In academic writing it is often necessary to refer to other people’s research

Direct quotations and paraphrasing Paraphrasing means using your own words

to report someone else’ writing, but maintaining academic style

References must always be given to the sourcesof the text you are making use of

By changing the vocabulary By changing the verb form By changing the word class By synthesis

She examined the difficulties that… She investigated the problems that…

Rewrite the following: Smith and Jones (1991) found that the

circumstances had…

Johns (1991) analysed the students’ difficulties and…

The students’ difficulties were analysed by Johns (1991) and…

Rewrite the following: Brown (1994) observed the problems

caused by seminars…

The reports were completed in April… The completion of the reports in April

ensured that…

Rewrite the following: James (2004) concluded that there was a

need for note-taking practice.

Combining two or more viewpoints or pieces of information from other writers

References may support one another, but there may be opposing views as well

giving a brief account of the main points of some writing

An effective summary should be complete, concise, clear and creative (4 Cs)

Complete: it includes all the main ideas, but not supporting details or examples

Concise: it is as brief as possible, and shorter than the original text

Clear: it is easy to understand Creative: it uses some key terms from the

text, but mainly uses the summary writer’s own language

Topic sentence(s) Keywords (the main information points) References to the sources of the text

At the beginnning write the title, the author and article, publisher and date

Quickly skim the text to get an overall idea of it

Make brief notes of the main points Underline important sentences or phrases Remove examples and details

Ensure that your summary is neutral and accurate (do not add your ideas)

As far as possible condense the points into straightforward statements

Rewrite statements in your own words where possible

Write clearly, concisely and logically

Introduction (topic) Development (presentation, analysis and

discussion) – main idea Conclusion

Read the text Class and status and write a summary!

Paragraph 2Weber identified three distinct ____________ of

__________ in societies1.2.3.

In their text on class and status, Fulcher and Scott (2011, p. 746) report the work of Weber. They state that Weber’s theory of social stratification is brief but highly influential, with his disctinction of class, status, and partly being widely accepted. Weber proposed three key aspects of power in society: economic, communal, and authoritarian.

Evaluate this summary using the ‘4Cs’ criteria!

What is the best introductory sentence? What are the main points? What is the conclusion?

Write a summary of the text The Struggles in the Role of a Social Worker (handout)!