Summary and paraphrase
Daniel Gerrard
daniel.gerrard@cjv.muni.cz
Summarising
Summary task
̶ Listen to my story ‘How I ended up teaching English
at Masaryk University in Brno’
̶ Take notes while you listen
̶ Write a summary (academic style)
How did you do it?
What steps did you go through to summarise?
1. ...
2. …
3. ...
4. …
5. ...
How good is it?
Review your summary. How many questions can you answer YES to?
̶ Is all the content relevant?
̶ Have the main ideas been included?
̶ Is it well organised?
̶ Is it easy to understand?
̶ Have I used my own words?
̶ Is the content neutral?
̶ Is the summary shorter than the original version?
̶ Have I cited the source correctly?
Paraphrasing
Paraphrase task
̶ Write down your thoughts on studying at the Faculty of
Economics and Administration, Masaryk University:
Green = positive
Pink = negative
̶ Include your last name and the year (2019)
Example
There’s so much reading to do
for each class and I often
struggle with the vocabulary in
academic texts.
(Gerrard, 2019)
How did you do it?
What steps did you go through to paraphrase?
1. ...
2. …
3. ...
4. …
5. ...
How good is it?
(Marr, 2019)
Summarising vs. paraphrasing
Summarising vs. paraphrasing
Think about the two writing tasks you’ve done today:
̶ What are the similarities/differences between summarising and
paraphrasing?
̶ Why is it important to summarise or paraphrase ideas in our
writing?
Summarising or paraphrasing? (1)
̶ Paraphrasing is when you put the ideas of another author into
your own words. To avoid plagiarism, it is essential that you do
not include too many words from the original text.
̶ Summarising is when you use your own words to draw out the
key points or main arguments of the original text, significantly
reducing its length.
Summarising or paraphrasing? (2)
̶ Summarising is done to mention only the major points without
any kind of further explanation about the matter.
̶ Paraphrasing may be done for the purpose of simplifying the
original work.
̶ Paraphrasing is almost equal to or somewhat less than the
original text while summarising is substantially shorter than the
original.
In academic writing you can use...
???
Some ideas: summarising
̶ Highlight the main ideas in the text you want to summarise (do not
include any minor details)
̶ Combine these ideas together in your own words
̶ Make sure you understand the content well
̶ Do not include your own opinion or add extra information
̶ Use your own words (unless using quotation marks)
̶ Remember to cite your source
̶ Keep reminding the reader that you are summarising the work of
someone else:
The author goes on to say that...
The text further states that...
Some ideas: paraphrasing
̶ Read the text several times to understand the meaning
̶ Extract the main idea from the sentence(s) and think about it on its own
̶ Frame the idea in a new sentence
̶ You could try and structure the sentence differently (try starting with the
main idea)
̶ Now return to the original and make sure that the meaning is still the
same and that nothing has been misinterpreted
̶ Remember to cite your source
Want more practice?