Summarizing and paraphrasing in essays are directly connected with our analytical and critical writing skills. Before getting to know some essential aspects of summarizing and paraphrasing, it tends to be necessary to define these terms. Paraphrasing denotes the personal interpretation of some facts and phenomena by means of words describing ideas and attitudes of other people. When summarizing, we are never involved in personal interpretation, being limited to highlighting the key point of some sort of work.

If you have the intention to paraphrase the author’s idea you appreciate, you should not forget to provide a reference to the source you use. In most cases, the students are not allowed to use the same phrases and the same sentence structure. So, if you paraphrase the though, make sure you create a completely different sentence if possible. Of course, it is extremely difficult to change the words and sentence structure, but the more practice you have, the faster and the better you do it. First of all, try to make some notes so that in case you find the useful idea, you may rewrite it immediately. Secondly, when paraphrasing, do not forget to indicate the name of the author in your notes. This will aid you to provide accurate evidence when formatting your essay, especially when dealing with in-text citations, references to the source of your material and works cited page.

Summarizing is also a complicated process, because students need to be able to avoid the same sentences and collect only the most accurate and reliable points that are expressed by the author. When summarizing, do your best to choose the main ideas and relevant information in order to succeed in providing adequate reasoning in your essay. In order to make your argument trusted, try to make notes of the information source so that every fact is properly cited and referenced.

The ability of the students to summarize and paraphrase the information will also help them better structure their essay, not depending on the subject area and length. For some assignments where the word count greatly matters, paraphrasing and summarizing can be extremely helpful. You will never exceed the word limit and will never be penalized. So, it is up to you which tool you would like to use more!