56 Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

Integrating evidence is a vital step to take when composing effective essays, presentations, and productions. How smoothly you integrate evidence impacts your credibility as a researcher and writer. There are three primary ways to integrate evidence: quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. For all of these, particularly quoting, there is a “formula” to follow: 1) introduce, 2) insert, and 3) explain. The introduce step entails preparing the reader for the new information that’s to come. You can do this by mentioning the source, author, or using signal phrases, such as “according to” or “statistics show that” before bringing in a quotation, paraphrase or summary. The insert step happens when you enter in a quotation, paraphrasing of a fact, or summarize a point made by another source. Lastly, the explain step is oftentimes the most important step to be taken. When explaining your evidence, you’ll demonstrate why the evidence or the source of the evidence is important and how it connects to your overall argument, specific claims, or other important information. By doing so, you’re providing in-depth insight and analysis that keeps your readers engaged and invested in what you have to say.

Quoting

Quoting is when one uses the exact wording of the source material. Direct quotations should be used sparingly, and should be used to strengthen your own arguments and ideas.

When should one use a quotation? Ideally, you want a balance of quotations, paraphrased or summarized content in your writing. Some reasons to use a quotation instead of paraphrasing or summarizing might include:

• When not using the author’s exact wording would change the original meaning
• To lend authority to the point you are trying to make
• When the language of the quote is significant

Quotations should always be introduced and incorporated into your argument, rather than dropped into your paper without context. Consider this first example of how not to incorporate a quotation:

There are many positive effects for advertising prescription drugs on television. “African-American physicians regard direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines as one way to educate minority patients about needed treatment and healthcare options” (Wechsler).

This is a potentially good piece of information to support a research writer’s claim, but the researcher hasn’t done any of the necessary work to explain where this quotation comes from nor explain why it is important for supporting her point. Rather, she has simply “dropped in” the quotation, leaving the interpretation of its significance up to the reader. Now consider this revised example of how this quotation might be better introduced into the essay:

In her Pharmaceutical Executive article available through the Wilson Select Internet database, Jill Wechsler writes about one of the positive effects of advertising prescription drugs on television. “African-American physicians regard direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines as one way to educate minority patients about needed treatment and healthcare options.”

In this revision, it’s much clearer what point the writer is trying to make with this evidence and where this evidence comes from.

Paraphrasing

While there are numerous skills you will develop as writers and communicators throughout your composition experience, one that builds the foundation to effective source usage and understanding is paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is a restatement of the information or point of the original source in your own words. You’ve probably heard of paraphrasing before and may have even attempted to paraphrase (or had trouble paraphrasing because it seemed as though no one could say it better than the author already did). However, you may not always have enough space or time to integrate a specific quotation, especially if it’s a lengthy one and covers multiple concepts or conveys complex details.

Further, we want to make sure, as effective writers, that we’re not distracting readers from our own perspectives or sources of information by including lengthy quotations from other sources. To put it another way, we don’t want to make our readers work for the point and information because they could lose interest or get lost and miss the important points we’re presenting to them by using the source(s). So, paraphrasing helps us avoid these mishaps and helps our organization and “flow” better.

Summarizing

Summarizing is a skill similar to paraphrasing. However, it serves a different purpose, especially when writing. Summarizing usually comes into play when there are multiple steps or details to be conveyed. One of the ways summarizing differs from paraphrasing is in the language associated with them. Typically, you summarize a process, an event, or a story but you paraphrase a theory, concept, or claim. In the next paragraphs, author Stephen D. Krause offers us some helpful guidance on how to summarize and why it’s important.

Summaries of different lengths are useful in research writing because you often need to provide your readers with an explanation of the text you are discussing. This is especially true when you are going to quote or paraphrase from a source.

Of course, the first step in writing a good summary is to do a thorough reading of the text you are going to summarize in the first place. Beyond that important start, there are a few basic guidelines you should follow when you write summary material:

• Stay “neutral” in your summarizing.  Summaries provide “just the facts” and are not the place where you offer your opinions about the text you are summarizing. Save your opinions and evaluation of the evidence you are summarizing for other parts of your writing.
• Don’t quote from what you are summarizing.  Summaries will be more useful to you and your colleagues if you write them in your own words.
• Don’t “cut and paste” from database abstracts.  Many of the periodical indexes that are available as part of your library’s computer system include abstracts of articles. Do not “cut” this abstract material and then “paste” it into your own annotated bibliography. For one thing, this is plagiarism. Second, “cutting and pasting” from the abstract defeats one of the purposes of writing summaries and creating an annotated bibliography in the first place, which is to help you understand and explain your research.

It’s important to learn how to create quotations, to paraphrase, and to summarize properly because we don’t want to plagiarize. But beyond our goal of not plagiarizing, we want to give proper attribution to those who’ve worked hard on their research and studies to share this information with the rest of the world. Learning to quote, paraphrase, and summarize properly will help you avoid plagiarism, especially accidental plagiarism, add more dynamism to your writing, and build your credibility and skills as an ethical writer and researcher.