How to Write Academic English

Skills for Success / Academic Skills / How to Write Academic English

Summarising and Paraphrasing

Summarising and paraphrasing are essential skills in academic writing. They allow you to bring the ideas of others into your work while maintaining your own "voice" and avoiding plagiarism. Very often, a summary or a paraphrase is better than a quote because they show your understanding.

Here’s how to summarise and paraphrase effectively.

Summarising
This involves putting the main ideas of a longer text (e.g. a chapter, an article, a book) into a shorter form. Here are some tips for effective summarising:

• Identify key points: Focus on the main ideas and essential details. Ignore minor details and examples that do not contribute to the overall understanding.
• Use your own words: Rewrite the main ideas in your own words. This demonstrates your understanding of the material and helps avoid plagiarism.
• Be concise: Keep your summary brief and to the point. Aim to capture the essence of the original text without unnecessary elaboration.
• Keep the original meaning: Ensure that your summary accurately reflects the original text’s meaning and intent.

Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing involves rephrasing a shorter text (e.g. a sentence, a paragraph) in your own words. Here are some tips for effective paraphrasing:

• Read and understand: Read the original text several times until you fully understand it. This will help you accurately convey the meaning in your own words.
• Use different words and structures: Change the words and sentence structures of the original text. Avoid simply replacing words with synonyms.
• Keep the original meaning: Ensure that your paraphrase accurately reflects the original text’s meaning. Do not add your own interpretation or opinion.

For both summarising and paraphrasing, you must remember to put the reference to the source.

When summarising or paraphrasing, do not look at the text while you are writing. Follow this sequence:

1. Read and understand the source
2. Close the source
3. Write your paraphrase or summary from memory
4. Open the source and check your work is good.  

Links

• Quoting, Summarising, and Paraphrasing in our Mini-Module: How to Avoid Plagiarism
• Mini-module: Quick Guide to Summarising and Paraphrasing
• How to Write in your own Words in our Resources Pages for the Academic Skills
• HowTo Guide on Writing in you own Words. This is a quick and useful guide to summarising and paraphrasing. [pdf]
• University of Hull: Guide to paraphrasing with examples. 
• Avoiding Plagiarism - Paraphrasing, from Academic Integrity At MIT. This page shows you examples of how to make good paraphrases - and also examples of what not to do!
• Purdue Online Writing Lab: Guide to paraphrasing, summarising and quoting.
• Open University: What makes a good paraphrase plus good and bad examples.
• Manchester Academic Phrasebank: See how you can put summaries and paraphrases into your writing.