Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

Analytical and Rhetorical WritingAdapted from Matt Barton

Three Ways to Integrate Sources• Direct Quotation• Paraphrasing• Summarizing

Direct Quotations• Copy and paste something directly into

your document.• Enclose the entire quotation between

quotation marks:– Barton writes, “Good writers know when to

quote and when to paraphrase” (234).

Citing Direct Quotations• MLA Citation Method requires that

citations include the author and the page number when you cite.– Include the name in the parentheses if it isn’t

mentioned earlier:• Barton writes, “Always include the page number”

(82).• One scholar writes, “Always include the page

number” (Barton 82).

Direct Quotations and Ellipses• Do not put ellipses (…) at the beginning or end

of a quotation; readers realize you’re just quoting part of the source:– Barton writes, “…this looks quite silly…” (82).

• Do put ellipses if you leave out the middle of a quotation:– Barton writes, “Ellipses are easy to use…Just learn a

few simple rules” (205). • Some writers put the … in brackets (check the

journal’s style manual):– Barton writes, “Ellipses are easy to use […] if you just

learn a few simple rules” (205).

Dropped Quotations = Bad• Avoid Dropped Quotations:

– Quoting sources can sometimes be difficult. “Even graduate students may struggle to cite sources correctly” (Barton 42).

• Let’s fix the problem:– Quoting sources can sometimes be difficult.

According to Barton, “Even graduate students may struggle to cite sources correctly” (42). H

Explain• Use quotations to support your points, not

make them.– According to one English professor at St. Cloud State,

“Even graduate students may struggle to cite sources correctly” (Barton 52). If even graduate students are having problems citing sources, professors are really expecting too much from their undergraduate students.

Quoting Directly• If the quotation is longer than three lines, it

must be set apart in a block quote (indented from the rest of the text).

• Avoid overusing block quotes.

Paraphrasing• Paraphrase passages or material that wouldn’t

be useful to quote directly.– Original Passage:

• Simmons writes, “If the nation is to obtain the maximum benefit from its investments in information technology, a labor pool capable of using it appropriately is necessary” (52).

– Paraphrase:• According to Simmons, the U.S. won’t benefit from

revolutionary new technologies unless the labor force is better trained (52).

Paraphrasing Guidelines1. Do not alter the author’s intention2. Do not eliminate any significant background

information3. Do not copy the original wording too closely.

– Don’t just change a few words or shuffle things around; read the passage several times and completely rewrite it.

Paraphrases • Original:

– Instead of searching for a job, some college graduates go into business for themselves after graduation, securing a loan for a franchise restaurant or store.

• Paraphrase:– Although students could enter the job market

after getting a degree, they might also consider running their own McDonald’s or Payless shoe store.

Summarizing• Usually, authors will simply

want to summarize passages instead of quoting them directly or paraphrasing them.– Summaries allow you to sort

through the information in the secondary source and report only what you consider to be essential.

– A summary is therefore much shorter than the original, whereas a paraphrase may be the same length. In addition, you do not need to cite particular pages when summarizing a source.

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OriginalSummary

Summaries – How to?• Original:

– Original passage: The full extent of the corporate crime wave is hidden. Although the federal government tracks street crime month by month, city by city through the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, it does not track corporate crime. So the government can tell the public whether burglary is up or down in Los Angeles for any given month, but it cannot say the same about insider trading or illegal polluting.

• Summary:– In “Crime in the Suites,” Mokhiber has noted that we are unsure

about the prevalence of corporate crime because the federal government does not compile crime statistics for white-collar crime.

Summarizing Tips• You don’t always have to summarize the

entire book! Just summarize the parts you think are pertinent to your project.

Original Passage: Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result

they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source material while taking notes.

Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 4647.

A Legitimate Paraphrase:In research papers students often

quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 4647).

A Plagiarized Version:Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in

too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

An Acceptable Summary:Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 4647).