When is the best time to use a quotation instead of paraphrasing information?
Summaries are significantly shorter than the original material, and they take a broad overview of the source material as a whole. Summary must be cited with in-text citations and on your reference page. Show
Summarize when:
Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is stating an idea or passage in your own words. You must significantly change the wording, phrasing, and sentence structure (not just a few words here and there) of the source. These also must be noted with in-text citations and the reference page. Paraphrase when:
Quoting Quotations are the exact words of an author, copied directly from a source, word for word. Quotations must appear with quotation marks, and they need to be cited with in-text citations and on the reference page. College writing often involves integrating information from published sources into your own writing in order to add credibility and authority–this process is essential to research and the production of new knowledge. However, when building on the work of others, you need to be careful not to plagiarize: “to steal and pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one’s own” or to “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”1 The University of Wisconsin–Madison takes this act of “intellectual burglary” very seriously and considers it to be a breach of academic integrity. Penalties are severe. These materials will help you avoid plagiarism by teaching you how to properly integrate information from published sources into your own writing. 1. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 888. How to avoid plagiarismWhen using sources in your papers, you can avoid plagiarism by knowing what must be documented. Specific words and phrasesIf you use an author’s specific word or words, you must place those words within quotation marks and you must credit the source. Information and IdeasEven if you use your own words, if you obtained the information or ideas you are presenting from a source, you must document the source. Information: If a piece of information isn’t common knowledge (see below), you need to provide a source. Ideas: An author’s ideas may include not only points made and conclusions drawn, but, for instance, a specific method or theory, the arrangement of material, or a list of steps in a process or characteristics of a medical condition. If a source provided any of these, you need to acknowledge the source. Common Knowledge?You do not need to cite a source for material considered common knowledge: General common knowledge is factual information considered to be in the public domain, such as birth and death dates of well-known figures, and generally accepted dates of military, political, literary, and other historical events. In general, factual information contained in multiple standard reference works can usually be considered to be in the public domain. Field-specific common knowledge is “common” only within a particular field or specialty. It may include facts, theories, or methods that are familiar to readers within that discipline. For instance, you may not need to cite a reference to Piaget’s developmental stages in a paper for an education class or give a source for your description of a commonly used method in a biology report—but you must be sure that this information is so widely known within that field that it will be shared by your readers. If in doubt, be cautious and cite the source. And in the case of both general and field-specific common knowledge, if you use the exact words of the reference source, you must use quotation marks and credit the source. Paraphrasing vs. Quoting — ExplanationShould I paraphrase or quote?In general, use direct quotations only if you have a good reason. Most of your paper should be in your own words. Also, it’s often conventional to quote more extensively from sources when you’re writing a humanities paper, and to summarize from sources when you’re writing in the social or natural sciences–but there are always exceptions. In a literary analysis paper, for example, you”ll want to quote from the literary text rather than summarize, because part of your task in this kind of paper is to analyze the specific words and phrases an author uses. In research papers, you should quote from a source
You should summarize or paraphrase when
How to paraphrase a sourceGeneral advice
Methods of Paraphrasing
If you find that you can’t do A or B, this may mean that you don’t understand the passage completely or that you need to use a more structured process until you have more experience in paraphrasing. The method below is not only a way to create a paraphrase but also a way to understand a difficult text. Paraphrasing difficult textsConsider the following passage from Love and Toil (a book on motherhood in London from 1870 to 1918), in which the author, Ellen Ross, puts forth one of her major arguments:
You may need to go through this process several times to create a satisfactory paraphrase. Successful vs. unsuccessful paraphrasesParaphrasing is often defined as putting a passage from an author into “your own words.” But what are your own words? How different must your paraphrase be from the original? The paragraphs below provide an example by showing a passage as it appears in the source, two paraphrases that follow the source too closely, and a legitimate paraphrase. The student’s intention was to incorporate the material in the original passage into a section of a paper on the concept of “experts” that compared the functions of experts and nonexperts in several professions. The Passage as It Appears in the Source
Word-for-Word Plagiarism
Why this is plagiarismNotice that the writer has not only “borrowed” Chase’s material (the results of her research) with no acknowledgment, but has also largely maintained the author’s method of expression and sentence structure. The phrases in red are directly copied from the source or changed only slightly in form. Even if the student-writer had acknowledged Chase as the source of the content, the language of the passage would be considered plagiarized because no quotation marks indicate the phrases that come directly from Chase. And if quotation marks did appear around all these phrases, this paragraph would be so cluttered that it would be unreadable. A Patchwork Paraphrase
Why this is plagiarismThis paraphrase is a patchwork composed of pieces in the original author’s language (in red) and pieces in the student-writer’s words, all rearranged into a new pattern, but with none of the borrowed pieces in quotation marks. Thus, even though the writer acknowledges the source of the material, the underlined phrases are falsely presented as the student’s own. A Legitimate Paraphrase
Why this is a good paraphraseThe writer has documented Chase’s material and specific language (by direct reference to the author and by quotation marks around language taken directly from the source). Notice too that the writer has modified Chase’s language and structure and has added material to fit the new context and purpose — to present the distinctive functions of experts and nonexperts in several professions. Shared LanguagePerhaps you’ve noticed that a number of phrases from the original passage appear in the legitimate paraphrase: critical care, staff nurses, nurse manager, clinical nurse specialist, nurse clinician, resource nurse. If all these phrases were in red, the paraphrase would look much like the “patchwork” example. The difference is that the phrases in the legitimate paraphrase are all precise, economical, and conventional designations that are part of the shared language within the nursing discipline (in the too-close paraphrases, they’re red only when used within a longer borrowed phrase). In every discipline and in certain genres (such as the empirical research report), some phrases are so specialized or conventional that you can’t paraphrase them except by wordy and awkward circumlocutions that would be less familiar (and thus less readable) to the audience. When you repeat such phrases, you’re not stealing the unique phrasing of an individual writer but using a common vocabulary shared by a community of scholars. Some Examples of Shared Language You Don’t Need to Put in Quotation Marks
References
How to Quote a SourceIntroducing a quotationOne of your jobs as a writer is to guide your reader through your text. Don’t simply drop quotations into your paper and leave it to the reader to make connections. Integrating a quotation into your text usually involves two elements:
Often both the signal and the assertion appear in a single introductory statement, as in the example below. Notice how a transitional phrase also serves to connect the quotation smoothly to the introductory statement.
The signal can also come after the assertion, again with a connecting word or phrase:
Formatting QuotationsShort direct proseIncorporate short direct prose quotations into the text of your paper and enclose them in double quotation marks:
Longer prose quotationsBegin longer quotations (for instance, in the APA system, 40 words or more) on a new line and indent the entire quotation (i.e., put in block form), with no quotation marks at beginning or end, as in the quoted passage from our Successful vs. Unsucessful Paraphrases page. Rules about the minimum length of block quotations, how many spaces to indent, and whether to single- or double-space extended quotations vary with different documentation systems; check the guidelines for the system you’re using. Quotation of Up to 3 Lines of PoetryQuotations of up to 3 lines of poetry should be integrated into your sentence. For example:
Notice that a slash (/) with a space on either side is used to separate lines. Quotation of More than 3 Lines of PoetryMore than 3 lines of poetry should be indented. As with any extended (indented) quotation, do not use quotation marks unless you need to indicate a quotation within your quotation. Punctuating with Quotation MarksParenthetical citationsWith short quotations, place citations outside of closing quotation marks, followed by sentence punctuation (period, question mark, comma, semi-colon, colon):
With block quotations, check the guidelines for the documentation system you are using. Commas and periodsPlace inside closing quotation marks when no parenthetical citation follows:
Semicolons and colonsPlace outside of closing quotation marks (or after a parenthetical citation). Question marks and exclamation pointsPlace inside closing quotation marks if the quotation is a question/exclamation:
[Note that a period still follows the closing parenthesis.] Place outside of closing quotation marks if the entire sentence containing the quotation is a question or exclamation:
Quotation within a quotationUse single quotation marks for the embedded quotation:
[The phrases “democratic fairness” and “encouraging consensus” are already in quotation marks in Dahl’s sentence.] Indicating Changes in QuotationsQuoting Only a Portion of the WholeUse ellipsis points (. . .) to indicate an omission within a quotation–but not at the beginning or end unless it’s not obvious that you’re quoting only a portion of the whole. Adding Clarification, Comment, or CorrectionWithin quotations, use square brackets [ ] (not parentheses) to add your own clarification, comment, or correction. Use [sic] (meaning “so” or “thus”) to indicate that a mistake is in the source you’re quoting and is not your own. Additional informationInformation on summarizing and paraphrasing sources
Leki describes the basic method presented in C, pp. 4-5.
Information about specific documentation systemsThe Writing Center has handouts explaining how to use many of the standard documentation systems. You may look at our general Web page on Documentation Systems, or you may check out any of the following specific Web pages. If you’re not sure which documentation system to use, ask the course instructor who assigned your paper. When should you quote instead of paraphrase?Choose a direct quote when it is more likely to be accurate than would summarizing or paraphrasing, when what you're quoting is the text you're analyzing, when a direct quote is more concise that a summary or paraphrase would be and conciseness matters, when the author is a particular authority whose exact words would ...
When should you quote a source directly?Quoting (1). Any time that you use the exact words of the source author, you must provide in-text citations. The wording should be in quotations to denote that it is not your original work.
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