Paraphrasing and

Summarizing
Unit 1 Lesson 3
English for Academic and Professional Purposes
 Lesson Objectives
At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:
• use various techniques in summarizing a variety of texts;
• summarize the content of an academic text;
• paraphrase a statement or paragraph; and
• write a précis/abstract/summary of texts in the various
disciplines.
 Summarizing
• used to restate the main ideas of a text in your own
words
• substantially shorter than the original text because they
don’t include supporting material
• include overarching (key) ideas of an article, a page, or a
paragraph
 For example, in the first chapter of his 1854 book, Walden; or,
Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau wrote the following:

Most men, even in this comparatively free

country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so
occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously
coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be
plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil,
are too clumsy and tremble too much for that.
Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true
integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the
manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated
in the market. He has no time to be anything but a
machine. How can he remember well his ignorance—
which his growth requires—who has so often to use his
knowledge?
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on
fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate
handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves or one
another thus tenderly.
 One way the passage might be summarized

In his 1854 text, Walden; or, Life in the Woods,

Henry David Thoreau suggests that the human
fixation on work and labor desensitizes man to the
world around him, to the needs of his own
intellectual growth, and to the complexity and
frailty of his fellow humans.
 The summary accomplishes two goals:

• It contextualizes the information (who said it,

when, and where).
• It lists the main ideas of the passage without
using quotations or citing specific supporting
points of the passage
 Why is summarizing important?

• It helps you understand and learn

important information by reducing
information to its key ideas.
• It can be used for annotation and study
notes as well as to expand the depth of
your writing.
 How is summarizing different
from paraphrasing?

Summary Paraphrase
• shorter than the original • can be shorter or longer
text. than the original.
• eliminates details, • describes the original text
examples, and supporting in different words. It does
points. not leave out details.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

1. Begin your summary with statement of the

thesis. Begin with an introductory sentence that
mentions the author, title, and thesis.
2. Write the main idea of each section in one well-
developed sentence. Make sure that what you include
in your sentences are key points, not minor details.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

3. Follow the order of ideas in the original text.

After stating the thesis, you should mention the
first main idea that you come across and then
major details that back it up. Then you would
mention the second main idea and so on.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

4. The amount of detail you include, if any,

depends on your purpose for writing the summary.
- For example, if you are writing a summary of a
magazine article for research paper, it might be more
detailed than if you were writing it to jog your
memory for class discussion.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

5. Summary should be no more than ¼ the original text.

It can be one sentence, one paragraph or multiple
paragraphs depending on the length of the original and your
purpose for writing the summary.
6. Do not include unnecessary information or material
that says the same thing as another part of the passage.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

7. Do not use phrasing such as “This article is

about” or “In this paragraph the author says …”
8. Do not plagiarize or bring in your personal
opinion. Summarizing is about restating what the
author says. Save your own ideas for another time.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

9. Make sure that your summary includes the

meaning of the original passage and does not
change the author’s purpose or tone. Identify the
main idea and double check that your summary
does not change or add to it.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

10. Read and revise the content.

• Have you captured the main point of the article?
• Have you included the most important details?
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

10. Read and revise the content.

• Make sure that you have included all the supporting
details or mentioned all of the events, however briefly.
• Group these details as outlined previously; do not omit
key information that was in the original passage. Check
for an accurate topic sentence and the five Ws and an H.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

11. Read over your summary edit for

grammatical and spelling errors.
• Is the verb tense consistent?
• Are all names spelled correctly and capitalized?
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

11. Read over your summary edit for

grammatical and spelling errors.
• Have you avoided writing run-on sentences and
sentence fragments?
Run-on sentence occurs when two or more
independent clauses (also known as complete
sentences) are connected improperly.
Ex. I love to write papers I would write one every
day if I had the time.
Sentence fragment is a clause that falls short of true
sentencehood because it is missing one of three critical
components:
1. Subject
2. Verb
3. Complete thought
 Examples of Sentence Fragments

Because of the rain.

Looking forward to seeing you.
 Guidelines in Writing a Summary

11. Read over your summary edit for grammatical and

spelling errors.
• Is there sentence variety?
• Have you avoided writing short, choppy sentences?
Are there transitional words and phrases to connect
ideas?
 Choppy sentences contain lots of short sentences that
give it a choppy rhythm. These sentences are too short
and often repeat the same words.
Ex. She took dance classes. She had no natural grace
or sense of rhythm. She eventually gave up the idea
of becoming a dancer.
Revised: She took dance classes, but she had no
natural grace or sense of rhythm, so she eventually
gave up the idea of becoming a dancer.