Paraphrasing, Summarising, Quoting

In order to support claims you are making you will often want to integrate other sources into your own written work. This is normally done via paraphrasing, summarising, or quoting. All three should always be properly attributed to the original source.

The source can be integrated into your text by using a reporting verb. There are many reporting verbs, some that are neutral, others that have various connotations. If in doubt stick with a relatively neutral reporting verb. Remember to always accurately represent an author’s intentions. This means not selectively quoting in a way that will give a misleading impression.

Useful reporting verbs

  • According to (Author)

  • (Author) argues

  • (Author) claims

  • (Author) concludes

  • (Author) notes

  • (Author) reports

  • (Author) states

  • (Author) suggests

  • (Author) writes

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means to restate someone else’s ideas in your own words. A paraphrased passage is normally of similar length to the original passage. Paraphrasing is the preferred technique when you want to incorporate someone else’s ideas at a similar level of detail but where the exact wording isn’t important. A paraphrased sentence should not be too close to the original either in terms of the words used or the sentence structure. Taking someone else’s sentence and just replacing a few words is poor quality paraphrasing and will likely be considered plagiarism.

Generally, paraphrasing is preferred to quoting unless the exact original text is needed for some reason, such as for purposes of analysis, or because the original author’s words were so well-chosen that paraphrasing can’t do them justice. Be careful not to insert your own ideas into the paraphrased material. Your thoughts should be clearly separated. Remember, a paraphrased passage should always be attributed to the original source.

How to paraphrase a passage

  • Read the original source several times.

  • Identify the main points of the text.

  • Without looking at the original text, rewrite it in your own words.

  • Check for accuracy while making sure the wording isn’t too close to the original.

When to paraphrase

  • When you want to include details from a specific section of a text, but the exact wording isn’t required.

Caution
 Be careful of patch writing, which is a type of paraphrasing that retains a significant amount of the original vocabulary and sentence structure.

Case study of poor paraphrasing and plagiarism

Singaporean born and UK based Chef Elizabeth Haigh published a cookbook called Makan featuring a collection of Singaporean recipes. Unfortunately, some of her content was plagiarised from other sources which lead to the publisher withdrawing the cookbook. Obviously, Chef Haigh’s actions were flawed in a variety of ways, but poor quality paraphrasing led to her deception being quickly uncovered. The first source she took material from was Sharon Wee’s book Growing Up in a Nonya Kitchen: Singapore Recipes from My Mother.

By tradition, Nonya Aunties engaged all their senses when they cooked. It was really important to gauge the smells and colour of the gravy; feel the warmth of the charcoal or wok heat; listen to the sizzle of the rempah, and the best bit, taste constantly. The Aunties cooked by agak agak or ‘guesstimation’.
— Elizabeth Haigh
Makan
Traditionally, the Nonyas engaged all their senses when they cooked – it was important to gauge the colour of the gravy, smell the aroma of the spices, feel the warmth of the charcoal heat, listen to the rhythm of the pounding and most importantly, taste the final product when the cooking is finished. As such, recipes passed down the generations were inexact. Cooking was by estimation or what the Nonyas called agak-agak
— Sharon Wee
Growing Up in a Nonya Kitchen : Singapore Recipes from My Mother
I faced many challenges along the way. It began with my having to translate hard-to-read handwritten notes, or convert measurements, and moved on to learning about the different daun (herbs) or rempahs (spice pastes).
— Elizabeth Haigh
Makan
It faced its many challenges along the way. It first started with converting her handwritten recipe measurements from katis and tahils (old Chinese measurements) and learning the different daun (or herbs) and rempah (spice pastes)
— Sharon Wee
Growing Up in a Nonya Kitchen : Singapore Recipes from My Mother

Another example is where Haigh copies from the book You and I eat the Same edited by Chris Ying.

Cuisine cannot exist without the fair and free movement of ingredients, ideas, and people. Deliciousness is an undeniable benefit of migration and that’s exactly what my family has achieved. When people move and mix together, food gets better.
— Elizabeth Haigh
Makan
Cuisine cannot exist without the free and fair movement of ingredients, ideas, and people. Deliciousness is an undeniable benefit of migration. When people move around, food gets better.
— Chris Ying
You and I eat the Same

In addition to the poor paraphrasing, she copied other authors' material without attribution, including their recipes. Interestingly, recipes themselves cannot be copyrighted, but reusing them without crediting the source is poor practice.

The point isn’t that Chef Haigh is a bad person due to committing plagiarism and poor paraphrasing, but that this kind of mistake is easily detected. No doubt Chef Haigh was busy with her restaurant, YouTube channel, family life, and other activities, and was tempted to take shortcuts. Leaving inadequate time to write an essay can often cause students to make similar mistakes.

Summarising

A summary is where you want to present the main ideas of a text, but where many of the details aren’t required. A summary is much shorter than the original text and consists of a broad overview.

When to summarise

  • Summarise when you want to capture a few key points but skip many details.

Quoting

A quotation matches the original source word for word. Quotes are used when it is important to keep the exact wording. Quotes should be used sparingly, consider using them in the following scenarios:

When to quote

  • You are analysing a piece of literature, and you need to reproduce the text exactly.

  • You are analysing an author’s claim, and you want to be sure that you aren’t misrepresenting it.

  • The author’s words are so well-chosen that any attempt to paraphrase wouldn’t do them justice.

Enclose quotes in quotation marks and keep the punctuation and spelling the same as the original.

Tip
 Students are sometimes tempted to create essays by copy and pasting a large number of quotes. Excessive quoting indicates a lack of analysis of the ideas and will likely result in the essay receiving a poor or even failing grade.