2.

Paraphrasing and Summarizing

When you paraphrase, you put someone else’s words into yout own words, restating
the ideas without changing their meaning. When you summarize, you condense the
original to convey only the essential information. In the other words, it is important to
understand the difference between a summary and a paraphrase. A paraphrase is
simply a rewriting of a passage in your own words. A summary, on the other hand,
contains only the main idea and the supporting ideas of a passage. A summary will be
much shorter than a paraphrase.

Although paraphrasing and summarizing go together, actually one leads to the other.
In order to write good summary, you have to paraphrase by putting some of the ideas
from the original into your own words.

Beside their obvious usefulness in taking notes, these skills will serve you information
from any sources for your boss, to writing college research papers, to condensing the
member’s discussion at the meeting so that you can write the minutes---each of these
activities requires you to use your own words and to eliminate the nonessential ideas
so that the main point stand out.

Avoiding Plagiarism
There is a fine line between plagiarism and paraphrasing. If the wording of the
paraphrase is too close to the wording of the original content, then it is plagiarism.
The main ideas need to come through, but the wording has to be your own.
To use another person’s writing in your own can be accomplished with quotes and
citations. A quote will need to be the exact wording and the author and source will
need to be identified.
Paraphrasing usually makes the passage shorter than the original. Another option is to
use a summary that is much shorter than the original and is an overview of the main
points

Finally---and most important for your progress in this text—writing summary of a

passage or longer selection is an excellent test how well you have understood it. If you
can strip away the supporting ideas, compress the main ideas, and restate them in your
own words without introducing distortions or inaccuracies, then you can safely say
that you have good grasp of the content.

Here some techniques for paraphrasing:

Techniques for Paraphrasing

•Substitute synonyms for a key words in the original
•Change the order of ideas within sentences
•Combine ideas when possible
•Omit supporting or unimportant ideas

Notice that the first three techniques are used both in paraphrasing and
summarizing and the last one is used in summarizing. To learn how to these four
techniques are used, study this paragraph below. Notice that the key words and
phrases are underlined.

Original passage

In captivity elephants best display their great intelligence in shows of various types,
rapidly learning complex acts where it seems the trainer is constantly at risk and never
harmed, or in the heavy, often difficult tasks they perform in India, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka, and Thailand. But, elephants have a devilish side. One of the oldest bits of
conventional wisdom about them is that they have long memories, and while many of
the stories about elephant killing men who as small boy put a hot chestnut or
peppercorns in their trunks are exaggerated, some elephants do hold grudges against
people who have hurt them, or whom for some reason they dislike. (110 words)

Paraphrase

Elephants kept in captivity show their intelligence by learning complicated act very
quickly yet not harming the trainer who is in a dangerous position. In countries like
India and Bangladesh, elephants are used as a source of power and perform difficult
tasks. But, elephant can be devilish, as well. Elephants’ long memories are legendary,
although the stories about an elephant seeking retribution against a man who, as a boy,
caused the animal harm in some way are probably overstated. Nonetheless elephants
do hold gridges or take a dislike to some people. (91 words)

Paraphrasing can be done with individual sentences or entire paragraphs. There are
several examples of paraphrasing listed below for both long and short blocks of text.
Paraphrasing Sentences
Here are some sentences that have been paraphrased:
• Original: Her life spanned years of incredible change for women.
 Paraphrase: Mary lived through an era of liberating reform for women.

 Original: Giraffes like Acacia leaves and hay and they can consume 75 pounds of
food a day.
 Paraphrase: A giraffe can eat up to 75 pounds of Acacia leaves and hay everyday.
 Original: Any trip to Italy should include a visit to Tuscany to sample their
exquisite wines.
• Paraphrase: Be sure to include a Tuscan wine-tasting experience when visiting
Italy

Here are examples of paraphrasing of a longer passage taken from the Duke
website.
Original Passage:
In The Sopranos, the mob is besieged as much by inner infidelity as it is by the federal
government. Early in the series, the greatest threat to Tony's Family is his own
biological family. One of his closest associates turns witness for the FBI, his mother
colludes with his uncle to contract a hit on Tony, and his kids click through Web sites
that track the federal crackdown

Paraphrased Passage:
In the first season of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano’s mobster activities are more
threatened by members of his biological family than by agents of the federal
government. This familial betrayal is multi-pronged. Tony’s closest friend and
associate is an FBI informant, his mother and uncle are conspiring to have him killed,
and his children are surfing the Web for information about his activities.
The main point of this passage is that problems within the family are as bad as or even
worse than problems caused by the federal government. Details about this betrayal
include one family member turning informant, a hit being put out on Tony by family
members, and Tony’s kids tracking his activities.
Here is a summary of some of the changes made during the paraphrasing process:
 Early in the series = first season
 More threatened = greatest threat
 Closest friend and associate = one family member
 His mother colludes with his uncle = his mother and uncle are conspiring
 His kids click through Web sites = his children are surfing the Web

Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words.

Original passage

In 1610, Galileo Galilei published a small book describing astronomical observations

that he had made of the skies above Padua. His homemade telescopes had less
magnifying and resolving power than most beginners’ telescopes sold today, yet with
them he made astonishing discoveries: that the moon has mountains and other
topographical features; that Jupiter is orbited by satellites, which he called planets;
and that the Milky Way is made up of individual stars. From David Owen, “The Dark
Side: Making War on Light Pollution,” The New Yorker (20 August 2007): 28.
Possible Paraphrase

There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by
writing something like this:

Galileo was able to make some amazing discoveries with his telescope. He made
discoveries about the moon, about Jupiter, and about the Milky Way. He was able to
do this with a telescope that was less powerful than even today's most basic
telescopes.

Your paraphrase doesn't have to be a work of art. However, it should contain the
author's main ideas and it should be written in your own words.

Practice exercise

The journey toward language starts not in the nursery bit in the womb, where the fetus
is continually bathed in the sounds of its mother’s voice. Babies just 4 days old can
distinguish one language from another. French newborn suck more vigorously when
they hear French spoken than when they hear Russian--- and Russian babies show the
opposite preference. At first, they notice only general rhytms and melodies. But
newborn are also sensitive to speech sounds, and they home quicky o the ones that
matter.

_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

.
Summarizing

To write summary, we add the fourth technique—omitting unimportant details. Here

is the same passage reprinted, but this time irrelevant words and phrases are lined out.

Original Passage

The journey toward language starts not in the nursery but in the womb, where the
fetus is continually bathed in the sounds of its mother’s voice. Babies just 4 days old
can distinguish one language from another. French newborn suck more vigorously
when they hear French spoken than when they hear Russian and Russian babies show
the opposite preference. At first, they notice only general rhytms and melodies. But
newborn are also sensitive to speech sounds, and they home quicky on the ones that
matter.
Summary

A baby’s language ability begins as it listens to its mother’s voice in the womb. Even
at four days, baby can distinguish their mother’s language from another. Initially, they
hear general rhytms, but quickly they zero in on the speech sounds that make up their
native language. (48 words)

Original passage

“The Northern Lights”

There are times when the night sky glows with bands of color. The bands may begin
as cloud shapes and then spread into a great arc across the entire sky. They may fall in
folds like a curtain drawn across the heavens. The lights usually grow brighter, then
suddenly dim. During this time the sky glows with pale yellow, pink, green, violet,
blue, and red. These lights are called the Aurora Borealis. Some people call them the
Northern Lights. Scientists have been watching them for hundreds of years. They are
not quite sure what causes them. In ancient times people were afraid of the Lights.
They imagined that they saw fiery dragons in the sky. Some even concluded that the
heavens were on fire.

Summary

The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are bands of color in the night sky. Ancient
people thought that these lights were dragon on fire, and even modern scientists are
not sure what they are

Techniques for Writing Summaries

•Read through the passage twice so that you have a good understanding of the content.
Look up any unfamiliar words.
• Undeline important words, phrases, and sentences. Cross out unimportant material,
as shown in the example.
• Copy the material you underlined onto a sheet of paper. Double-or triple-space to
give yourself plenty of room.
• Study the material. You may need to add information from the original or delete
what you don’t have room for.
• Condense and rewrite the material in your own words as much as possible.
•Insert transitional words or phrase if necessary to show the relationship ideas.
• Rewrite the summary on another sheet of paper. Check to see that your summary is
accurate and does not introduce your own ideas or opinions

A general rule of thumb is that a summary should be about 25 percent of the original
length. In the sample above, this summary is onger, around half of the original, but
that is because we are working with only a single paragraph and there aren’t very
many ideas to omit.

Forcing yourself to limit a summary to an arbitrary number of words is an

intellectually rigorous and challenging exercise. It requires you think about what to
save and what to omit, about how to retain the meaning of the original, using the
fewest possible words, and about how not distort the meaning or introduce
inaccuracies. The trick to writing a good summary is the ability to see the difference
between main ideas and supporting details. Crossing out unnecessary words and
phrases, as demonstrated previously, allows you more easily to see what is essential to
save and what can be safely eliminated.

Practice exercise

Yesteryear’s listeners were drowning in a sea of quiet, and they did the opposite of
filtering out sound. They needed and welcomed it. Most of their days were spent in
the isolation of a home or field without television, telephone, radio or even neighbors.
The sound of distant horses’ hooves could mean mortal danger, and a snappy
harmonica offered the audio pleasure of a symphony orchestra. When a listening was
a matter of survival, there were few more comforting sounds than human voices. With
little visual entertainment, people would patiently listen to itinerant lecturers,
politicians or preachers deliver three—or four—hour perorations. Because there was
no way of replaying speech, if people didn’t hear it when spoken they would never
hear it.

Perhaps the fact that listening was once a matter of life and death expains why the
educational establishment teaches students to read, write and speak, but rarely to
listen. “We think listening is innate, but it’s a skill,” says Kathryn Dindia, a professor
in the department of communication at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee.
“We spend a huge amount of our waking hour listening, but we aren’t taught how to
do it.”In fact, children’s listening skill actually decline as they get older.

Now, write a summary of this passage. The length is 207 words, so try to keep your
summary limited to between 50 and 75 words!