{"id":253,"date":"2020-03-13T19:03:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T19:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=253"},"modified":"2020-10-23T19:25:12","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T19:25:12","slug":"summary-paraphrase","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-esc-introtocollegereadingandwriting\/chapter\/summary-paraphrase\/","title":{"raw":"Paraphrases &amp; Summaries to Re-State Ideas","rendered":"Paraphrases &amp; Summaries to Re-State Ideas"},"content":{"raw":"<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-808 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4969\/2020\/03\/07192828\/137-300x257.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"257\" \/>\r\n\r\nParaphrases and summaries are important reading skills, because they mirror the content of the original text using your own words and\u00a0 sentence structures. The re-writing that you do when you paraphrase or summarize automatically helps you think more deeply about the meaning of a text, as you insure that you are capturing and expressing the text's ideas accurately. Since paraphrases and summaries help your brain capture and anchor ideas from the text, they also help you review and recall those ideas more easily.\r\n<h2>Paraphrase<\/h2>\r\n<div>A paraphrase is usually about the <em>same length<\/em> as the original piece of text. Re-writing the text's ideas using your own words and sentences helps you understand what the text is saying; you have to understand the text\u2019s ideas fully in order to rewrite them clearly.<\/div>\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<div>You may want to paraphrase complicated or hard-to-understand information <em>while<\/em> you are reading, especially if that information offers a key concept in the text.\u00a0 Paraphrasing in this instance will lay the groundwork for engaging with the rest of the information, as it will make you work through what that complicated or difficult passage means.<\/div>\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<div>You may want to paraphrase key information <em>after<\/em> you read a text or portion of a text, as a means of annotating or note-taking, to capture important ideas so that you can then respond to them with your own thoughts.<\/div>\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<h3>How to Paraphrase<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>When you paraphrase, make sure <em>not<\/em> to simply substitute one word for another, retaining the same sentence structure of the original text.\u00a0 Paraphrasing requires you to use your own sentence structures as well as words, so that you are not inadvertently plagiarizing.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Do an initial re-phrasing of the text that you want to paraphrase.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Set the paraphrase aside for a short time.\u00a0 After you go back to it, you\u2019ll most likely see that you\u2019ve tended to retain some of the original text\u2019s wording and sentence structure.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Re-phrase the paraphrase.\u00a0 It may take two or three tries to make the language and sentence structure your own, while retaining the meaning of the original text.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>If you find that the original text uses a key word or phrase that you don\u2019t want to rewrite, know that you can always include it in quotation marks within your paraphrase.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Finally, document the paraphrase if you're going to use it in an essay.\u00a0 Even if you're paraphrasing as a form of note-taking for yourself, it's still good practice to note the details of the text that you're paraphrasing: author, article or text name, page, url, publisher, date, etc. so you can go back to the original text if needed.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3>Paraphrase Example<\/h3>\r\n<div>Here's an original paragraph from the Samovar, Porter, and McDaniel text, <em>Intercultural Communication: A Reader \u00a0<\/em>(Wadsworth, 2009), pgs. 19-20.<\/div>\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">\"Culture shapes us, so we pay more attention to individuals and to the internal processes of individuals (attitudes, beliefs) if we are raised in an individualist culture, and more attention to groups, roles, norms, duties, and intergroup relationships if we are raised in a collectivist culture. Collectivist cultures have languages that do not require the use of \"I\" and \"you\" (Kashima &amp; Kashima, 1997, 1998). They also have many culture-specific relational terms that are not found in individualist cultures, such as <em>philolimo<\/em> in Greek (Triandis, 1972), which is a positive attribute of an individual who does what the in-group expects; <em>amae<\/em> in Japanese, which reflects tolerance of deviation from norms by a dependent person (Uamaguchi, 1998); and <em>simpatia<\/em> among Latin Americans (Triandis, Marin, Lisansky, Betancourt, 1984), which reflects the expectation that social relationships will include mostly positive and very few negative behaviors.\"<\/div>\r\nBelow is one reader's paraphrase; note that the paraphrase is almost exactly the same length as the original, and that the main ideas are the same, but it has a different structure and significant changes in wording. Also note that the parphrase starts with an attribution and ends with the page numbers, to clearly indicate that these ideas are from another author.\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">Samovar states that people who were brought up and participated in individualist cultures focus more fully on themselves and others as individuals, while people who were brought up and participate in collectivist cultures focus more fully on the group as opposed to the individual. Collectivist cultures such as those in Greece, Japan, and Latin America all have words - respectively <em>philolimo<\/em>, <em>amae<\/em>, and <em>simpatia<\/em> - which equate the concept of meeting group expectations with a desirable quality. Such cultures don't focus on words that emphasize individuality, such as \"I\" and \"you\" (19-20).<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\r\nRead the quote below from page 179 of Howard Gardner\u2019s book titled\u00a0<em>Multiple Intelligences<\/em>\u00a0and then choose the best attempt at paraphrasing from the two that follow.\r\n\r\n\u201cAmerica today has veered too far in the direction of formal testing without adequate consideration of the costs and limitations of an exclusive emphasis on that approach.\u201d <sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup>\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>America has now gone too far toward formal testing, without realizing the costs and limitations of exclusively emphasizing that approach (Gardner 179).<\/li>\r\n \t<li>In the United States, the education system places too much emphasis on formal testing, overlooking the limitations and expenses imposed when that assessment strategy is employed exclusively (Gardner 179).<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n[reveal-answer q=\"1\"] Check your Understanding\u00a0 [\/reveal-answer]\r\n[hidden-answer a=\"1\"]\r\n\r\nChoice 2 is the best paraphrase, because the reader uses her own language and sentence structure while offering Gardner's main idea.\u00a0 In choice 1, on the other hand, the wording is too close to the original text; there's a lot of similarity in wording and sentence structure.\r\n\r\n[\/hidden-answer]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\r\n<img class=\"size-medium wp-image-812 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4969\/2020\/03\/07195825\/139-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/>\r\n\r\nA summary offers a <em>condensed<\/em> re-statement of a text\u2019s main idea and key supporting ideas. When you summarize material from a text or portion of a text, you both paraphrase and compress the main points of that material.\u00a0 A summary is very concise; it's usually no more than 15-20% of the length of the original text. Sometimes, a summary of a paragraph can be as short as one sentence.\r\n<div>You may want to annotate with summaries <em>while<\/em> you are reading in order to maintain a running list of a text's main ideas. Summary annotations allow you to scan a text's main ideas and more easily see relationships among those ideas. Or you may want to summarize <em>after<\/em> reading a text or portion of a text. Like paraphrases, summaries also lay groundwork for engaging with the text, as they highlight key ideas that spark your own reactions, applications, background information, and ideas.<\/div>\r\n<h3>How to Summarize<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Read through the text and highlight important information in some way. It's often a good idea to annotate as well as highlight, to extract what you believe to be the most important points. Your summary will\u00a0focus on the main points.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Re-state the main points - the highlighted, annotated information - in your own words. Make sure your sentences are condensed, and that they use your original language and sentence structure.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Set the summary draft aside. When you go back to it, ask if your words 1) make sense to an outside reader, and 2) precisely and concisely capture the essence of the original author's ideas. Sometimes when you focus on using your own words, your own opinions or examples creep into the summary. If that has occurred, edit the draft to get your own thoughts out, since a summary should only report the content of the text. If you need to use any exact words or phrases from the original, quote them within the summary.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>When you think you're done, go back again and compare it to the original text for accuracy of information and originality of your language and sentence structure.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Finally, document the summary if you're going to use it in an essay. Even if you're summarizing as a form of note-taking for yourself, it's still good practice to note the details of the text that you're summarising: author, article or text name, page, url, publisher, date, etc. so you can go back to the original text if needed.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<h3>Summary Example<\/h3>\r\nHere's an example of how to highlight and annotate a passage that you intend to summarize.\u00a0 The original passage is quoted from page 23 of Caffarella, Rosemary S. and Judith M. O'Donnell. \"Judging the Quality of Work-Related, Self-Directed Learning.\" <i>Adult Education Quarterly<\/i> 42 (1991): 17-29.\u00a0Important ideas are <span style=\"background-color: #ffff99\">highlighted<\/span> and [bracketed].\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignnone wp-image-2402\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4969\/2020\/03\/02132225\/180-300x109.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"762\" height=\"277\" \/>\r\n\r\nAnd here is the evolution of one writer's summary of this original text. Note that the ideas are the same, but there is a change in structure and a significant change in wording.\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">\r\n\r\n<strong>First attempt -\u00a0 a start, but too close to the original text:<\/strong>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Quality learning is more than \"getting it right\"; it exists when others understand the results from the same perspective as the learner, when there is external accountability. It also exists when the learner themselves judge that quality learning has occurred.<\/p>\r\n<strong>Second attempt - better than the first, but still not done:<\/strong>\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Quality learning can be judged by two criteria: 1) mutual understanding between the learner and others, as when a reader understands fully what a writer writes, and 2) identification of quality by the learner themselves.<\/p>\r\n<strong>Third and final attempt - a strong summary:<\/strong>\r\n<div class=\"editor-indent\">\r\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Quality learning can be judged by two criteria: 1) mutual understanding between the learner and others and, most importantly, 2) identification of quality by the learner themselves.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<em>Note that in this third version, the writer took out the example of the writer and reader and added the phrase \"most importantly\" to capture the emphasis on the self in the original quote.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<strong>One more thing to do - document the summary:<\/strong>\r\n\r\nCaffarella and O'Donnell state that quality learning can be judged by two criteria: 1) mutual understanding between the learner and others and, most importantly, 2) identification of quality by the learner themselves (23).\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\nView the following short video on writing summaries. It's written from the perspective of using a summary in a piece of writing, but the discussion applies to summarizing as a reading strategy as well.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eGWO1ldEhtQ\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<div><\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\r\n<h3>try it<\/h3>\r\nRead the following quotation from Louis DeSipio's article, \"Demanding Equal Political Voice...And Accepting Nothing Less: The Quest for Latino Political Inclusion,\" published in Thematic Reading Anthology. <sup>[2] <\/sup>Then choose the best attempt at summarizing from the two that follow.\r\n\r\nThe rapid growth in Latino migration in the contemporary era has created a new venue for political voice and activism. Immigrants have long sought the opportunity [to] remain engaged in the civic life of their communities and countries of origin. Examples of these transnational connections can be found throughout the Latino experience in the U.S. (as well as those of other \u00e9migr\u00e9 populations). The long-standing immigrant desire to be involved in both the U.S. and the country of origin, however, is much easier to implement in the current era. Telecommunications and air travel are much cheaper than they have been in the past. The internet reduces communication costs further. Approximately 30 percent of Latino immigrants have engaged in the civic and political worlds of their communities and countries of origin, whether through membership in transnational organizations in the U.S. or through direct participation in the civic or political worlds of the country of origin. A higher share follow the politics of the country of origin. These transnational connections diminish considerably in the second and later generations. Despite political transnationalism\u2019s roots in the long-standing immigrant desires to maintain a foot in the country of origin and the U.S., transnationalism as a mass phenomenon is relatively new. Countries of origin are seeking to promote long-term relationships with their \u00e9migr\u00e9s. To the extent that these efforts are successful, immigrant and perhaps second-generation transnational engagement will likely be a growing phenomenon in the future.\r\n<ol>\r\n \t<li>Latino immigrants' traditional desire to participate politically in both their original and new countries may grow among both immigrants themselves and their children because of two factors, technical ease of communication and original countries' receptiveness to transnationalism.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>About 30% of Latino immigrants to the U.S. still participate in politics in their home countries.\u00a0 Although participation drops in second and third generations, it may increase because countries of origin are increasingly supporting continued engagement, which in itself is supported by accessible telecommunications and air travel.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n[reveal-answer q=\"2\"] Check your Understanding\u00a0 [\/reveal-answer]\r\n[hidden-answer a=\"2\"]\r\n\r\nThe first choice is the best summary.\u00a0 It includes main ideas using the author's own words and sentence structures.\u00a0 The second choice, on the other hand, copies many words and phrases from the original text.\u00a0 It also includes a detailed statistic, which is inappropriate in a summary whose purpose is to confine itself to main ideas.\r\n\r\n[\/hidden-answer]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h2>Paraphrase and Summary Comparison<\/h2>\r\nHere's a brief, original passage from <em>Walden<\/em> (1854) by Henry David Thoreau.\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious\u00a0cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance\u2014which his growth requires\u2014who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.<\/div>\r\n<h3>Paraphrase<\/h3>\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">In his 1854 text,\u00a0<em>Walden; or, Life in the Woods<\/em>, Henry David Thoreau points to the incongruity of a free people becoming enslaved and limited by constant labor and worry. Using the metaphor of a fruit to represent the pleasures of a thoughtful life, Thoreau suggests that people have become so traumatized by constant labor that their hands - as representatives of their minds - have become unable to pick the \"finer fruits\" available to a less burdened life even when that fruit becomes available to them. Given the situation, we should not judge, but should show understanding (110).<\/div>\r\n<h3>Summary<\/h3>\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">In his 1854 text,\u00a0<em>Walden; or, Life in the Woods<\/em>, Henry David Thoreau suggests that the human fixation on work and labor desensitizes man to the world around him, to the needs of his own intellectual growth, and to the complexity and frailty of his fellow humans.<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"purple-example \">\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<sup>[1]<\/sup> Gardner, Howard. <em>Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice.<\/em> BasicBooks, 2006.\r\n\r\n<sup>[2]<\/sup> DeSipio, Louis. \"Demanding Equal Political Voice...And Accepting Nothing Less: The Quest for Latino Political Inclusion.\" in <em>Thematic Reading Anthology<\/em>, Lumen Learning. <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-readinganthology\/chapter\/demanding-equal-political-voice-and-accepting-nothing-less-the-quest-for-latino-political-inclusion-by-louis-desipio\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-readinganthology\/chapter\/demanding-equal-political-voice-and-accepting-nothing-less-the-quest-for-latino-political-inclusion-by-louis-desipio\/<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>","rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-808 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4969\/2020\/03\/07192828\/137-300x257.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"257\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Paraphrases and summaries are important reading skills, because they mirror the content of the original text using your own words and\u00a0 sentence structures. The re-writing that you do when you paraphrase or summarize automatically helps you think more deeply about the meaning of a text, as you insure that you are capturing and expressing the text&#8217;s ideas accurately. Since paraphrases and summaries help your brain capture and anchor ideas from the text, they also help you review and recall those ideas more easily.<\/p>\n<h2>Paraphrase<\/h2>\n<div>A paraphrase is usually about the <em>same length<\/em> as the original piece of text. Re-writing the text&#8217;s ideas using your own words and sentences helps you understand what the text is saying; you have to understand the text\u2019s ideas fully in order to rewrite them clearly.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>You may want to paraphrase complicated or hard-to-understand information <em>while<\/em> you are reading, especially if that information offers a key concept in the text.\u00a0 Paraphrasing in this instance will lay the groundwork for engaging with the rest of the information, as it will make you work through what that complicated or difficult passage means.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>You may want to paraphrase key information <em>after<\/em> you read a text or portion of a text, as a means of annotating or note-taking, to capture important ideas so that you can then respond to them with your own thoughts.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<h3>How to Paraphrase<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>When you paraphrase, make sure <em>not<\/em> to simply substitute one word for another, retaining the same sentence structure of the original text.\u00a0 Paraphrasing requires you to use your own sentence structures as well as words, so that you are not inadvertently plagiarizing.<\/li>\n<li>Do an initial re-phrasing of the text that you want to paraphrase.<\/li>\n<li>Set the paraphrase aside for a short time.\u00a0 After you go back to it, you\u2019ll most likely see that you\u2019ve tended to retain some of the original text\u2019s wording and sentence structure.<\/li>\n<li>Re-phrase the paraphrase.\u00a0 It may take two or three tries to make the language and sentence structure your own, while retaining the meaning of the original text.<\/li>\n<li>If you find that the original text uses a key word or phrase that you don\u2019t want to rewrite, know that you can always include it in quotation marks within your paraphrase.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, document the paraphrase if you&#8217;re going to use it in an essay.\u00a0 Even if you&#8217;re paraphrasing as a form of note-taking for yourself, it&#8217;s still good practice to note the details of the text that you&#8217;re paraphrasing: author, article or text name, page, url, publisher, date, etc. so you can go back to the original text if needed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Paraphrase Example<\/h3>\n<div>Here&#8217;s an original paragraph from the Samovar, Porter, and McDaniel text, <em>Intercultural Communication: A Reader \u00a0<\/em>(Wadsworth, 2009), pgs. 19-20.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"textbox\">&#8220;Culture shapes us, so we pay more attention to individuals and to the internal processes of individuals (attitudes, beliefs) if we are raised in an individualist culture, and more attention to groups, roles, norms, duties, and intergroup relationships if we are raised in a collectivist culture. Collectivist cultures have languages that do not require the use of &#8220;I&#8221; and &#8220;you&#8221; (Kashima &amp; Kashima, 1997, 1998). They also have many culture-specific relational terms that are not found in individualist cultures, such as <em>philolimo<\/em> in Greek (Triandis, 1972), which is a positive attribute of an individual who does what the in-group expects; <em>amae<\/em> in Japanese, which reflects tolerance of deviation from norms by a dependent person (Uamaguchi, 1998); and <em>simpatia<\/em> among Latin Americans (Triandis, Marin, Lisansky, Betancourt, 1984), which reflects the expectation that social relationships will include mostly positive and very few negative behaviors.&#8221;<\/div>\n<p>Below is one reader&#8217;s paraphrase; note that the paraphrase is almost exactly the same length as the original, and that the main ideas are the same, but it has a different structure and significant changes in wording. Also note that the parphrase starts with an attribution and ends with the page numbers, to clearly indicate that these ideas are from another author.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox\">Samovar states that people who were brought up and participated in individualist cultures focus more fully on themselves and others as individuals, while people who were brought up and participate in collectivist cultures focus more fully on the group as opposed to the individual. Collectivist cultures such as those in Greece, Japan, and Latin America all have words &#8211; respectively <em>philolimo<\/em>, <em>amae<\/em>, and <em>simpatia<\/em> &#8211; which equate the concept of meeting group expectations with a desirable quality. Such cultures don&#8217;t focus on words that emphasize individuality, such as &#8220;I&#8221; and &#8220;you&#8221; (19-20).<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>Try It<\/h3>\n<p>Read the quote below from page 179 of Howard Gardner\u2019s book titled\u00a0<em>Multiple Intelligences<\/em>\u00a0and then choose the best attempt at paraphrasing from the two that follow.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmerica today has veered too far in the direction of formal testing without adequate consideration of the costs and limitations of an exclusive emphasis on that approach.\u201d <sup class=\"footnote\">[1]<\/sup><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>America has now gone too far toward formal testing, without realizing the costs and limitations of exclusively emphasizing that approach (Gardner 179).<\/li>\n<li>In the United States, the education system places too much emphasis on formal testing, overlooking the limitations and expenses imposed when that assessment strategy is employed exclusively (Gardner 179).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"qa-wrapper\" style=\"display: block\"><span class=\"show-answer collapsed\" style=\"cursor: pointer\" data-target=\"q1\"> Check your Understanding\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"q1\" class=\"hidden-answer\" style=\"display: none\">\n<p>Choice 2 is the best paraphrase, because the reader uses her own language and sentence structure while offering Gardner&#8217;s main idea.\u00a0 In choice 1, on the other hand, the wording is too close to the original text; there&#8217;s a lot of similarity in wording and sentence structure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Summary<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-812 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4969\/2020\/03\/07195825\/139-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A summary offers a <em>condensed<\/em> re-statement of a text\u2019s main idea and key supporting ideas. When you summarize material from a text or portion of a text, you both paraphrase and compress the main points of that material.\u00a0 A summary is very concise; it&#8217;s usually no more than 15-20% of the length of the original text. Sometimes, a summary of a paragraph can be as short as one sentence.<\/p>\n<div>You may want to annotate with summaries <em>while<\/em> you are reading in order to maintain a running list of a text&#8217;s main ideas. Summary annotations allow you to scan a text&#8217;s main ideas and more easily see relationships among those ideas. Or you may want to summarize <em>after<\/em> reading a text or portion of a text. Like paraphrases, summaries also lay groundwork for engaging with the text, as they highlight key ideas that spark your own reactions, applications, background information, and ideas.<\/div>\n<h3>How to Summarize<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Read through the text and highlight important information in some way. It&#8217;s often a good idea to annotate as well as highlight, to extract what you believe to be the most important points. Your summary will\u00a0focus on the main points.<\/li>\n<li>Re-state the main points &#8211; the highlighted, annotated information &#8211; in your own words. Make sure your sentences are condensed, and that they use your original language and sentence structure.<\/li>\n<li>Set the summary draft aside. When you go back to it, ask if your words 1) make sense to an outside reader, and 2) precisely and concisely capture the essence of the original author&#8217;s ideas. Sometimes when you focus on using your own words, your own opinions or examples creep into the summary. If that has occurred, edit the draft to get your own thoughts out, since a summary should only report the content of the text. If you need to use any exact words or phrases from the original, quote them within the summary.<\/li>\n<li>When you think you&#8217;re done, go back again and compare it to the original text for accuracy of information and originality of your language and sentence structure.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, document the summary if you&#8217;re going to use it in an essay. Even if you&#8217;re summarizing as a form of note-taking for yourself, it&#8217;s still good practice to note the details of the text that you&#8217;re summarising: author, article or text name, page, url, publisher, date, etc. so you can go back to the original text if needed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Summary Example<\/h3>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an example of how to highlight and annotate a passage that you intend to summarize.\u00a0 The original passage is quoted from page 23 of Caffarella, Rosemary S. and Judith M. O&#8217;Donnell. &#8220;Judging the Quality of Work-Related, Self-Directed Learning.&#8221; <i>Adult Education Quarterly<\/i> 42 (1991): 17-29.\u00a0Important ideas are <span style=\"background-color: #ffff99\">highlighted<\/span> and [bracketed].<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-2402\" src=\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4969\/2020\/03\/02132225\/180-300x109.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"762\" height=\"277\" \/><\/p>\n<p>And here is the evolution of one writer&#8217;s summary of this original text. Note that the ideas are the same, but there is a change in structure and a significant change in wording.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox\">\n<p><strong>First attempt &#8211;\u00a0 a start, but too close to the original text:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Quality learning is more than &#8220;getting it right&#8221;; it exists when others understand the results from the same perspective as the learner, when there is external accountability. It also exists when the learner themselves judge that quality learning has occurred.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Second attempt &#8211; better than the first, but still not done:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Quality learning can be judged by two criteria: 1) mutual understanding between the learner and others, as when a reader understands fully what a writer writes, and 2) identification of quality by the learner themselves.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Third and final attempt &#8211; a strong summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"editor-indent\">\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">Quality learning can be judged by two criteria: 1) mutual understanding between the learner and others and, most importantly, 2) identification of quality by the learner themselves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Note that in this third version, the writer took out the example of the writer and reader and added the phrase &#8220;most importantly&#8221; to capture the emphasis on the self in the original quote.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>One more thing to do &#8211; document the summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Caffarella and O&#8217;Donnell state that quality learning can be judged by two criteria: 1) mutual understanding between the learner and others and, most importantly, 2) identification of quality by the learner themselves (23).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>View the following short video on writing summaries. It&#8217;s written from the perspective of using a summary in a piece of writing, but the discussion applies to summarizing as a reading strategy as well.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"oembed-1\" title=\"How to Write a Summary\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eGWO1ldEhtQ?feature=oembed&#38;rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox exercises\">\n<h3>try it<\/h3>\n<p>Read the following quotation from Louis DeSipio&#8217;s article, &#8220;Demanding Equal Political Voice&#8230;And Accepting Nothing Less: The Quest for Latino Political Inclusion,&#8221; published in Thematic Reading Anthology. <sup>[2] <\/sup>Then choose the best attempt at summarizing from the two that follow.<\/p>\n<p>The rapid growth in Latino migration in the contemporary era has created a new venue for political voice and activism. Immigrants have long sought the opportunity [to] remain engaged in the civic life of their communities and countries of origin. Examples of these transnational connections can be found throughout the Latino experience in the U.S. (as well as those of other \u00e9migr\u00e9 populations). The long-standing immigrant desire to be involved in both the U.S. and the country of origin, however, is much easier to implement in the current era. Telecommunications and air travel are much cheaper than they have been in the past. The internet reduces communication costs further. Approximately 30 percent of Latino immigrants have engaged in the civic and political worlds of their communities and countries of origin, whether through membership in transnational organizations in the U.S. or through direct participation in the civic or political worlds of the country of origin. A higher share follow the politics of the country of origin. These transnational connections diminish considerably in the second and later generations. Despite political transnationalism\u2019s roots in the long-standing immigrant desires to maintain a foot in the country of origin and the U.S., transnationalism as a mass phenomenon is relatively new. Countries of origin are seeking to promote long-term relationships with their \u00e9migr\u00e9s. To the extent that these efforts are successful, immigrant and perhaps second-generation transnational engagement will likely be a growing phenomenon in the future.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Latino immigrants&#8217; traditional desire to participate politically in both their original and new countries may grow among both immigrants themselves and their children because of two factors, technical ease of communication and original countries&#8217; receptiveness to transnationalism.<\/li>\n<li>About 30% of Latino immigrants to the U.S. still participate in politics in their home countries.\u00a0 Although participation drops in second and third generations, it may increase because countries of origin are increasingly supporting continued engagement, which in itself is supported by accessible telecommunications and air travel.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<div class=\"qa-wrapper\" style=\"display: block\"><span class=\"show-answer collapsed\" style=\"cursor: pointer\" data-target=\"q2\"> Check your Understanding\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"q2\" class=\"hidden-answer\" style=\"display: none\">\n<p>The first choice is the best summary.\u00a0 It includes main ideas using the author&#8217;s own words and sentence structures.\u00a0 The second choice, on the other hand, copies many words and phrases from the original text.\u00a0 It also includes a detailed statistic, which is inappropriate in a summary whose purpose is to confine itself to main ideas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Paraphrase and Summary Comparison<\/h2>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a brief, original passage from <em>Walden<\/em> (1854) by Henry David Thoreau.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox\">Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious\u00a0cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance\u2014which his growth requires\u2014who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.<\/div>\n<h3>Paraphrase<\/h3>\n<div class=\"textbox\">In his 1854 text,\u00a0<em>Walden; or, Life in the Woods<\/em>, Henry David Thoreau points to the incongruity of a free people becoming enslaved and limited by constant labor and worry. Using the metaphor of a fruit to represent the pleasures of a thoughtful life, Thoreau suggests that people have become so traumatized by constant labor that their hands &#8211; as representatives of their minds &#8211; have become unable to pick the &#8220;finer fruits&#8221; available to a less burdened life even when that fruit becomes available to them. Given the situation, we should not judge, but should show understanding (110).<\/div>\n<h3>Summary<\/h3>\n<div class=\"textbox\">In his 1854 text,\u00a0<em>Walden; or, Life in the Woods<\/em>, Henry David Thoreau suggests that the human fixation on work and labor desensitizes man to the world around him, to the needs of his own intellectual growth, and to the complexity and frailty of his fellow humans.<\/div>\n<div class=\"purple-example\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><sup>[1]<\/sup> Gardner, Howard. <em>Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons in Theory and Practice.<\/em> BasicBooks, 2006.<\/p>\n<p><sup>[2]<\/sup> DeSipio, Louis. &#8220;Demanding Equal Political Voice&#8230;And Accepting Nothing Less: The Quest for Latino Political Inclusion.&#8221; in <em>Thematic Reading Anthology<\/em>, Lumen Learning. <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-readinganthology\/chapter\/demanding-equal-political-voice-and-accepting-nothing-less-the-quest-for-latino-political-inclusion-by-louis-desipio\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-readinganthology\/chapter\/demanding-equal-political-voice-and-accepting-nothing-less-the-quest-for-latino-political-inclusion-by-louis-desipio\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t <section class=\"citations-section\" role=\"contentinfo\">\n\t\t\t <h3>Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t <div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <div id=\"citation-list-253\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <div class=\"licensing\"><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Original<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Paraphrase &amp; Summarize to Re-State Ideas, includes material adapted from The Word on College Reading and Writing, UM RhetLab, and Excelsior College Online Reading Lab; attributions below. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Susan Oaks. <strong>Project<\/strong>: Introduction to College Reading &amp; Writing. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><\/ul><div class=\"license-attribution-dropdown-subheading\">CC licensed content, Shared previously<\/div><ul class=\"citation-list\"><li>Summarizing a Text. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Carol Burnell, Jaime Wood, Monique Babin, Susan Pesznecker, and Nicole Rosevear. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: OpenOregon Educational Resources. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/openoregon.pressbooks.pub\/wrd\/chapter\/summarizing-a-text\/\">https:\/\/openoregon.pressbooks.pub\/wrd\/chapter\/summarizing-a-text\/<\/a>. <strong>Project<\/strong>: The Word on College Reading and Writing. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Paraphrase and Summary. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: University of Mississippi, Lumen Learning. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/chapter\/paraphrase-and-summary\/\">https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/olemiss-writing100\/chapter\/paraphrase-and-summary\/<\/a>. <strong>Project<\/strong>: UM RhetLab. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>Summarizing. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Excelsior College . <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/owl.excelsior.edu\/research\/drafting-and-integrating\/drafting-and-integrating-summarizing\/\">https:\/\/owl.excelsior.edu\/research\/drafting-and-integrating\/drafting-and-integrating-summarizing\/<\/a>. <strong>Project<\/strong>: Online Reading Lab. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\">CC BY: Attribution<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>image of woman with mirror image; one in black and white and one in color. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Karin Henseler. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Pixabay. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/photos\/girl-woman-mirror-mirror-image-666964\/\">https:\/\/pixabay.com\/photos\/girl-woman-mirror-mirror-image-666964\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/cc0\">CC0: No Rights Reserved<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>image of Russian nested dolls, one large and one small. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Marlon Romanelli . <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Pixabay. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/illustrations\/doll-russian-doll-russia-russian-3856518\/\">https:\/\/pixabay.com\/illustrations\/doll-russian-doll-russia-russian-3856518\/<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"license\" href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/about\/cc0\">CC0: No Rights Reserved<\/a><\/em><\/li><li>video How to Write a Summary. <strong>Authored by<\/strong>: Sean Macleod. <strong>Provided by<\/strong>: Smrt English. <strong>Located at<\/strong>: <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eGWO1ldEhtQ\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eGWO1ldEhtQ<\/a>. <strong>License<\/strong>: <em>Other<\/em>. <strong>License Terms<\/strong>: YouTube video<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\t\t\t <\/section>","protected":false},"author":81366,"menu_order":7,"template":"","meta":{"_candela_citation":"[{\"type\":\"original\",\"description\":\"Paraphrase & Summarize to Re-State Ideas, includes material adapted from The Word on College Reading and Writing, UM RhetLab, and Excelsior College Online Reading Lab; 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