summarizing and paraphrasing pdf

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1.9: Summarizing and Paraphrasing

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• Page ID 218963
• Lumen Learning

Learning Objectives

• Summarize a passage of reading
• Paraphrase a passage of reading

Have you ever heard, “the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else”?

Writing a summary of a source is a very similar process to teaching someone the content—but in this case, the student you’re teaching is yourself.

Summarizing , or condensing someone else’s ideas and putting it into your own shortened form, allows you to be sure that you’ve accurately captured the main idea of the text you’re reading. When reading, summarizing is helpful for checking your understanding of a longer text and remembering the author’s main ideas. When writing, summarizing is critical when reviewing, writing an abstract, preparing notes for a study guide, creating an annotated bibliography, answering essay questions, recording results of an experiment, describing the plot of a fictional work or film, or writing a research paper.

How to Write Summary Statements

Use these processes to help you write summary statements:

• Underline important information and write keywords in the margin.
• Record ideas using a two-column note-taking system. Record questions you have about the text concepts in the left column and answers you find in the reading in the right column.
• Identify how concepts relate to what you already know.
• Add examples and details

For retaining key ideas as you read, write a summary statement at the end of each paragraph or section. For capturing the major ideas of the entire work, write a summary paragraph (or more) that describes the entire text.

Tips for Summary

For longer, overall summary projects that capture an entire reading, consider these guidelines for writing a summary:

• A summary should contain the main thesis or standpoint of the text, restated in your own words. (To do this, first find the thesis statement in the original text.)
• A summary is written in your own words. It contains few or no quotes.
• A summary is always shorter than the original text, often about 1/3 as long as the original. It is the ultimate fat-free writing. An article or paper may be summarized in a few sentences or a couple of paragraphs. A book may be summarized in an article or a short paper. A very large book may be summarized in a smaller book.
• A summary should contain all the major points of the original text , and should ignore most of the fine details, examples, illustrations or explanations.
• The backbone of any summary is formed by crucial details (key names, dates, events, words and numbers). A summary must never rely on vague generalities.
• If you quote anything from the original text, even an unusual word or a catchy phrase, you need to put whatever you quote in quotation marks (” “).
• A summary must contain only the ideas of the original text. Do not insert any of your own opinions, interpretations, deductions or comments into a summary.

Watch this video to see a walk-through explanation on how to summarize.

You can view the transcript for “Summarizing” here (opens in new window).

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/20213

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is the act of putting an author’s ideas into your own words. When reading, paraphrasing is helpful for checking your understanding of what you read as well as remembering what you read. When writing, paraphrasing is an important skill to have when constructing a research paper and incorporating the ideas of others alongside your own.

Click to view the transcript for “Paraphrasing” here (opens in new window) .

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...essments/20214

paraphrasing : rewriting a passage of text in your own words

summarizing : condensing someone else’s ideas and putting it into your own shortened form

Contributors and Attributions

• Modification, adaptation, and original content. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• PQRST Script. Provided by : Lethbridge College. Located at : www.lethbridgecollege.net/elearningcafe/index.php/pqrst-script. Project : eLearning Cafe. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Summarizing. Provided by : Excelsior College. Located at : https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/what-to-do-after-reading/summarizing/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Why Use Quotes?. Authored by : The News Manual. Provided by : Media Helping Media. Located at : www.mediahelpingmedia.org/training-resources/journalism-basics/659-how-to-use-quotes-in-news-stories-and-features. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• How to Write an A-plus Summary of a Text. Authored by : Owen M. Williamson. Provided by : The University of Texas at El Paso. Located at : http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl0310/summaryhints.htm . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Summarizing and paraphrasing are skills that require students to reprocess information and express it in their own words. These skills enhance student comprehension because they require active reading and listening. They also lead to long-term mastery of information as students go beyond simply understanding to being able to express that understanding. A summary is an overview, in the student's words, of the most important information from reading, lectures, or multi-media sources. Sometimes there is so much information that students get lost in the details; a summary enables them to see the greater picture. A summary is always shorter than the original material. A paraphrase is also written in the student's own words, but it is a restatement of the original information and is therefore as long (or longer) than the original material. A summary is based primarily on main ideas, while a paraphrase includes details.

Related Papers

Phanlapa Khathayut

Malaysian Journal of Computer Science

Rukaini Abdullah

Summary writing is one of the important skills taught in schools. A summary is a condensed version of an existing text. Its production differs from other types of writing where it requires the use of specific strategies. Most research on summary assessments focused on the end product of summary writing instead of its process. Research has shown that lack of strategic skills is a cause of students’ difficulties in writing good summaries. There are a few systems available to assist teachers in assessing students summaries based on content and style. But virtually none have been developed to assess the process particularly in identifying the strategies used. To address this need, we propose an algorithm based on summary sentence decomposition to identify students’ strategies in summary writing. We first analyzed experts’ written summaries, extracted the strategies used in the summaries, formulated a set of heuristics rules to define the strategies and finally transformed the rules using position-based method into summary sentence decomposition algorithm (SSDA). For evaluation, we measured the algorithm’s functionality in identifying the different strategies. We also compared its performance against human experts. The results based on 168 summary sentences indicate that the algorithm successfully identified these syntax level strategies: deletion, sentence combination, copy-paste, syntactic transformation and sentence reordering. In comparison to human performance, the algorithm’s performance closely matched that of human with 94% accuracy in identifying the syntax level strategies. For future work, the algorithm will be extended to identify the semantic level strategies, diagnose the strategies used and provide constructive feedback.

Norisma Idris

The Summary writing is one of the important skills taught in schools. A summary is a condensed version of an existing text. Its production differs from other types of writing where it requires the use of specific strategies. Most research on summary assessments focused on the end product of summary writing instead of its process. Research has shown that lack of strategic skills is a cause of students' difficulties in writing good summaries. There are a few systems available to assist teachers in assessing students summaries based on content and style. But virtually none have been developed to assess the process particularly in identifying the strategies used. To address this need, we propose an algorithm based on summary sentence decomposition to identify students' strategies in summary writing. We first analyzed experts' written summaries, extracted the strategies used in the summaries, formulated a set of heuristics rules to define the strategies and finally transformed the rules using position-based method into summary sentence decomposition algorithm (SSDA). For evaluation, we measured the algorithm's functionality in identifying the different strategies. We also compared its performance against human experts. The results based on 168 summary sentences indicate that the algorithm successfully identified these syntax level strategies: deletion, sentence combination, copy-paste, syntactic transformation and sentence reordering. In comparison to human performance, the algorithm's performance closely matched that of human with 94% accuracy in identifying the syntax level strategies. For future work, the algorithm will be extended to identify the semantic level strategies, diagnose the strategies used and provide constructive feedback.

Nanyoung Ji

This paper aims to investigate what types of paraphrasing are the most and the least frequently attempted by Korean L2 writers and to examine whether the tendency is affected by L2 writers’ English proficiency. A total of 50 summary protocols were collected from 50 college students and analyzed through the discourse analysis program, CLAN. It has been found that when attempting to paraphrase, Korean L2 summary writers tend to resort to minimal modification such as deleting, adding, or replacing vocabulary using synonyms; they are reluctant to modify substantially by combining or transforming sentence structures. The frequency of using more substantial syntactic modification increases as their proficiency improves. However, the overall tendency still remains that syntactic modification is much less used than lexical modification across the differing proficiency groups. Thus, instruction of paraphrasing skills is recommended particularly for less proficient L2 writers since it encourages them to use syntactic and lexical knowledge for communicative purposes. It is also suggested that paraphrasing tasks will be valid writing tasks for assessing syntactic and lexical knowledge in use.

Teresa Diaz

Teaching note taking in the research process (particularly via the role of a school librarian) is an overlooked skill when dealing with students. This article explores how to use various reading comprehension strategies to develop note taking and subsequent critical thinking skills in middle-school students.

Wirya Surachmat

The purposes of this study were twofold: 1) to find out whether summarizing techniques have effects on learners' reading comprehension through their summary writing and; 2) to investigate how much the summarizing techniques affect students on plagiarism and distortion in their summaries. The subjects in this study were 78 high school students. Three instruments were used: the pre-test, the summarizing techniques training lesson plans and the post-test. The findings revealed that summarizing techniques have obvious effects to the subjects' reading comprehension and their summaries especially in cases of finding the main ideas, committing plagiarism and committing distortion. This is supported by the fact that the scores on main idea in the post-test of the experimental group are better than the post-test scores of the controlled group at the level 0.01. Also, it was found that the subjects treated with summarizing techniques committed significantly less plagiarism in their post-test than the subjects in the controlled group at the level 0.01. Moreover, the amount of distortion in the post-test of both groups is significantly different at the level 0.01.

Kim Gomez , Louis M Gomez , Jennifer Sherer

ahmet benzer , Ayşegül SEFER , Sümeyye Konuk , ZEYNEB ÖREN

Keywords Summary writing helps students to determine the main idea, make generalizations, eliminate trivial details, restate the ideas entirely and enables students to remember any information. In the present study, a mixed method is used. In the scope of the research, a strategy of text summary writing is developed. In order to develop text summary writing strategy, four-weeks implementation is applied to 43 students studying at the university 3rd grade by the researchers. The strategy developed in these implementations have been updated in the education period with students' feedback and finalized with student-focused changes. At the end of the study, it is stated that the students who have taken text summary writing strategy education, able to summarize without taking direct quotations from the main text, use less time while writing the summary, write shorter summaries and nearly all of the students agreed that summary writing education is useful. It is concluded that conducting a systematic and planned text summary writing education helps students to improve written expression skill.

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Our text summarizer works on all types of text, even full websites. You can either copy and paste the individual text into the summarizer or you can paste the link to a website at the bottom of the tool. A comprehensive list of what can be summarized is located directly underneath the tool if you are curious about exactly what pieces of content work best with the tool.

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Compressing the content of any lengthy text like a research paper, essay, report, or book is beneficial to the reader in a variety of ways. Most likely, the number one reason a person would use a summarizing tool is to avoid reading the actual text. The summary that appears contains all of the main points of interest that can be read in a fraction of the time it would take someone to read the full text. Reasons for this include not having enough time, having no interest in the topic, meeting a closely approaching deadline, and more. Another reason why someone would use a text summarizer is to better understand a text they have read. Because the tool provides a condensed version of the content provided, a reader can verify their comprehension of the main topics, themes, and points of interest. In this way, a summarizing tool can be considered as a strong study guide. The purpose may be different for summarizing websites. Of course, you can paste the link to an individual blog post, article, or news piece and receive a summary as mentioned above. However, some websites are difficult to understand differently. The purpose of a product, brand, or service may not be clear when scanning the full website. Pasting the link to that website will provide a summary of the major points on that site, which means you get a better view of what that company or product does.

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A wide variety of people use summary tools for different reasons. Students use tools of this kind because it’s generally required that a student must read a large quantity of text. Simply put, there’s not enough time to cover all texts required in rigorous study courses. Therefore, a text summary tool can help students to complete assignments on time while ensuring they understand the content. Students also use these tools to ensure their written content covers the necessary topic. Teachers also have a lot of content to read, whether it’s for grading papers and reviewing student assignments, or creating lesson plans. A summarizer can quickly create an overview of any text, allowing teachers to avoid reviewing content that’s unrelated to the topic or focusing on assignments that need more attention than others. Journalists and editors use tools of this kind to condense information into bite-sized pieces. This improves the legibility of headlines and introductory paragraphs. Journalists also need to quote many sources or summarize an entire speech into a single paragraph. Using a summarizer tool makes it entirely possible without making an article excruciatingly long or misinterpreting what someone says. Editors, as well, can use this tool to avoid the time-consuming nature of reviewing lengthy articles. They can paste the content in the summarizer and receive a reduced text that displays the theme of the content. Copywriters (as well as students and other types of writers) can use this tool to create a closing paragraph or statement. It can be difficult to encapsulate an entire work into a single paragraph, especially after spending so much time writing the body of the story. Many writers struggle to leave out the parts they’ve become attached to or even just find the right words to finish their piece of content. With a text summarizer, writers can simply paste the reduced version of their content as the conclusion without sacrificing the intent of the article, itself.

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Please note that our Text and Website Summarizer Tool is not paraphrasing. So, what is paraphrasing, and what’s the difference between summarizing and paraphrasing? Paraphrasing is changing the text at hand into your own, unique version while keeping the meaning of the original content. Usually when paraphrasing, the content becomes shorter but is not used as a summary. Rather, paraphrasing takes the information you deem most important and converts it into your own words. Summarizing is simply converting a long piece of text into a much shorter version by only keeping the major points of interest. It is not rewritten, rather it removes the unnecessary pieces of information to provide you with a short piece that explains an entire passage. Summarizers are not plagiarism-proof, meaning if you copy and paste a generated summary, you might be flagged for plagiarism. However, other tools can rewrite a summary into a unique piece of work like our Text Rewriter tool

Here, we answer the most useful and frequent questions about text summarizing tools so you can better understand what it’s used for and how to use it properly.

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