Paraphrasing is a restatement of the meaning of a text using other words (instead of original words) Summarizing means taking the main ideas from a text and rewriting them in your own words in a brief manner.

1. By Arundathie Abeysinghe
Lecturer in English
International Aviation Academy
SriLankan Airlines

2.  To write articles, project reports or dissertations you have to
research and incorporate writings of others into your own texts
 To avoid plagiarism and incorporate others’ ideas into your
writing is known as paraphrasing and summarizing
 Paraphrasing - changing the language of a text into your own
 Summarizing – Getting rid of smaller details and leaving only
the primary points

3.  First, using another’s language limits your learning; by
paraphrasing and summarizing, the write-up becomes your
own and you understand it better
 Secondly, the target audience of the original write-up may be
different from your own
 Thirdly, write-ups of authors are considered as their property
 Summarizing and paraphrasing avoids plagiarism

4.  Read the original text until you grasp its meaning
 Using your memory, write down the main points
 Restate the passage in your own words
 Replace keywords within the sentences with synonyms or
phrases with similar meanings
 Compare the original passage with your paraphrase
 Paraphrased material should not be shorter than the original
passage
 A paraphrase does not condense material

5.  Pick out important information and highlight the key words
 Delete irrelevant, unimportant and repeated information
 Select a topic sentence or create a topic sentence
 Summaries are shorter than a paraphrase
 A summary should be about one third the length of the original
article
 Extract information from the original article and write in your own
words
 Avoid copying phrases and sentences from the article

6. Thank you!

7. Thank you!