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Avoiding Plagiarism

Summarizing

What happened on the latest episode of The Sopranos? What was covered in class yesterday? Can you tell me in a nutshell what Pride and Prejudice is about?

Summarizing is something that we do on a daily basis, but what differentiates it from paraphrasing?

  • Use your own language. With summaries, you want to restate the author’s idea in your own words.
  • Think brevity! Unlike paraphrasing, you are striving to restate the author’s idea or ideas in fewer words.
  • Avoid interjecting your own analysis or opinions. If you choose to summarize, stick to restating the author’s idea. A summary can then be followed with your opinion or analysis of the author’s idea.

You need to provide a citation every time you summarize.

Examples of Summarizing:

CSE Style
Original

Although extensive data on endurance capabilities are not available for most quadrupedal mammals, several lines of evidence indicate that humans, using criteria such as speed and sustainable distance, are much better endurance runners than has generally been appreciated.

Bramble DM, Lieberman DE. 2004. Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Nature 438:345-52.
Paraphrase

Evidence suggests that endurance running capabilities in humans has been underestimated (Bramble and Lieberman 2004).

APA Style
Original

In the current paper we will be examining responses to a particular type of imposter; the vegetarian who eats meat. We chose this example because the core norm of the vegetarian is very clear (to not eat meat), and violation of the norm is easily recognized.

Hornsey, M.J. & Jetten, J. (2003). Not being what you claim to be: impostors as

sources of group threat. [Electronic version] European Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 639-657.

Paraphrase

 In their study to investigate responses to imposters, Hornsey and Jetten (2003) studied vegetarians who eat meat because their deviant behavior is easily recognized.

MLA Style
Original

One reason The Sopranos is so popular is that, on a superficial level, it gives its audiences an acceptable bad guy whose job it is to uphold an alternative system that lives off capitalism without contributing its “fair share” of dues to the power brokers; he comes from a tribe that decided that it wouldn’t work hard to make someone else rich.

Gardaphé, Fred. “Fresh Garbage: The Gangster as Suburban Trickster.” A Sitdown

with the Sopranos: Watching Italian American Culture on TV’s Most Talked-About Series. Ed. Regina Barreca. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 90-111.

Paraphrase

Though his activities can be classified as criminal, Tony Soprano’s success outside of the legal power structure resonates with viewers (Gardaphé 101).