MLM Toolbox for Students - Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarising

The following sections are reproduced from the Utas Guide to Academic Integrity for Students. The complete text can be downloaded in word format by accessing http://www.utas.edu.au/tl/supporting/academicintegrity/students.html.

Writing your assignment/project report

When you begin writing your assignment/project report you must give credit to the sources for the ideas you are using. There are standard ways to properly integrate sources into your assignment. They include:

• Direct quotes - This is when you place an excerpt from your source word for word into your paper. The source must be cited, giving credit to the original author.
• Paraphrasing - This means to restate a passage from your source in your own words. The source and author of the passage you paraphrase must be cited.
• Summarising - When you summarise the key concept or main idea from someone else's work in your own words, you must give credit for summarised ideas to the original source.

Direct quotes

Memorable and relevant quotations can be used to embellish your assignment, but in general an assignment should be written in your own words. It is important not to use too many quotations, but rather to explain things in your own words, demonstrating your understanding of the topic. An assignment, which consists largely of one quotation after another, is unlikely to achieve a high mark.

Many problems in presenting assignments are related to the misuse of quotations from secondary sources (that is material presenting critical interpretations of primary texts). It is acceptable to refer to secondary material to gain knowledge or find different interpretations that may stimulate your own thinking and, sometimes, confirm ideas you already hold.

Here are some examples of how to quote correctly:

1. If a quotation is short, from a couple of words to approximately three lines, it should be marked by single quotation marks and incorporated as part of the sentence. For example:
   Dennis Lawton (1994 p. 90) argues that these proposals 'have much in common with John White's idea of a friendly interface'.
2. When you need to show a quote within a quote, use double quotation marks inside the single ones. For example:
   Greene (1993, p. 108) also notes that 'according to Garp, "completeness and finality" were out of the question where editing was concerned and the potential for rapid change was great.'
3. A quotation over three lines in length should be separated from the sentence that supports it by indenting the quoted passage. For example:
   Developments have been rapid or as Ed Krol (1992, p. 19) says:
   the information resources that visionaries talked about in the early 80s are not just "research realities" that a few advanced thinkers can play with in some lab - they're "real life" realities that you can tap into from your home. Once you're connected to the Internet, you have instant access to an almost indescribable wealth of information.

For more information and examples go to http://www.utas.edu.au/library/assist/gpoa/gpoa2.html#ahquot

Paraphrasing

Like a direct quotation, a paraphrase is the use of another's ideas to enhance your own work. For this reason, a paraphrase, just like a quotation, must be cited. The difference in paraphrasing is that you rewrite in your own words the ideas taken from the source, so a paraphrase is not set within quotation marks. While you may be borrowing the ideas it is essential that your writing be entirely original. Just changing a few words here or there or rearranging words or sentences is not paraphrasing.

A good example of appropriate paraphrasing is "Werner Sollors, in Beyond Ethnicity, argues that..."

This form of paraphrasing is useful because it does not rely heavily on the use of quotations and it shows that you have understood the argument of the source author. When paraphrasing is used correctly it is usually more concise than the original and always has a different sentence structure and word choice. Remember, no matter how different from the original, a paraphrase must always be cited, because its content is not original to the author of the paraphrase.

Summarising

Summarising may sound the same as paraphrasing but is actually very different. When you paraphrase you express someone else's ideas in your own language. Summarising is an attempt to distil only the most essential points of someone else's work. When you summarise a passage, you first need to absorb the meaning of the passage and then capture in your own words the most important elements from the original passage.

Jerry Plotnick (2002) provides a good example of summarising from a large passage from "An Anthropologist on Mars":

In "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks notes that although there is little disagreement on the chief characteristics of autism, researchers have differed considerably on its causes. As he points out, Asperger saw the condition as an innate defect in the child's ability to connect with the external world, whereas Kanner regarded it as a consequence of harmful child rearing practices (247-48).