest for the world's tallest building. The question is: Just how high can a building go? Structural engineer William LeMessurier has designed a skyscraper nearly one-half mile high, twice as tall as the Sears Tower. And architect Robert Sobel claims that existing technology could produce a 500-story building. From Ron Bachman, "Reaching for the Sky." Dial (May 1990): 15.

19. Effective quote integration • Knowing how to effectively and correctly integrate quotes into your own writing also takes practice. Here is a basic 3-step rule that you can follow when incorporating quotes into your own writing: • Introduce the quotation: Jones argues that “teenagers need at least 8 hours of sleep per night.” / Many people agree that “teenagers need at least 8 hours of sleep per night” (Jones). • Explain what the author is arguing in the quotation (In other words, explain the quote by putting it into your own words.) • State the implications of the quotation for your own argument (In other words, why is this quote significant? What do you make of the author’s argument? Do you agree/disagree? What is important about it?)

20. Effective quote integration • To see what the 3-step quote integration rule looks like in practice, refer to the handout called “Effective Quote Integration” on Edmodo. Open this handout in Goodreader and we will walk through it together. • You will have more time to practice integrating quotes into sentences later this quarter.