1.4.4. Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing responsibly

Quoting responsibly

When intentionally borrowing the exact wording from sources, you must do one of two things to avoid plagiarism: (a) enclose all borrowed words within quotation marks or (b) format the borrowed words (if more than 40) as a block quotation (see more below). A reference to the source is not enough. The special formatting tells readers clearly, these are not my words, but those of my source. Here are two variations of responsible quotations for the passage:

By using quotation marks or block formatting, the writer easily avoids plagiarism. However, writers have another key responsibility when presenting direct quotations: the wording must match exactly what appears in the original source. If you need to modify the exact wording to improve the focus of the quotation or clarify some idea in the quotation, you must do the following:

• Insert ellipses (…) where you omit words from the original. This practice can be useful to cut down the size of long quotations, from which you may only need the beginning and the end or key pieces in the middle.
• Put square brackets ([. . .]) around words you insert for clarification or readability. This technique may be useful to explain the meaning of phrases in the quoted material that may have been explained in the unquoted portions of the original source.

When you use either of these techniques, you must be sure not to change the intended meaning (as best you see it) of the original wording.

Paraphrasing responsibly

By putting the ideas and explanations from your sources into your own words, you can often forge a strong connection between your own observations on the subject and those presented by other thinkers. Such strong connections, when they allow you to build upon research to present an original thesis or perspective, exemplify well the fundamental aims of research writing. Paraphrasing, however, has its pitfalls. When not done with proper attention to the boundaries between your own ideas and words and those of others, you can easily fall into one of the following errors, each of which constitutes plagiarism of the original source: (a) using too much original wording from the source; (b) borrowing the structure of an extended passage; or (c) omitting clear boundaries between paraphrased and original material.

(a) Borrowing too much of the original wording.

Recall that paraphrasing involves putting another’s ideas into your own words; this rephrasing does not simply mean changing a word or two in the original. Your source’s choice of wording represents the intellectual labor of its authors, and so should be clearly acknowledged when borrowed. When not put into your own phrasing nor acknowledged as borrowed (with quotation marks), the words taken from the source have been plagiarized. Here is a passage inappropriately paraphrasing the original passage above:

The words in bold above illustrate the locations where the writer has not sufficiently translated the source’s original wording into new phrases. Besides including full verbatim phrases from the original (“not by itself sufficient to conclude” and “far from dire”), both of which reflect the authors’ unique way of presenting their observations, the paraphrase above borrows uncommon diction, such as “smart” (from “smartly”), “apocalyptic,” and “commentariat”—all of which reflect stylistic originality that the authors worked hard to develop. There are certainly words from the original that can be repeated without plagiarizing, such as “home prices” and “recession,” either of which might have been used already in a research paper on this subject. Combined with the other copied verbiage, however, these borrowings only provide more evidence for a failure to rephrase fully.

(b) Reusing the sentence and paragraph structure of the original.

This next passage represents the second kind of inappropriate paraphrasing. The writer has avoided using the authors’ original phrasing throughout, but has effectively mimicked the whole series of sentences, simply finding substitute phrases, rather than creating a truly original representation of the source’s material.

Sentence structures, like choices in diction, reflect the original work of authors. In fact, many writers find the structuring of sentences and paragraphs more difficult than the wording of discrete phrases. Consequently, academic readers expect that researchers either clearly quote the wording directly or do a full and proper paraphrase, one that reflects the researcher’s unique recapitulation of what the source says, rather than just a fresh coat of paint over the source’s original structure.

(c) Failing to provide clear attribution for all borrowed ideas.

The final form of inappropriate paraphrasing pertains to longer passages—in particular, passages that contain multiple sentences paraphrased from the source. When readers cannot tell whether a sentence represents the original analysis of the writer or that of a source, the writer is effectively plagiarizing. This problem is most apparent when writers fail to tell readers that they have actually begun paraphrasing a source, as the following examples shows, but it occurs in general where a paraphrased sentence has not been clearly cited or introduced by a phrase of attribution, as illustrated here:

In the first example, the writer has clearly cited the middle sentence, but the ideas before and after come from the source as well. In the second example, the writer has put a citation at the end of the final sentence, not indicating sufficiently that the opening sentence also comes directly from the source. Note that citations are given in both paragraphs, but also note that they fail to show readers clearly that the whole passage is a paraphrase of the source’s ideas, not the researcher’s original analysis. Readers assume, based on the manner of citation, that the writer is presenting at least some original analysis, which is not the case, so the writer commits plagiarism.

Correct paraphrasing:

Here finally are two appropriate paraphrases of the original source material presented above. The key difference between these two examples is that one borrows a few specific phrases from the original—albeit using quotation marks to identify properly the borrowings— while the other rewords the passage entirely. Notice in these examples how clearly the writer shows readers that the whole passage is based on source material.

These are by no means the only ways to paraphrase the original ideas of the authors. In fact, there are numerous other ways to do so. In general, the effectiveness of a paraphrase depends upon how appropriately and accurately the ideas of the source are presented for the purposes of supporting the writer’s overall thesis and key points or observations. A writer might, for instance, highlight the authors of the original passage more when paraphrasing an opinion than when paraphrasing an explanation of a mechanical process or simply repeating statistics. In any case, the paraphrasing examples in this section are not primarily intended to give guidance on the effectiveness of particular paraphrasing techniques, but rather to identify the common pitfalls writers exhibit when they do not take the time and effort to reword source material sufficiently. These pitfalls, when not avoided, can lead to plagiarism or misrepresentation of another’s work.

Summarizing responsibly

Summarizing can be much less challenging than paraphrasing, but has its own pitfalls. First, though, be aware that a summary can exhibit the first paraphrasing problem discussed above. When summarizing, make sure to use your own wording to restate the source’s main point or describe the source’s perspective. When you do borrow exact wording, put it into quotation marks, just as you would for an extended paraphrase of a fuller passage. Using the sample above, for instance, you could not simply copy‐and‐paste the authors’ own summary of the point of their article, presenting it to readers without quotation marks or rewording:

Besides the inappropriate form of borrowing just illustrated, there are other potential problems with summaries, especially (a) misrepresenting an opinion as a fact and (b) concluding from a single source that one perspective is generally taken as fact. This example illustrates both errors:

This summary obscures the fact that the authors are actually responding to a multiplicity of predictions that the housing industry was a bubble about to burst and that the economy was going into recession. An appropriate summary of the article might rather go like this: