Page 34 - Міністерство освіти і науки України

Lecture 7

Summary techniques

I Paraphrasing

A paraphrase is a restatement (in your own words) of the ideas of the original. When
we take a passage, examine it carefully so as to grasp its meaning, and then try to
express that meaning in another form, we are paraphrasing the passage. The most
common strategy used in paraphrasing involves replacing words in the source text with
synonyms and perhaps changing the grammar. This method can often be successful, but
if you do this sentence by sentence, you will most likely not demonstrate your full
understanding of the passage. Another weakness is that the resulting summary is not
original and would be considered plagiarism by many people. Simple synonym
substitution is often not considered to be original work. You don`t need to simply
change every word of the original. Not infrequently we meet words or phrases that defy
paraphrasing. Hence, we must not take the word, or the phrase , or even the sentence, as
a unit of paraphrasing, but the whole passage. This enables us so to change the whole
structure as to preserve the complete meaning, while avoiding literal renderings of
individual phrases. When finished, a paraphrase should read like a bit of orginal
composition. It must express the meaning of the original, but it must do this at the level
of good standard English. There is one great advantage connected with the practice of
paraphrasing. It enforces the vocabulary widening. If we write a letter or an essay we
are free to choose our own words, and we naturally fall back upon those we are familiar
with. In this way our stock of available words tends to remain fixed. In paraphrasing,
the very fact that a certain number of words and phrases are already used, sets us
seeking for others. Further, since the ideas expressed are not our own, it is probable that
our familiar words do not fit them so well as they do our own familiar thoughts, so that
again we are forced to call in words from our reading vocabulary, and in many cases
these are added to our permanent writing vocabulary.

II Summary

A summary is a condensed reproduction of the main points of some broad topic in
the minimum number of words and in the language distinctly different from that of the
original. We make summaries of many different things, including books, research
papers, plays, films, lectures, readings and so on.
A good summary has three principal requirements.
1. It should offer a balanced coverage of the original. (There is a tendency to devote
more coverage to the earlier parts of the source text.)
2. It should present the source material in a neutral fashion.

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