PROFICIENCY ENGLISH

FBL 0013

-Paraphrasing and Summarising-

Paraphrasing
• What is paraphrasing?
-Rephrasing or restating information from another source in your own words without changing the meaning.
• Why do you need to paraphrase?
-to ensure better understanding of the text
-to avoid plagiarism
• How to paraphrase?
-change structures of the sentences (passive to active or vice versa)
-change words in the sentences (use synonyms)
-cite the author’s name and also the year the article is published. If the article has no identified author, cite the
article’s title and the year it was published.
Examples:

Original sentence Paraphrased sentence

-The progress has been slower than expected despite -Although the rules have been implemented, progress
the implementation of new rules. (Author’s name: is still below expectation (Brown, 2010).
Jack Brown. Year published: 2010)

-The cave is commonly known to be very risky for
tourists especially during rainy season. (Author’s
name: Shelly David & Caroline Jennings. Year
published: 2018)
-Rainy season makes it more dangerous for tourists to
explore the cave (David & Jennings, 2018).
*take the last name followed by the year.

-Few studies proved that procrastinating could lead to

-There is some evidence that when it comes to better decisions. (Are you a Procrastinator or Just
decision making, delaying choosing a course of action Efficient?, 2020)
until the last minute might lead to better decisions.
(no author, title: Are you a Procrastinator or Just
Efficient? Year published: 2020)
*take the article’s title followed by the year.
Summarising
• What is summarising?
- A summary can be defined as an overview of a longer piece of text.
-The key aim of a summary is to simplify a piece of text without losing and altering its most fundamental
information or ideas.
-A summary should present an accurate representation of main points, ideas, concepts, facts or text in your
own words.
• Why do you need to summarise?
-to understand main ideas and concepts
-to avoid plagiarism
-to simplify a text
• How to summarise?
-identify main ideas and essential points
-leave out unnecessary and irrelevant details
• Examples:

Original text Summarised text

So how do you go about identifying your strengths SWOT Analysis is a technique that helps you
and weaknesses, and analyzing the opportunities identify strengths, weakness, opportunities, and
and threats that flow from them? SWOT Analysis is threats. Understanding and managing these factors
a useful technique that helps you to do this. helps you to develop the abilities you need to
What makes SWOT especially powerful is that, with achieve your goals and progress in your career.
a little thought, it can help you to uncover
opportunities that you would not otherwise have
spotted. And by understanding your weaknesses,
you can manage and eliminate threats that might
otherwise hurt your ability to move forward in your
role.
If you look at yourself using the SWOT framework,
you can start to separate yourself from your peers,
and further develop the specialized talents and
abilities that you need in order to advance your
career and to help you achieve your personal goals.

(Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/paraphrasing-summarizing.htm)
Original text Summarised text
Just as Peanuts seems to have absorbed so much of The comic strip, Peanuts, has a great influence on our
the popular culture which preceded it, the comic strip present-day culture.
has had a profound influence on the society and
culture of its own time. Peanuts affects and inspires
our daily lives, and not simply because we can open
our daily newspapers and find it there without fail (for
over 14,000 days now without interruption).

For more examples:

https://academicintegrity.uoguelph.ca/plagiarism/paraphrasing-and-summarizing-practice-exercise
https://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472031333-samplereading5.pdf