What Are Paraphrasing, Summarizing, and Synthesizing?

In academic writing you will often have to write about something you have read. Therefore, it is important to learn how to paraphrase (use different language to say the same thing), summarize (express the same idea in a smaller number of words), and synthesize (combine information from two or more sources) to answer a specific question of interest. The diagram shows how you may paraphrase a source, summarize a source, and then use these skills to synthesize information from two or more sources into your original writing.

Paraphrasing

	Same idea but different words; same amount of text

Summarizing

		Main text in much less text
	Source A

Synthesizing

	Source A		Source B

	Original writing that combines ideas from Source A and Source B and uses paraphrasing and summarizing

Paraphrasing

When you write an essay, you use your original ideas and information you have learned through experience. In addition, you often use information from print and electronic sources such as books, web sites, magazines, and newspapers. You can use such source information in two ways, and both ways show that you borrowed this information. The first way is to put quotation marks around the exact words. A second way of using information that is not yours is to paraphrase, or to restate, another writer’s words and ideas in your own words.

A good paraphrase conveys the same ideas and information as the original writing, but in different words. The length of the paraphrase may be similar to the original, but grammar and vocabulary are usually not the same. Key vocabulary, which may be technical, is often the same because there may not be another way to state it.

In English, the verbs that name a source (for example, state, say, argue, believe, reveal, conclude, report, suggest) are sometimes used in the present tense rather than the past tense; however, both tenses have the same meaning.

Examples: The New York Times states (stated) that tourism in New York City is at an all-time high.

One way is to use the phrase According to followed by the author’s name or the name of the book.

Example: According to a report in the New England Journal …

Another way is to use the name of the source with a verb, such as state, say, argue, believe, reveal, conclude, report, suggest, that indicates a sharing of the information.

Example: The New England Journal reported that …

Summarizing

Quoting and paraphrasing are techniques you can use to include information from another source in your writing. Another way to include information from another source is by summarizing it. A summary is a shortened version, in your own words, of someone else’s ideas. These ideas may come from an article, a book, or a lecture. In college courses, knowing how to write summaries can be useful. For example, you may be asked to answer a test question with a short paragraph that summarizes the key points in your lecture notes. Before you can write a research paper, you will need to summarize the main ideas in your sources of information. When you summarize, you do not include all the information from the source. Instead, you use only the most important parts.

Summarizing involves not only writing but also reading and critical thinking. To summarize, you should do the following.

1. Read the source material and understand it well.

2. Decide which parts of the source material are the most important.

3. Put the important parts in the same order they appear in the original.

4. Paraphrase – use different grammar and vocabulary. You must write information in your own words.

5. If the original states a point and then gives multiple examples, include a general statement with just one example.

6. Use verbs that indicate that you are summarizing information from a source (and not from your own head) such as suggest, report, argue, tell, say, ask, question, and conclude.

Remember that a summary is always shorter than the original writing. A ten-page article might become a few paragraphs in a summary. A two-hundred page book might become an essay.

Synthesizing

A synthesis is a combination of information from two or more sources. When you synthesize, you take information from different sources and blend them smoothly into your paragraph.

Basic steps for synthesizing

1. Read the material from all sources.

2. Choose the important ideas from each source. For this task, you must analyze the information. Ask yourself, “What is the author’s purpose for writing this information?” Then decide which pieces of information are most important in accomplishing what the author intends. In synthesizing, it is always necessary to use only the important, relevant information.

3. Group together the ideas that are connected and that support each other.

4. Combine the ideas in each group into sentences, using your paraphrasing skills.

5. organize the sentences into logical paragraphs and combine them into one continuous piece of writing. Be sure to include an introduction, well-constructed body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Do not forget to include any original ideas you have, too.

6. Check your work for accuracy and smoothness. Add transition words where they are needed.

Eight important steps are involved in the composition of an essay (developing a theme):

1. Determine the approximate number of paragraphs you will need. A typical, well-developed paragraph averages about 150 words, especially if it is made up primarily or exclusively of major supporting statements. Use of minor supporting material tends to increase the length of a paragraph. A 550-word composition will normally have about three paragraphs with the first sentence of the first paragraph serving the dual function of introduction and essay sentence. Then the second sentence becomes the topic sentence of the first paragraph. Such a short theme may have no formal conclusion, the final sentence of the last paragraph serving that purpose.

A 750-word essay suggests four or five paragraphs for the body of the theme and possibly an additional short introduction and a short conclusion. If introducing and concluding the theme take about fifty words each, then the body or main portion of the discussion can use approximately 650 words, or about five paragraphs. With a separate introductory paragraph, the body begins with the second paragraph of the theme. The first sentence of that paragraph serves as the topic sentence of the body (a unit of several paragraphs similar to a paragraph of several sentences) and has its own controlling idea that directly supports the essay idea of the essay sentence expressed in the introduction. The second sentence of the second paragraph then becomes the topic of that paragraph and directly supports the controlling idea of the body.

2. Word your general subject so that it can be properly covered in the predetermined length of your paper. For instance, for a 750-word theme on “the Middle Ages”, progressive stages in restricting the subject might be worded: The Middle Ages – England in the Middle Ages – North Central England in the Fourteenth Century – Social Revolt Against the Moneyed Classes – Outlaws vs. Constituted Authority – Robin Hood – The Good Old Days of Robin Hood and His Men – Identifying with Robin Hood and His Men. As you gather materials and become more knowledgeable about your subject, you may decide to limit or expand your subject even further. Keep a tight rein on your phrasing; make it say only what you really want to discuss.

3. Compose a working thesis sentence with a definite thesis idea (like the topic sentence with its controlling idea). As you read for your paper, you must have some gauge by which to select what is relevant to your purpose and what, being irrelevant, must be excluded. Such a thesis sentence at this time need not be in its final form, but without it you have very little control over unity in the theme.

Let us assume that you wish to limit your subject to Robin Hood, his men, and the events and people associated with them in North Central England during the fourteenth century. You may have to think long and hard to discover an appropriate thesis idea, or you may come upon one quite simply. For instance, you may recall Fransois Villon’s eternal question, “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” You too may wish you could go back to “the good old days” – to the days of Robin Hood.

Of course you cannot, but you might experience imaginatively such people, places, and adventures if you had some means of contact to which you personally responded. It might be only a piece of wood from Sherwood Forest, a visit to the grave of Robin Hood or Little John, or a guided tour through Robin Hood country. A little preparation just might make a vicarious experience possible.

At any rate, begin to fashion on paper a working thesis sentence, keeping in mind the restrictions in length and subject matter you have set for yourself.

4. Gather materials for the theme (have consultations with the teachers, read widely in the library, use the Internet and the like).

5. The fifth important step toward writing the theme is to make certain that the body will have a basic unity of parts. Certain items will cluster around a common central or controlling idea. You should find the core idea of each cluster and the related items. Now determine which core idea with its own cluster of topics can absorb many of the items in the other clusters. Of the unassigned topics, some should be reserved for possible use in the introduction or the conclusion to the theme; the rest can be deleted.

6. Arrange all groups of material in a predetermined order of time, space, general-to-specific, specific-to-general, or climax. Just as you designed greater coherence and effectiveness in the total paragraph by determining which of these orders best served the material, so you should apply one of them to the whole theme.

7-8. The seventh and eighth steps in writing a theme – the introduction and the conclusion - usually are not composed until the body has been completed.

The short essay of 500 to 750 words, which we are discussing now, may not need an introduction as something preliminary to the body of the essay. If it does, the introduction precedes the body, is usually expressed in one paragraph of some fifty words or so, and contains the essay sentence with its essay (or controlling) idea. It may have a definition of words whose clarity is essential to the reader’s understanding of the content or the writer’s point of view. Its tone should also be in keeping with that of the whole essay^ formal or informal, serious or light, objective or personal. (p.p.100 …)

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