Paraphrasing and Summarising Paraphrasing In academic writing it

Paraphrasing and Summarising

Paraphrasing In academic writing it is often necessary to refer to other people’s research Direct quotations and paraphrasing Paraphrasing means using your own words to report someone else’ writing, but maintaining academic style

References must always be given to the sourcesof the text you are making use of

Examples By By changing the vocabulary changing the verb form changing the word class synthesis

Vocabulary She examined the difficulties that… She investigated the problems that… Rewrite the following: Smith and Jones (1991) found that the circumstances had…

Verb form Johns (1991) analysed the students’ difficulties and… The students’ difficulties were analysed by Johns (1991) and… Rewrite the following: Brown (1994) observed the problems caused by seminars…

Word class The reports were completed in April… The completion of the reports in April ensured that… Rewrite the following: James (2004) concluded that there was a need for note-taking practice.

Synthesis Combining two or more viewpoints or pieces of information from other writers References may support one another, but there may be opposing views as well

Summarising giving a brief account of the main points of some writing An effective summary should be complete, concise, clear and creative (4 Cs)

4 Cs Complete: it includes all the main ideas, but not supporting details or examples Concise: it is as brief as possible, and shorter than the original text Clear: it is easy to understand Creative: it uses some key terms from the text, but mainly uses the summary writer’s own language

Writing a summary Topic sentence(s) Keywords (the main information points) References to the sources of the text

Suggestions for writing summaries At the beginnning write the title, the author and article, publisher and date Quickly skim the text to get an overall idea of it Make brief notes of the main points Underline important sentences or phrases Remove examples and details

Checking summaries Ensure that your summary is neutral and accurate (do not add your ideas) As far as possible condense the points into straightforward statements Rewrite statements in your own words where possible Write clearly, concisely and logically

Structure Introduction (topic) Development (presentation, analysis and discussion) – main idea Conclusion

Exercise Read the text Class and status and write a summary!

Paragraph 2 Weber identified three distinct ______ of _____ in societies 1. 2. 3.

Answer Weber identified three distinct aspects of power in societies: 1. economic power – class relations 2. communal power – status relations 3. authoritarian power – authority relations

Suggested summary In their text on class and status, Fulcher and Scott (2011, p. 746) report the work of Weber. They state that Weber’s theory of social stratification is brief but highly influential, with his disctinction of class, status, and partly being widely accepted. Weber proposed three key aspects of power in society: economic, communal, and authoritarian. Evaluate this summary using the ‘ 4 Cs’ criteria!

Evaluation Complete: functions as an independent text, includes all the main ideas Concise: short(er tha the original text) Clear: understandable Creative: it uses key terms from the text, but mainly uses the summery writer’s own language

Clues for summaries What is the best introductory sentence? What are the main points? What is the conclusion?

Exercise Write a summary of the text The Struggles in the Role of a Social Worker (handout)!

Thank you for your attention!