Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing Sources
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
- Integrate sources into your writing using a lead-in, a source, and an analysis.
- Differentiate between direct quotes, paraphrases, and summaries, and explain when to use each integration method.
- Edit direct quotes on the grammatical level using the seamless integration, signal phrase, and colon methods.
- Apply the five-step process for paraphrasing to different texts to write your paraphrases.
- Apply the three-step process for summarizing a piece of media that you enjoy.
Key Terms and Concepts
- plagiarism
- direct quote
- paraphrase
- summary
We are officially in the second stage of the report-writing process: producing your report!
By now, you should be off to a good start with your formal research report. You have used rhetorical theory to plan out your message, and you already have several sources you want to use. The next step is addressing how to include those sources in your professional writing.
Academic integrity plays a huge role here. You don’t want to copy a source’s research word for word and claim it as your own. That would be plagiarism. However, you do not want to copy only large chunks of the text and just put that in your paper. That would be poor writing. Instead, you want to include a combination of both, where you use the work of others to help support your arguments and ideas. This chapter will walk you through how to do this.
Integrating Materials Into Your Report
Exercise #1: Interactive Video
Let’s begin with a video that overviews the source integration process. Some of these practices might be familiar to you.
One of the most essential takeaways from the video is that it is insufficient to present information from your sources in your paper. You must also draw your conclusions. Otherwise, you are merely restating someone else’s work and not furthering your argument. Many students forget this crucial step in writing reports. Thankfully, it’s a relatively easy fix once you know what to do. We will first walk you through the structure you need to follow and then show you how to use it to incorporate direct quotes, paraphrase, and summary in your report.
The Source Integration Structure
Read the example paragraph below. What is wrong with it?
A couple of things should stand out. The most obvious is that the paragraph is almost exclusively direct quotes. We have a little bit of the writer’s input at the start and end of the section, but there isn’t anything substantial between the quotes.
Ultimately, the student didn’t incorporate all three elements for integrating sources recommended in the above video. As a reminder, they are:
Let’s review the same paragraph again, highlighting the three elements we discussed. This will show you visually how the paragraph is arranged. We will use the following colors:
Lead-in
Idea from a Source
Analysis
We do have some lead-in for the quotes, but almost no analysis is given. Yes, the quoted information may be relevant, but it is not immediately clear how it’s appropriate to the writer’s main point because there is insufficient analysis.
Students often mistakenly assume that their readers will figure out the relevance independently, but that is not the case. It is not the reader’s job to interpret your writing for you. It is up to you to be as explicit as possible by connecting your sources to your argument.
Let’s look at a revised version of the above paragraph that better incorporates a lead-in, a source, and an analysis. We have color-coded the three elements again so you can better see where they are in the paragraph:
Direct Quotes, Paraphrasing, and Summary
When writing in academic and professional contexts, you must engage with the words and ideas of other authors. Being able to correctly and fluently incorporate other writers’ words and ideas is a critical writing skill. As you now know, there are three main ways to integrate evidence from sources into your writing:
Include a citation when using another person’s words and/or ideas. In-text citations give the original author credit for their work and give readers a place to learn more. This means that even if you do not quote directly but paraphrase or summarize source content and express it in your own words, you still must credit the original authors for their ideas.
You have already seen the use of citations in action throughout this textbook. Anytime we have integrated content from another source, you will have seen a citation that looks something like this:
(Smith, 2020)
This citation uses the American Psychological Association (APA) style used in the communication discipline. The next chapter will discuss the specific mechanics of citing sources.
Direct Quotes
A direct quote is the word-for-word copy of someone else’s words and/or ideas. This is noted by quotation marks (” “) around those words. Using quotations to support your argument has several benefits over paraphrase and summary:
- Integrating quotations provides direct evidence from reliable sources to support your argument
- Using the words of credible sources conveys your credibility by showing you have done research into the area you are writing about and consulted relevant and authoritative sources
- Selecting effective quotations illustrates that you can extract the essential aspects of the information and use them effectively in your argument.
However, be careful not to overquote. As we saw in the above example, overquoting can lead to relying too much on others’ words rather than your own.
Quotations should be used sparingly because too many quotations can interfere with the flow of ideas and make it seem like you don’t have your ideas.
When should you use quotations?
- If the language of the source uses the best possible phrasing or imagery, and no paraphrase or summary could be as effective or
- If the use of language in the quotation is the focus of your analysis (e.g., if you are analyzing the author’s use of a particular image, metaphor, or other rhetorical strategy).
How to Integrate Quotations Correctly
Integrating quotations into your writing happens on two levels: the argumentative level and the grammatical level.
The Argumentative Level
At the argumentative level, the quotation is used to illustrate or support a point you have made, and you will follow it with some analysis, explanation, comment, or interpretation that ties that quote to your argument.
As we mentioned earlier, this is where many students run into trouble. This is known as a “quote and run.” Never quote and run. This leaves your reader to determine the quotation’s relevance, and they might interpret it differently than you intended! A quotation, statistic, or data cannot speak for itself. You must provide context and an explanation for the quotations you use. As long as you use the three steps we listed above for integrating sources, you will be on the right track.
The Grammatical Level
The second level of integration is grammatical. This involves integrating the quotation into your sentences so that it flows smoothly and fits logically and syntactically. There are three primary methods to integrate quotations grammatically:
- Seamless Integration Method: embed the quoted words as if they were an organic part of your sentence. This means that if you read the sentence aloud, your listeners would not know there was a quotation.
- Signal Phrase Method: use a signal phrase (Author + Verb) to introduce the quotation, clearly indicating that the quotation comes from a specific source
- Colon Method: introduce the quotation with a complete sentence ending in a colon.
Let’s see this in action. Consider the following opening sentence (and famous comma splice) from A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens as an example:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
Dickens, C. (2017). A tale of two cities. Alma Books Ltd. p. 5
Below are examples of the quote being integrated using the three methods.
1. Seamless Integration: embed the quotation, or excerpts from the quotation, as a seamless part of your sentence
Charles Dickens (2017) begins his novel with the paradoxical observation that the eighteenth century was both “the best of times” and “the worst of times” (p. 5).
2. Signal Phrase: introduce the author and then the quote using a signal verb (scroll down to see a list of common verbs that signal you are about to quote someone)
Describing the eighteenth century, Charles Dickens (2017) observes, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (p. 5).
3. Colon: if your introductory words form a complete sentence, you can use a colon to introduce and set off the quotation. This can give the quotation added emphasis.
Dickens (2017) defines the eighteenth century as a time of paradox: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (p. 5).
The eighteenth century was a time of paradox: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (Dickens, 2017, p. 5).
Avoid relying on any one grammatical method in your writing. Instead, try to use a balance of methods to make your writing more dynamic and varied.
Editing Quotations
When you use quotation marks around material, this indicates that you have used the exact words of the original author. However, sometimes, the text you want to quote will not fit grammatically or clearly into your sentence without making some changes. Perhaps you must replace a pronoun in the quote with the actual noun to clarify the context, or maybe the verb tense does not fit. There are two main ways to edit a quotation to make it fit grammatically with your sentence:
- Use square brackets to reflect changes or additions to a quote. Place square brackets around any words that have been changed or added.
- Use ellipses to show that some text has been removed. They can have either three dots (. . .) or four dots (. . . .). Three dots indicate that some words have been removed from the sentence. Four dots indicate that a substantial amount of text has been deleted, including the period at the end of a sentence.
Let’s look at this in action using the quote below.
“Engineers always strive for success, but failure is seldom far from their minds. In the case of Canadian engineers, this focus on potentially catastrophic flaws in a design is rooted in a failure over a century ago. In 1907, a bridge of enormous proportions collapsed while still under construction in Quebec. Planners expected that when completed, the 1,800-foot main span of the cantilever bridge would set a world record for long-span bridges of all types, many of which had come to be realized at a great price. According to one superstition, a bridge would claim one life for every million dollars spent. In fact, by the time the Quebec Bridge would finally be completed, in 1917, almost ninety construction workers would have been killed in the course of building the $25 million structure.”
Petroski, H. (2012). The obligation of an engineer. In To forgive design: Understanding failure (pp. 175-198). Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674065437
You are allowed to change the original words, shorten the quoted material, or integrate material grammatically, but only if you signal those changes appropriately with square brackets or ellipses:
Example 1: Petroski (2012) observed that “[e]ngineers are always striving for success, but failure is seldom far from their minds” (p. 175).
Example 2: Petroski (2012) recounts the story of a large bridge that was constructed at the beginning of the twentieth century in Quebec, saying that “by the time [it was done], in 1917, almost ninety construction workers [were] killed in the course of building the $25 million structure” (p. 175)
Example 3: “Planners expected that when completed, the … bridge would set a world record for long-span bridges of all types” (Petroski, 2012, p. 175).
In summary, there are many ways you can approach integrating quotes. You can even change certain quote elements if you indicate this with proper punctuation.
Exercise #2: Integrating a Quote at the Grammatical Level
Below is an excerpt from William Zinsser’s “Simplicity.” After you read the excerpt, please write sentences using all three integration methods discussed. Don’t forget, you can change the quotes slightly if necessary. Just ensure that you are using ellipses or square brackets to indicate this. Also, try to say something interesting about the words you are quoting. Don’t just say, “Zinsser (1980) says ‘insert a quote.'” Your sentence(s) should express your ideas.
You’ll notice that this quote does not have a page number. That is because this version comes from a website that does not have page numbers.
Once you are done, compare them to the examples below. If your approach is different, that’s fine. If you’re unsure you did it correctly, please check with your instructor.
Zinsser, W. K. (1980). Simplicity. In On writing well: An informal guide to writing nonfiction. Harper Perennial.
Paraphrase and Summary
Unlike direct quotes, which use a source’s exact wording, paraphrases and summaries allow you to use your own words to present information. While the approach to using both methods is similar, the reason you will choose one over the other is different.
A paraphrase is typically more detailed and specific than a summary. It also retains the length of the source.
A summary, on the other hand, is used when describing an entire source. For example, if you want to emphasize the main ideas of a source but not go into great detail, then a summary is usually best.
Paraphrase
Exercise #3: Interactive Video
Watch the interactive video below on paraphrasing. It will explain when paraphrasing is preferable over direct quotes, how to correctly paraphrase a source, and how to combine a paraphrase and direct quote in the same sentence.
The video will stop at different points to test your knowledge. Make sure you answer the questions. Additionally, take note of the five steps for paraphrasing as you watch.
Link to Original Video: tinyurl.com/paraprocess
As the video states, paraphrasing is when you put source text in your own words and alter the sentence structure to avoid using direct quotes. Paraphrasing is the preferred way of using a source when the original wording is not essential. This way, you can incorporate the source’s ideas so they’re stylistically consistent with the rest of your document and, thus, better tailored to the needs of your audience. Also, paraphrasing a source into your own words proves your advanced understanding of the source text. The video lists five steps for paraphrasing a source. They are:
- Read the source material until you fully understand the author’s meaning. This may take 3-4 readings to accomplish.
- Take notes and list key terms that you can use in your paraphrase.
- Write your paraphrase without looking at the source material. You should include the key terms that you wrote down.
- Check that your version captures the intent of the original and all important information.
- Provide in-text (parenthetical) citation.
We will discuss this in more detail below. However, if you understand, skip to the next part.
An In-Depth Look at Paraphrasing
A paraphrase must faithfully represent the source text by containing the same ideas as the original in about the same length. Let’s walk through the five steps mentioned in the video above to create a paraphrase for the following text:
Students frequently overuse direct quotations when taking notes, so they overuse quotations in the final research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as a directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes.
Lester, J. D. (1976). Writing research papers: A complete guide. Pearson Scott Foresman.
Step 1: Read the Source Material Until You Fully Understand It
What are these three sentences about? What information do they give us?
They discuss how students rely too much on direct quotations in their writing and explain how much of a final paper should include direct quotes. This seems straightforward enough, so let’s move on to the next step.
Step 2: Take Notes and List Key Terms for Your Paraphrase
The key terms you develop for paraphrasing will depend on what information you want to convey to the reader. Let’s say you want to use Lester (1976) to highlight how much students over-quote in their papers. You may focus on the following key terms:
- 10%
- students
- research.
Notice that this is only three words from the original text, which has over 50 words! This may not seem like much, but it’s enough paraphrasing words.
Step 3: Using Key Terms, Write Your Paraphrase Without Looking at the Original
Let’s try to paraphrase. As a matter of good writing, you should try to streamline your paraphrase so that it tallies fewer words than the source passage while still preserving the original meaning. For instance, an accurate paraphrase of the original passage above can reduce the three-line passage to two lines without losing or distorting any of the original points. Here’s our attempt with the key terms highlighted in yellow:
Lester (1976) advises against exceeding 10% quotation in your written work. Since students writing research reports often quote excessively because of copy-cut-and-paste note-taking, they should try to minimize using sources word for word (Lester, 1976).
This isn’t necessarily a perfect example of a paraphrase, but it is undoubtedly a good start! It’s time to move on to the next step.
Step 4: Compare Your Paraphrase to the Original
Here is the original text with our paraphrase:
Original: Students frequently overuse direct quotations when taking notes, so they overuse quotations in the final research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as a directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes.
Paraphrase: Lester (1976) advises against exceeding 10% quotation in your written work. Since students writing research reports often quote excessively because of copy-cut-and-paste note-taking, they should try to minimize using sources word for word (Lester, 1976).
Notice that even though we only have three key terms, we didn’t have to repeat any two-word sequences from the original. This is because we have changed the sentence structure in addition to most of the words. This can take a couple of tries, so if you don’t get it right away, that’s okay.
Step 5: Provide an In-Text Citation
We’ve already done this step twice in our paper: once at the start with “Lester (1976) advises…” and once at the end with “(Lester, 1976).” We’ll discuss how to do this more in-depth in the next chapter.
Common Plagiarism Issues with Paraphrasing
As we mentioned in the previous section, it is essential to change the original text’s words and sentence structure when paraphrasing. However, many students struggle with the first part. They will typically only substitute significant words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) here and there while leaving the source passage’s basic sentence structure intact. This inevitably leaves strings of words from the original untouched in the “paraphrased” version, which can be dangerous because including such direct quotation without quotation marks will be caught by the plagiarism–busting software that college instructors use these days.
Consider, for instance, the following poor attempt at paraphrasing the Lester (1976) passage that substitutes words selectively. Like last time, we have included the original text with the incorrect paraphrase and highlighted the unchanged words in yellow.
Original Quote: Students frequently overuse direct quotations when taking notes, so they overuse quotations in the final research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as a directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes (Lester, 1976).
Poor Paraphrase: Students often overuse quotations when taking notes and thus overuse them in research reports (Lester, 1976). About 10% of your final paper should be direct quotations. You should, therefore, attempt to reduce the exact copying of source materials while note-taking (Lester, 1976).
As you can see, several strings of words from the original are left untouched because the writer didn’t change the sentence structure of the original. Plagiarism-catching software, like Turnitin, looks explicitly for this writing and produces Originality Reports to indicate how much of a paper is plagiarized. In this case, the Originality Report would suggest that the passage is 64% plagiarized because it retains 25 of the original words (out of 39 in this “paraphrase”) but without quotation marks around it.
Correcting this by simply adding quotation marks around passages such as “when taking notes and” would be unacceptable because those words aren’t significant enough to warrant direct quotation. The fix would be paraphrasing more thoroughly by altering the words and the sentence structure, as shown in the paraphrase a few paragraphs above.
Exercise #4: Paraphrase Practice
Now, try it on your own. Below are three original text from this course’s McCroskey, MacLennan, and Booth readings. Try writing your own paraphrases for each one and compare them to the examples below. Note that the keywords in the examples are highlighted. If your version is different, following the steps we listed is okay. Check with your instructor if you’re unsure if your paraphrase is correct.
(1) “Rhetorical communication is goal-directed. It seeks to produce specific meaning in the mind of another individual. In this type of communication, there is specific intent on the part of the source to stimulate meaning in the receiver’s mind” (McCroskey, 2015, p. 22).
(2) “The successful professional must therefore be able to present specialized information to enable non-specialist readers to make policy, procedural, and funding decisions. To do this, a technical specialist’s communication, like that of any other professional, must establish and maintain credibility and authority with those who may be unfamiliar with technical subjects (MacLennan, 2009, p. 4)
(3) The common ingredient that I find in all of the writing I admire—excluding, for now, novels, plays, and poems—is something that I shall reluctantly call the rhetorical stance. This stance depends on discovering and maintaining in any writing situation a proper balance among the three elements that are at work in any communicative effort: the available arguments about the subject itself, the interests and peculiarities of the audience, and the voice, the implied character of the speaker. I want to suggest that it is this balance, this rhetorical stance, difficult as it is to describe, that is our primary goal as teachers of rhetoric (Booth, 1963, p. 141).
Summary
Summarizing is one of the most essential skills in professional communication. Professionals of every field must explain to non-expert customers, managers, and even co-workers the complex concepts on which they are experts, but in a way that those non-experts can understand. Adapting the message to such audiences requires brevity and translating jargon-heavy technical details into plain, accessible language.
Fortunately, the process for summarizing is very similar to paraphrasing. Like paraphrasing, a summary is putting the source in your own words. The main difference is that a summary is a fraction of the source length, anywhere from less than 1% to a quarter, depending on the source length and length of the summary.
A summary can reduce a whole novel or film to a single-sentence blurb, for instance, or a 50-word paragraph to a 15-word sentence. It can be as casual as a spoken overview of a meeting your colleague was absent from or an elevator pitch selling a project idea to a manager. It can also be as formal as a memo report to your colleagues on a conference you attended on behalf of your organization.
When summarizing, you will follow the same process as a paraphrase but with a few additional steps:
-
- Determine the size of your summary (according to your audience’s needs) so that you can estimate how much material you should collect from the source.
- Pull out the main points, which can usually be found in places like the summary portion of a report, the introduction, the abstract at the beginning of an article, or a topic sentence at the beginning of a paragraph.
- Disregard details such as supporting evidence and examples. These elements belong in a paraphrase, not a summary.
- How many points you collect depends on how big your summary should be (according to audience needs).
- Don’t forget to cite your summary.
Exercise #5: Summary Practice
You have already had a lot of practice summarizing in your daily life. Any time you tell someone about a book, movie, or TV show you like, you are summarizing. You will not spend time reviewing every chapter, every scene, or every episode in excruciating detail. Instead, you will talk about the main points, which will depend on how long your summary needs to be.
Here are some examples. Below are summaries for two sources: the Star Wars franchise and the Nine Axioms reading. There are three summaries for each source: one that is 45 words long, one that is 30 words long, and one that is 15 words long. What information is cut to make the summaries more succinct? Are there any critical details lost between the different summaries?
What’s Star Wars about?
45-word summary: Star Wars chronicles Luke Skywalker’s journey from a farm boy to a Jedi Knight battling the evil empire alongside Princess Leia and Han Solo. Filled with themes of redemption, good versus evil, and the hero’s journey, the narrative unfolds in a galaxy far, far away (Lucas, 1977).
30-word summary: It’s about a boy named Luke Skywalker who becomes a Jedi Knight to fight an evil empire. He fights alongside Princess Leia and Han Solo in a galaxy far, far away (Lucas, 1977).
15-word summary: It’s about a boy named Luke who becomes a Jedi Knight and fights an evil empire (Lucas, 1977).
What are MacLennan’s Nine Axioms?
45-word summary: The Nine Axioms of Communication are nine interconnected principles that can help us design effective messages. They explain why communication works and, just as importantly, why it doesn’t. More specifically, they are tools that will help us identify effective communication strategies and diagnose communication problems (MacLennan, 2009).
30-word summary: MacLennan (2009) wrote nine interconnected communication principles to help us understand communication. These principles also help us identify effective communication strategies and diagnose communication problems.
15-word summary: Nine principles show how communication works, identify effective communication strategies, and diagnose problems (MacLennan, 2009).
Again, notice that neither summary goes into great detail about the topic. They stress the main points. The Star Wars summary doesn’t go into all the adventures in the movies and books, and the Nine Axioms summary doesn’t list all Nine Axioms. Knowing what information to keep is essential in writing a good summary.
Now it’s your turn. Pick a movie, TV show, or book that you like. Write three summaries about the thing you selected: one that is 45 words long, one that is 30 words long, and one that is 15 words long. You don’t need to include a citation. For an extra challenge, try to make your summaries the exact number of words.
Once you are done, compare your three summaries. What is different between them? How did the different length requirements affect your writing? What elements did you have to cut? Why were those elements not as important?
Key Takeaways
- Avoiding plagiarism should always be a concern when you are doing research for a report. Even professionally, ensuring you ethically integrate your sources is essential. Not doing so can result in fines and even termination from your job.
- Many students struggle with this on an organizational level. They tend to think they can stack quotes on top of them, which will be enough, but it is not!
- Instead, you should always use three things when integrating outside sources into your writing: a lead-in, the source, and your analysis. Having a balance of all three will make your writing more persuasive.
- You can include ideas from a source in one of three ways: direct quotes, paraphrase, and summary.
- Direct quotes are best when the language of the source is the best possible phrasing or imagery, and a paraphrase/summary could not be as effective. It is also preferable if you are planning to analyze the specific language in the quotation (such as a metaphor or rhetorical strategy).
- Paraphrasing is best when the original wording of a source is not essential. This means you can incorporate a source’s ideas to be stylistically consistent with the rest of your document. This allows you the flexibility to tailor your writing to the needs of your audience.
- A Summary is best when you want to focus on only the main ideas of a source. The length of your summary will depend on your needs, but it’s not uncommon for a summary to be less than 1% to a quarter of the length of the source.
References
Dickens, C. (2017). A tale of two cities. Alma Books Ltd.
Lester, J. D. (1976). Writing research papers: A complete guide. Pearson Scott Foresman.
Lucas, G. (Director). (1977). Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope [Film]. Lucasfilm Ltd.; Twentieth Century Fox.
Petroski, H. (2012). The obligation of an engineer. In To forgive design: Understanding failure (pp. 175-198). Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674065437
Attributions
This chapter is adapted from Technical Writing Essentials (on BCcampus) by Suzan Last and Candice Neveu. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This chapter is also adapted from Business Communications for Fashion (on openpress.usask.ca) by Anna Cappuccitti. It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
when a person represents the ideas of another as their own original work
a word-for-word copy of someone else's words and/or ideas.
a way to use your own words to present information. This method is more detailed and specific than a summary and retains the length of the original source.
a way to use your own words to present your own information. This method is used for describing an entire source. This means that you will focus only on main ideas and not go into details.
a quality that allows others to trust and believe you
an account of your investigation into a subject, presented in a written document or oral presentation that has conventional formatting
