INTEGRATING SOURCES

 

Your job, as an academic writer, is not simply to “drop” quotations or other source material into your own work. Rather, your must integrate information from other authors into your own writing—that is, examine it and present it in a detailed, accurate, and complex way. You might think of yourself as having a conversation with the other authors you refer to. The aim is not simply to “support” your own argument, but to complicate and deepen it.

There are three major ways to include other authors’ words and ideas in your own papers:

1. Quoting
2. Paraphrasing
3. Summarizing

 

What are the differences among quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing?

These three ways of incorporating other writers’ work into your own writing differ according to the closeness of your writing to the source writing.

1. Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author.
2. Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly.
3. Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.

 

Why use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries?

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to:

–     Provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing
–     Refer to work that leads up to the work you are now doing
–     Give examples of several points of view on a subject
–     Call attention to a position that you wish to agree or disagree with
–     Highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage by quoting the original
–     Distance yourself from the original by quoting it in order to cue readers that the words are not your own
–     Expand the breadth or depth of your writing

Writers frequently intertwine summaries, paraphrases, and quotations. As part of a summary of an article, a chapter, or a book, a writer might include paraphrases of various key points blended with quotations of striking or suggestive phrases as in the following example:

In his famous and influential work The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud argues that dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious” (page #), expressing in coded imagery the dreamer’s unfulfilled wishes through a process known as the “dream-work” (page #). According to Freud, actual but unacceptable desires are censored internally and subjected to coding through layers of condensation and displacement before emerging in a kind of rebus puzzle in the dream itself (page #).

 

How to use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries

• Read the entire text, noting the key points and main ideas.
• Summarize in your own words what the single main idea of the essay is.
• Paraphrase important supporting points that come up in the essay.
• Consider any words, phrases, or brief passages that you believe should be quoted directly.

All three of these techniques must always be accompanied by full and correct citation of the source. Remember: the kind of documentation that we are using in this class is the Modern Language Association (MLA) style.

 

Consider this example

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.

A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

An acceptable summary:
Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

A plagiarized version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

 

SUMMARIZING

A brief review on summaries:

• Use your own words, and if you quote a passage, use quotation marks.
• Accurately and objectively reflect the author’s ideas, and do include your own interpretation or opinion.
• Identify the author whose work you are summarizing.
• Give the main points only, omitting details, facts, examples, illustrations, and other specifics.
• Be brief. Use fewer words than the original source being summarized.

 

PARAPHRASING

To paraphrase means to say something in a different way. It is your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else. For example, a paraphrase of the sentence “Many people prefer to buy organic foods” is “Shoppers often choose organic over commercial varieties of food.” Notice that the meaning never remains perfectly intact in a paraphrase; it’s always a slight translation because you are interpreting the author’s words.

Why would you paraphrase? One reason is so that your paper isn’t overloaded with quotes, which are hard for the reader to absorb. Another reason is to say something in a way that you think will be more understandable to your reader. A paraphrase differs from a summary in that it is a more detailed restatement of someone else’s words, and focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Six steps to effective paraphrasing:

1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a separate page.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the page, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
6. Record the source (including the page) on your paper so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

 

QUOTING

Quoting is putting another person’s words directly into your own text. For example, I might quote an article by Rob Walker of New York Times Magazine as follows:

Rob Walker, author of New York Times Magazine article “Eyelash of the Beholder,” argues that
the advertising campaign for Latissee “has a rather glamorous feel” (Walker 15).

Quoting too much is a common mistake. Quotes are pretty tough for your reader to absorb—they interrupt the flow of your thought and introduce a new voice into your essay. You must always contextualize quotes for your reader. So when you quote, keep these thoughts in mind:

• Do I need this writer’s exact words? If not, a paraphrase will often do.
• Have I introduced the quote so that my reader has some sense of what I’m about to quote, and why? (This introduction is known as a signal phrase)
• Have I offered a comment after the quote that shows the reader what I think this quote means and how it fits into my paper’s argument?

Here’s an example of a well-contextualized quotation drawn from Walker’s article:

Rob Walker, author of the New York Times Magazine article “Eyelash of the Beholder,” argues that the advertising campaign for Latisse “has a rather glamorous feel,” encouraging the viewer to “zero in on [Brooke Shields’s] baby blues” (Walker 15). As Walker’s skeptical tone indicates, the Latisse campaign is one example of the increasingly blurry line between products meant to treat illnesses and products meant to enhance beauty.

 Note that this summary/quotation provides you with a clear introduction (signal phrase): who wrote the article and who the quote is from. It also quotes sparingly, so that the quoted material takes up only about a quarter of the passage overall. Finally, we get a strong sense of my interpretation of the quote: Walker uses a “skeptical tone” and questions why medicines are being marketed as beauty aids. The thesis of this paper (the imaginary paper drawing upon “Eyelash of the Beholder”) is not known to us, since we just have a short excerpt here, but note that a full contextualization should also connect the writer’s interpretation of the quoted/paraphrased material to the paper’s thesis.