APA Micro-course

Questions to Consider:

• Why (and when) is it advantageous to paraphrase an information source, rather than quote it directly?
• How is summarizing different from paraphrasing?
• How does a good note-taking habit help me paraphrase and summarize sources?

Paraphrasing and summarizing are writing techniques used to more seamlessly integrate sources into your paper by restating information in your own words. Using these techniques is essential to effective research writing and to avoid over reliance on direct quotes.

The most effective way to create paraphrases and summaries of source information is to take notes on your sources as you read them. If you note important ideas from the source in your own words, those notes can form the basis for paraphrases or summaries later, when writing your paper (this is also a much more effective way to learn material).

Paraphrasing involves taking a a key fact, idea of piece of information from a source and describing it in your own words as completely as possible. 

Summarizing is restating (again, in your own words) the main ideas of a longer text (such as an article, book chapter or a whole book). The summary will be significantly shorter than the original because it focuses on the most important point or points.

Paraphrase example: 

Source text: It highlighted that 27,180 grave violations against 18,890 children were verified by the United Nations in 2022, including 8,631 children either killed or maimed, 7,622 children recruited and used, and 3,985 children abducted. These three violations remained the ones verified at the highest levels, which all increased in 2022. Yet these numbers only represent a fraction of the actual numbers of violations experienced by children across the globe.

Paraphrase with narrative in-text citation: The United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (2023) verified that more than 27,000 children had been killed, maimed, recruited or abducted in 2022 in conflict zones around the world and that this number is likely much lower than the actual number.

Summary Example: Source site and summary paraphrase with parenthetical citation: Posts viewed as overly religious in content on social media are one major reason why some users block or unfollow other users on such platforms. One survey found that 17% of users across all demographics had done this (Diamant, 2023).