Ms. Huckabay's Notes on Summary, Paraphrasing, and Direct Quotations

There are three basic types of note-taking during research: summarizing, paraphrasing, and direct quotations. These three tools are essential to creating a research paper that avoids plagiarizing and gives individual flavor to any student's writing. It is important to distinguish between the three. I will describe the purpose of each, and how they differ.

Summary

A summary is a type of note-taking in which you restate the main idea of a reading selection. The information that you include in a summary is more general than that of paraphrasing. Summaries are shortened versions of the reading selection. Summaries must be written in your own words.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is a type of note-taking in which you include all the ideas in an article or story. It is not necessarily just the main idea of the selection. It is a shortened version (similar to a summary) of the article; however, it is more detailed than a summary since you are including all the ideas from the reading selection. You must write in your own words.

Direct quotation

Direct quotations are statements used in research that must be identical to the original source. You must make sure to cite your source in order to give credit to the originator of the statement.

Please be sure to note the differences between summary and paraphrasing. They sound very similar at first glance, but I have pointed out the differences. You will have to apply this to your note-taking.

All three types of note-taking for research must be referenced in in-text citations as well as the works cited page.

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to . . .
Provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing
Refer to work that leads up to the work you are now doing
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
Distance yourself from the original by quoting it in order to cue readers that the words are not your own
Expand the breadth or depth of your writing

The following website provides even more information for your reference:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/

Comments

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