Paraphrasing & Summarizing
Introduction
When you think of academic integrity, the term “plagiarism” conjures up all kinds of thoughts including the academic penalty all educational institutions follow. Plagiarism is the act of using another person’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own, without proper acknowledgment. Plagiarism manifests in various forms; for example, a student seeking to evade the task of writing a paper by duplicating content found on the web or a songwriter pilfering lyrics from a fellow band member. Regardless of the context, plagiarism stands as a moral and ethical wrong. Deliberate plagiarism is a calculated misrepresentation, intended to deceive the reader and undermine the trust that should be placed in the author.
Thankfully, there exists a legitimate process of presenting ideas from source material in a personalized manner—paraphrasing. Unlike summarizing, where the content is condensed, paraphrasing involves the expression of thoughts from the original source using one’s own words while retaining a comparable length to the original material being paraphrased.
In this chapter, you will learn about the complexities of plagiarism and the art of summarizing and paraphrasing. You will learn the principles that underlie these practices, and you will gain the tools necessary to navigate the world of intellectual honesty and integrity, ensuring that your academic works are built upon a foundation of ethical scholarship.
Learning Objectives
- Apply citation conventions systematically in your work, understanding the concepts of intellectual property that motivate documentation conventions.
- Compose texts that integrate the writer’s ideas with those from appropriate sources.
- Identify how summarizing and paraphrasing work together.
- Apply paraphrasing techniques of changing words and sentence structures.
- Integrating quotations provides direct evidence from reliable sources to support your argument.
- Use the words of credible sources conveys your credibility.
To Do List
- Read “Plagiarism” in The Worry-Free Writer
- Watch video on “Plagiarism” using the Georgian College library website.
- Read “Writing Summaries” in Advanced English.
- Read “Paraphrasing” in Advance English
- Read “Integrating Source Evidence into Your Writing” in Technical Writing Essentials.
- Complete the Plagiarism Assignment in Blackboard.
Attribution & References
Except where otherwise noted, “Paraphrasing & Summarizing” by Academic and Career Preparation, Georgian College, is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
