Paraphrasing, Summarizing and Quoting

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There are some writing methods that exist to make our life easier when we are trying to support a writing work with other people writing works. In academic writing, people usually incorporate other ideas from different sources in order to strengthen their writings, but avoiding plagiarism. This awesome link will clear this out.

Summarizing means making a concise description of the major points of something read or listened to. Writers use this method when they want to highlight the main point of the additional source in a general way, says a writing academic skills document from the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Moreover, paraphrasing means to make an itemized restatement of what someone else has written or said, using one’s words. When writers paraphrase, they have to find other words that have the same or similar meaning (synonyms) to restate the information provided in the additional source material. Writers use this technique when they want to emphasize the information of the supplementary source in a detailed way, as indicated in a writing skills document from the Student Success Center of the University of Houston-Victoria.

According to the book Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL Test, “A summary differs from paraphrase in that it does not represent a full account of the material, but rather describe only the major points” (J. Gear and R. Gear 2006, p. 54).

Finally, quoting means expressing the same words of someone written or spoken work, as the paragraph above. Writers use this method when they want to precise supporting testimony of some material that is essential to clarify the writer ideas.

Using these techniques depends on what the writer need to state. There is another link that will help you to have a bright view about this.