Summaries and paraphrases are valuable writing tools. Referencing other people’s writing can be necessary if you want to back up your claims and give your writing more credibility. In other cases, referencing powerful ideas simply improves the quality of your writing. For example, including a quote in your introductory paragraph can “hook” the reader and capture their interest.
You can reference other people’s writing in a variety of ways. Here are the most popular choices:
- paraphrase
- summarize
- quote
Each of these options has a unique set of advantages and disadvantages. If you want to become a successful writer, you must know when to paraphrase, summarise, and quote.
Whether you’re paraphrasing, summarising, or quoting, you must properly acknowledge where these ideas came from or risk committing plagiarism. It is perfectly acceptable to use other people’s work as long as you give credit where credit is due.
Understanding the differences between paraphrasing and summarising makes it easier to write flexible, informative pieces that are free of plagiarism.
What is Paraphrasing?
When you paraphrase another person’s writing, you are expressing their ideas in your own words. An important aspect of paraphrasing is acknowledging whose ideas you are presenting and where they come from.
A paraphrased passage cannot be too similar to the original material. You can’t just change one or two words and say you’re paraphrasing. Ideally, you should present these ideas in language that is natural and simple for you and your readers to understand. If students can not understand the actual meaning of paraphrasing, they usually copy and paste the content. So, don’t be concerned about that, here are make my assignment services accessible for students.
What is Summarizing?
When you summarise someone else’s ideas, you are wrapping their main points in a concise piece of writing that the reader can easily understand.
Summaries are significantly shorter than the original material. For example, a summary of an entire book would not include every event that occurs throughout the book. On the other hand, a book summary would review the most important moments in the plot and could be two or three pages long.
However, summaries can be much shorter. It is possible to summarise an idea or a book in one sentence.
When summarising someone else’s work, it’s important to cover only the most important points. Just like paraphrasing or quoting, you need to attribute summarised ideas to the correct source.
What is Quoting?
Quoting means writing down a writer’s exact words and using quotation marks. When quoting, you must attribute the correct speaker and source, as well as follow the formatting guidelines given by your course or instructor.
Quoting may be preferable to other methods if you need to use clear evidence to back up your claims. Using the author’s exact words allows you to show the accuracy of the evidence you are using.
Now disclose the summarising vs paraphrasing differences!
Key Differences Between Summary and Paraphrase
The points discussed below explain the distinction between summary and paraphrase.
- To summarise means to write down the main ideas and key points of an excerpt in your own words while keeping its essence. On the other hand, paraphrasing means decoding the original text in your own words while preserving its meaning and essence.
- A summary highlights the central idea (essence) and main points of the text. In contrast, paraphrasing is used to simplify and clarify the meaning of an excerpt to improve comprehension.
- If we talk about the length of the summary in comparison to the original text, it is shorter, because the summary tends to highlight the main points only and excludes the irrelevant material of the text. In contrast, paraphrasing has almost the same length as the original text because the goal is to decipher, i.e. convert the complex text into an easily understandable language without excluding any material from the text.
- The primary goal of summarising is to compress and present the essence of the author’s idea or concept in a few sentences or points. In contrast, the primary goal of paraphrasing is to clarify the meaning of an author’s work clearly and effectively when the words used by him/her are not important or too complex to understand.
- A summary is used when you want to give a brief overview of the main ideas to the reader about a topic. On the contrary, paraphrasing is used when the idea or main point is more important than the actual words used in the material, as well as when you want to explain the concept or idea in your own words.
- A summary excludes lengthy explanations, examples, and what the reader has understood. In contrast, a paraphrase does not include the same wordings or paragraphs used in the original content, to avoid plagiarism.
Steps for Summarising
- Firstly, you must read the entire passage twice or three times to grasp its meaning and essence.
- Identify and underline all of the key points, ideas, and supporting facts you’ve read.
- Now, explain the material to yourself so that you understand it better.
- In a few sentences, rewrite the original text’s key points and central idea in your own words.
- Remove unnecessary details and examples.
- Compare the original text with the summary you created.
Steps for Paraphrasing
- Read the entire text carefully, twice or three times, to grasp its meaning and essence.
- Rewrite the author’s ideas in your own unique language, or voice. Make sure the sentences and words you use are your own, and that they are not simply substitutions or swapping of words and phrases.
- Furthermore, the order in which ideas are presented does not need to differ from the source.
- Compare the paraphrased version to the main text to ensure that the essence is clearly presented and make sure that there is no plagiarism.
- Check that words and phrases which is directly taken from the text are within quotation marks.
- Provide references.
When Should You Paraphrase?
When you successfully paraphrase someone else’s ideas, you show to the reader your understanding of the key concepts. Unlike quoting, paraphrasing requires you to demonstrate what you think or understand about the concept.
You should paraphrase when you want to show that you can do more than just copy and paste. Only people who truly understand concepts can effectively paraphrase them. In other words, paraphrasing indicates that you are confident in the ideas you are discussing.
Paraphrasing is also useful when you’re in the middle of a speech and can’t recall exactly what was said. In this case, you can’t really pause, pull out a book, and look up the exact quote.
Finally, paraphrasing is a good option for rewording a longer section of text into a shorter passage. You may choose to paraphrase when you encounter an idea that seems out dated or inaccessible to the modern reader. You can make these ideas relevant again by expressing them in your own words.
When Should You Summarise?
Summaries are useful when you require a little more flexibility. A concept can be summarised in a few sentences or an entire paragraph. Other summaries consist of entire essays.
Summaries also allow you to get right to the core ideas that the author was trying to convey. When you summarise a piece of writing, you can remove all of the unnecessary details. At the end of the day, summaries are all about condensing information so that you can reference key points from the original passage.
Summaries are best used when you want to condense information and cover to the main points.
Wrap Up
Hope you understand the summarizing and paraphrasing key differences. Remember that there is nothing wrong with using other people’s ideas to improve the quality of your own writing. The best writers in the world do not hesitate to paraphrase or summarise the works of others because they recognise that human literature is a collaborative process.
Each new writer carries the torch a few steps further before passing on their accomplishments to the next generation. It is not shameful to use powerful ideas as a foundation for future development. Also, you can hire someone to write an ebook, if you are stuck in any part of the book.
