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Summarizing and Paraphrasing
Develop the crucial academic and professional skill of accurately summarizing and paraphrasing texts.
Summarizing vs. Paraphrasing
Understand the difference and learn how to do both effectively.
Summarizing vs. Paraphrasing
Summarizing
Stating the main ideas of a text in your own words, but much more briefly.
Goal: To give a short overview.
Paraphrasing
Restating someone else's ideas in your own words, but keeping a similar length.
Goal: To rephrase for clarity or style.
Key steps for both:
- Read the original text carefully to fully understand its meaning.
- Take notes of the key ideas without looking at the original text.
- Write your summary or paraphrase using your own words and sentence structure.
- Compare your version with the original to ensure you have kept the meaning.
- Cite your source!