Rules for writers, Tenth edition - Diana Hacker, Nancy Sommers 2021
Summarize and paraphrase effectively
Integrating sources
Writing Papers in MLA Style
✵ How to paraphrase effectively
✵ Quotation marks with other punctuation
✵ Using signal phrases in MLA papers
✵ Using sentence guides to integrate sources
Quotations, summaries, paraphrases, and facts will help you develop your argument, but they cannot speak for you. You need to find a balance between the words of your sources and your own voice so that readers always know who is speaking in your paper. You can use several strategies to integrate sources into your paper while maintaining your voice.
✵ Use sources as concisely as possible so that your own thinking and voice aren’t lost (56a and 56b).
✵ Use signal phrases to avoid dropping quotations into your paper without indicating the boundary between your words and the source’s words (56c).
✵ Use language that shows readers how each source supports your argument and how sources relate to one another (56d).
56a Summarize and paraphrase effectively.
In your academic writing, keep the emphasis on your ideas and your language; use your own words to summarize and paraphrase sources and to explain your points. Whether you choose to summarize or paraphrase a source depends on your purpose.
Using sources responsibly When you use your own words to summarize or paraphrase, the original idea remains the intellectual property of the author, so you must include a citation. (See 55d.)
Summarizing
When you summarize a source, you express another writer’s ideas in your own words, condensing the author’s key points and using fewer words than the author.
WHEN TO SUMMARIZE
✵ When you want to state a source’s main ideas simply and briefly in your own words
✵ When you want to compare arguments or ideas from various sources
✵ When you want to provide readers with an understanding of a source’s argument before you respond to it or launch your own argument
Paraphrasing
When you paraphrase, you express an author’s ideas in your own words and sentence structure, using approximately the same number of words and details as in the source.
WHEN TO PARAPHRASE
✵ When the ideas and information are important but the author’s exact words are not needed
✵ When you want to restate a source’s ideas in your own words
✵ When you need to simplify and explain a technical or complicated source
HOW TO
Paraphrase effectively
A paraphrase shows your readers that you understand a source and can explain it to them. When you choose to paraphrase a passage from a source, you use the source’s information and ideas for your own purpose — to provide background information, explain a concept, or advance your argument — while maintaining your voice. It is challenging to write a paraphrase that isn’t a word-for-word translation of the original source and doesn’t imitate the source’s sentence structure. The following strategies will help you paraphrase effectively. The examples in this box are in MLA style.
1. Understand the source. Identify the source’s key points and argument. Test your understanding by asking questions: What is being said? Why and how is it being said? Look up words you don’t know to help you understand the ideas, not just the words.
ORIGINAL
People’s vision of the world has broadened with the advent of global media such as television and the Internet. Those thinking about going elsewhere can see what the alternatives are and appear to have fewer inhibitions about resettling.
— Darrell M. West, Brain Gain: Rethinking US Immigration Policy, Brookings Institution Press, 2011, p. 5
STUDENT’S NOTES
o — TV and Internet have opened our eyes, our minds
o — We can imagine making big moves (country to country) as we never could before; the web offers a preview
o — “resettling” = moving to a new location, out of the familiar region
o — Lessens the anxiety about starting over in a new place
2. Use your own vocabulary and sentence structure to convey the source’s information. Check to make sure there is no overlap in vocabulary or sentence structure with the original.
Since TV and the web can offer a preview of life in other places, people feel less uncertainty and anxiety about moving from one area of the world to another.
3. Use a signal phrase to identify the source (X argues that , or According to X, ).
West argues that since TV and the web can offer a preview of life in other places, people feel less uncertainty and anxiety about moving from one area of the world to another.
4. Include a citation to give credit to the source. Even though the words are yours, you need to give credit for the idea. Here, the author’s name and the page number on which the original passage appeared are listed.
West argues that since TV and the web can offer a preview of life in other places, people feel less uncertainty and anxiety about moving from one area of the world to another (5).
NOTE: If you choose to use exact language from the source in a paraphrase, be sure to put quotation marks around any borrowed words or phrases.
West argues that since TV and the web can offer a preview of life in other places, people “have fewer inhibitions” about moving from one area of the world to another (5).