Paraphrasing and summarising
Writing at university involves integrating ideas from other authors into your own writing.
Paraphrasing and summarising allows you to acknowledge these authors by expressing the information in your own words. Effective paraphrasing also demonstrates your understanding of the information.
How to paraphrase
To paraphrase, you need to:
- change the structure of the sentence
- change the words in the sentence
Changing the structure of a sentence
- Read the original text a number of times and make sure you understand the main ideas.
- Write down the main ideas from memory.
- Check what you have written against the original text – make sure you have retained the original ideas and that your version is different.
Changing the words
It can be easy to spot when someone has copied directly from a textbook. We all have different styles of writing and yours will be different to the authors you are reading.
- Once you understand the main ideas of the original text look for specialised words – these words may be retained in the paraphrased version, as they are key to the meaning of the sentence.
- Look for words or phrases that can be changed.
- Use a thesaurus or dictionary to find substitutes.
Paraphrase
Rephrasing or restating information from another source in your own words without changing the meaning.
Maybe shorter than the original passage.
Summary
A summary includes only the main ideas of someone else’s writing, restated in your own words.
Much shorter than the original text.
Always acknowledge the original author when using a paraphrase or summary.
For more information see Citing APA style.
See examples of paraphrasing and summarising below:
Paraphrase
Original text
In recent years a body of research has revealed another, more nuanced benefit of workplace diversity: nonhomogenous teams are simply smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance.
(from – Rock, D. & Grant, H. (2016). Why diverse teams are smarter. Harvard Business Review
A bad paraphrase
In the last few years, a collection of research has shown another, more nuanced advantage of workplace diversity: diverse teams are simply better. Working with people who are unlike you may encourage your brain to lose its old ways of thinking and improve its performance.
Note this paraphrase has only replaced some words with synonyms and has kept the structure almost identical to the original sentence.
A good paraphrase
Recent research has revealed that working in diverse teams can stimulate your creativity and efficiency, advocating the benefits of workplace diversity (Rock & Grant, 2016).
Note: This paraphrase shows a change in sentence structure and words
Summary
Original text
Striving to increase workplace diversity is not an empty slogan — it is a good business decision. A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.
In a global analysis of 2,400 companies conducted by Credit Suisse, organizations with at least one female board member yielded higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those that did not have any women on the board.
In recent years a body of research has revealed another, more nuanced benefit of workplace diversity: nonhomogenous teams are simply smarter. Working with people who are different from you may challenge your brain to overcome its stale ways of thinking and sharpen its performance. Let’s dig into why diverse teams are smarter.
(from – Rock, D. & Grant, H. (2016). Why diverse teams are smarter. Harvard Business Review
Summary
The benefits of workplace diversity has been illustrated in recent studies like the McKinsey report and the Credit Suisse analysis. These studies indicate that diversity in management resulted in higher profits for companies (Rock & Grant, 2016).
Word thesaurus
You are probably already familiar with spellchecker and grammar checker in Microsoft Word. Another beneficial tool is the thesaurus, which can aid your writing to find the best word to meet your needs.
Using the thesaurus, you can look up synonyms (different words with the same meaning) and antonyms (words with the opposite meaning).
The following screencast demonstrates how to use the thesaurus function in Word.
Paraphrasing techniques
Steps to effective paraphrasing and summarising:
- Read your text/paragraph and ensure that you understand it.
- Write down your ideas without looking at the original.
- Use synonyms or change the word order of your sentence.
- Compare with the original to see whether you are conveying the same meaning.
- Record the source details so you can easily cite it later.
3 key techniques for paraphrasing
Change vocabulary by using synonyms
- asserts – claims, argues, maintains
- twentieth century – 1900s
- illustrates – explains, emphasises, clarifies
Change word class
-
- analyse – analysis, analysing
- create – creating, creation
- assume – assumption, assuming, assumed
Change the sentence structure
-
- …the best explanation for the British location of the industrial revolution is found by studying demand factors.
- A focus on demand may help explain the UK origin of the industrial revolution.
Additional resources
The University of Auckland provides further resources on paraphrasing and summarising as part of the online learning module Referen©ite.
Further paraphrasing tips from Queensland University of Technology.
