In the blog last week in our new series on summarising, we explored the critical importance of note-making when reading any academic texts. This week, we will attempt to answer the question of what exactly the summary is and briefly define the difference between a summary, a paraphrase, and a critique.
What is a summary?
A summary is an abridgement, or shortened version of the original text, which accurately reports the main arguments and evidence provided by the author(s) in reported speech. In other words, a summary is a distillation of the essential claims made in the text, or of selected sections of the text, and must adhere to the following conventions:
Be shorter than the original text
Contain the main arguments in the text that connect directly to the assigned task
Not include any opinions, evaluation, or information from outside the text
Be written in reported speech
Be written in academic style
Not include quotations
Include a reported in-text citation of the original source
Include a reference of the text in an appropriate format
The difference between a summary, a paraphrase, and a critique
A paraphrase
A paraphrase attempts to express the same ideas as the original text, or an aspect of the text, in different vocabulary, word order, and synonyms. In addition, a successful paraphrase achieves nearly the same meaning and is about the same length as the original text, although the inclusion of synonyms will inevitably result in slightly different shades of meaning from the original text.
However, it is important to note that writing an accurate paraphrase is a daunting challenge even for an educated native speaker of the language. Therefore, students should be strongly advised not to attempt to paraphrase more than a maximum of two or three sentences. Attempts to paraphrase entire paragraphs, or sections of an academic text, will almost certainly drift towards plagiarism, as the basic language and organisation of the argument will largely remain that of the original author(s).
A critique
A critique analyses and evaluates some or all the arguments, issues, and evidence included in a text. A successful critique offers new perspectives on some or all the material in the original text by introducing new information from outside of the original text. A critique can be shorter or longer than the original text.
The difference between a summary, a paraphrase, and a critique
Note. Adapted from Newfields (2001)
Question 1
What is the importance of the ability to summarise academic texts?
Question 2
To what extent might some international students initially experience the process as challenging?
Question 3
Why is it important to analyse and narrow down any assigned task?
We shall explore Question 3 in the next blog.
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