Quoting, Paraphrasing,
and Summarizing
Analytical and Rhetorical Writing
Adapted from Matt Barton
Three Ways to Integrate
Sources
• Direct Quotation
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing
Direct Quotations
• Copy and paste something directly into
your document.
• Enclose the entire quotation between
quotation marks:
– Barton writes, “Good writers know when to
quote and when to paraphrase” (234).
Citing Direct Quotations
• MLA Citation Method requires that
citations include the author and the page
number when you cite.
– Include the name in the parentheses if it isn’t
mentioned earlier:
• Barton writes, “Always include the page number”
(82).
• One scholar writes, “Always include the page
number” (Barton 82).
Direct Quotations and Ellipses
• Do not put ellipses (…) at the beginning or end
of a quotation; readers realize you’re just
quoting part of the source:
– Barton writes, “…this looks quite silly…” (82).
• Do put ellipses if you leave out the middle of a
quotation:
– Barton writes, “Ellipses are easy to use…Just learn a
few simple rules” (205).
• Some writers put the … in brackets (check the
journal’s style manual):
– Barton writes, “Ellipses are easy to use […] if you just
learn a few simple rules” (205).
Dropped Quotations = Bad
• Avoid Dropped Quotations:
– Quoting sources can sometimes be difficult.
“Even graduate students may struggle to cite
sources correctly” (Barton 42).
• Let’s fix the problem:
– Quoting sources can sometimes be difficult.
According to Barton, “Even graduate students
may struggle to cite sources correctly” (42). H
Explain
• Use quotations to support your points, not
make them.
– According to one English professor at St. Cloud State,
“Even graduate students may struggle to cite sources
correctly” (Barton 52). If even graduate
students are having problems citing
sources, professors are really expecting
too much from their undergraduate
students.
Quoting Directly
• If the quotation is longer than three lines, it
must be set apart in a block quote
(indented from the rest of the text).
• Avoid overusing block quotes.
Paraphrasing
• Paraphrase passages or material that wouldn’t
be useful to quote directly.
– Original Passage:
• Simmons writes, “If the nation is to obtain the
maximum benefit from its investments in
information technology, a labor pool capable of
using it appropriately is necessary” (52).
– Paraphrase:
• According to Simmons, the U.S. won’t benefit from
revolutionary new technologies unless the labor
force is better trained (52).
Paraphrasing Guidelines
1. Do not alter the author’s intention
2. Do not eliminate any significant background
information
3. Do not copy the original wording too closely.
–
Don’t just change a few words or shuffle things
around; read the passage several times and
completely rewrite it.
Paraphrases
• Original:
– Instead of searching for a job, some college
graduates go into business for themselves
after graduation, securing a loan for a
franchise restaurant or store.
• Paraphrase:
– Although students could enter the job market
after getting a degree, they might also
consider running their own McDonald’s or
Payless shoe store.
Summarizing
• Usually, authors will simply
want to summarize passages
instead of quoting them directly
or paraphrasing them.
– Summaries allow you to sort
through the information in the
secondary source and report
only what you consider to be
essential.
– A summary is therefore much
shorter than the original,
whereas a paraphrase may be
the same length. In addition,
you do not need to cite
particular pages when
summarizing a source.
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Original
Summary
Summaries – How to?
• Original:
– Original passage: The full extent of the corporate crime wave is
hidden. Although the federal government tracks street crime
month by month, city by city through the FBI’s Uniform Crime
Reports, it does not track corporate crime. So the government
can tell the public whether burglary is up or down in Los Angeles
for any given month, but it cannot say the same about insider
trading or illegal polluting.
• Summary:
– In “Crime in the Suites,” Mokhiber has noted that we are unsure
about the prevalence of corporate crime because the federal
government does not compile crime statistics for white-collar
crime.
Summarizing Tips
• You don’t always have to summarize the
entire book! Just summarize the parts
you think are pertinent to your project.
Original Passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result
they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about
10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter.
Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of
source material while taking notes.
Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 4647.
A Legitimate Paraphrase:
An Acceptable Summary:
In research papers students often
Students should take just a few notes in
quote excessively, failing to
direct quotation from sources to help
keep quoted material down to a
minimize the amount of quoted material
desirable level. Since the
problem usually originates
in a research paper (Lester 4647).
during note taking, it is essential
to minimize the material
recorded verbatim (Lester
4647).
A Plagiarized Version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting
in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only
about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it
is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking
notes.