Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing道場 | 学問・研究 | まにあ道

Some students are confused between paraphrasing and summarizing, so essay writing service will help you understand the differences between them.

Paraphrasing and summarizing are related and confusing terms. People might use them interchangeably which is wrong. So knowing the exact uses of both can help you write an efficient essay.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means writing a piece of information in your own words after taking it from a source. Paraphrasing requires that you mention the source from where the data was taken.

While paraphrasing you have to write the content from the original source in your own words without modifying the information or its meaning.

Paraphrasing requires the understanding and decoding of someone else’s work to be able to create a piece of writing with your own thoughts and words. When I write my essay I often use the paraphrasing technique and find it to be very useful. The key is to use the ideas of the original text while presenting them with your individuality.

Paraphrasing is not like copying the work of someone, as you take those ideas and express them as you like with proper referencing.

Paraphrased work would be of the same size or it can be condensed or reduced in size compared to the original source.

You can paraphrase in any of these scenarios:

1. When you want to give credibility and evidence to your work by using external evidence.


2. When no direct quotes are being used in the text and you want to cite some sources in your work.


3. When some literature or research has high relevance to your work and should be included in your writing.


4. If you want to improve the understanding of the information for your readers

Summarizing

Whereas, summarizing means writing the idea in your own words. You can use the main ideas from a source to express them in your own words while summarizing.

Summarized work also needs to be properly cited. However, a summary is a broad overview of work, and a summary is considerably shorter than the source.

You can use summarization when you want to simplify the text, give only the main ideas or a general overview of some work.

Summarizing a work allows you to mention the work of someone else that also supports your work and provides it credibility. You can do this by writing a short summary of that work in your essay.

If you want to highlight an issue without having to overly get involved with a source you can skip the details and focus on the main topic by using summarization.

You can use the summary method when;

1. You want to include the main ideas and skip the explanations


2. Simplification is the goal


3. You need the highlights or the outline for your work

You should be aware of the differences between paraphrasing and summarizing as they have many important uses in writing.

• They are used for providing credibility to your claims


• They provide the reference to a source material that can be used for getting additional information


• Help prove and validate your point

Differences

1. Paraphrasing includes rephrasing the given text in your own words without making any changes. While summarizing only uses the main point from the source to write the summary. It does not have to include all the details and it is used to refer to the particular source.


2. Paraphrasing is almost the same length as that of the source text while summarizing is generally much shorter than the actual text. You can contact a paper writing service to see sample papers and examples. This will help you understand the use of both methods.


3. The aim of paraphrasing is to present the information from a source in a simplified form. Simplification does not typically affect the size of the source. While the purpose of a summary is to only present the major points from the source while excluding all the details and explanations.


4. You can paraphrase a text when you explain a diagram or a chart. You can take notes from the source and paraphrase them in your own words. It would permit you to highlight important aspects from a bigger source of text and explain in your own words. You can paraphrase any segment or section of a source no matter the size depending on your need.

Summarizing and paraphrasing are allowed as long as they give proper credit to the source. You should know the use and differences of these to write like an expert essay writer. They are useful for all forms of writing, particularly for scientific essays and research.

While a summary enables you to explain the main ideas from a large text in lesser words. You can eliminate excessive details from a text by summarizing the important points. Typically you have to summarize a larger portion of text or the whole source such as a story, a research paper, or a book, to note specific findings that you can incorporate in the summary.

1. It is imperative to create a document of high quality with originality and minimum plagiarism when you are paraphrasing a source. It is also essential to mention the sources from where you have taken the material.

Plagiarism must also be avoided in the case of summarization but is not a major issue as the text only uses the main ideas from the original source while properly giving credit to the authors.

Hopefully, your confusion has been cleared and you can effectively use both techniques while writing your essay.

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