Tips on Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarising

Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarising Summarising and paraphrasing require important thinking and writing skills that are crucial to success at university. Paraphrasing and summarising allow you to demonstrate your understanding and interpretation of a text, and are powerful tools for reshaping information to suit the many writing tasks that will be required of you. Much of the work you do at university will involve the important ideas, writings and discoveries of experts in your field of study. The work of other writers can provide you with information, evidence and ideas, but must be incorporated into your work carefully. In your assignments, markers expect more than copied (plagiarized) passages from books and journals. They expect you to demonstrate an understanding of the major ideas/concepts in the discipline. Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarising are all different ways of including the work of others in your assignments. Quotations: A quotation is an exact reproduction of spoken or written words. Direct quotes can provide strong evidence, act as an authoritative voice, or support a writer’s statements. ►How to do it: Make sure that you have a good reason to use a direct quotation. Quoting should be done sparingly and should support your own work, not replace it. For example, make a point in your own words, then support it with an authoritative quotation. Every direct quotation should appear between quotation marks (“ “). A short quotation often works well integrated into a sentence. Longer quotations (more than three lines of text) should start on a new line, and should be indented.

►When to quote: When the author’s words convey a powerful meaning.

-

When you want to use the author as an authoritative voice in your own writing. When you introduce an author’s position that you wish to discuss. When you want to support claims in, or provide evidence for, your writing.

Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing is a way of presenting a text, keeping the same

References: Pam Mort, 1996, 1999 University of Western Sydney, Macarthur Purdue University Writing Lab 1999