Information about Summary, Paraphrase, Quotation,

and MLA In-Text Citations

1.) Summary: Condensing Information

A book --> down to --> a 10-page paper

A journal article or book chapter or 10-page paper --> down to --> a 1-page paper

A 1-page paper --> down to --> a paragraph or sentence

A paragraph --> down to --> a sentence

Examples

Michael Perry’s essay, “Scarlet Ribbons,” is about one man’s internal conflict in choosing between a technical education and a liberal arts education; even though he first chooses a technical education, he eventually leaves his chosen field of nursing to become a writer, which is rooted in a liberal arts education (259-262).

The “8th Grade Final Exam” from Salina, Kansas, in 1895, contains the following sections: Grammar, Arithmetic, U.S. History, Orthography, and Geography (44-46), and I do not think I would do very well in any of them.

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2.) Paraphrase: Restating (or “Translating”) Information for Clarity

A paraphrase of a paragraph = a paragraph

A paraphrase of 2-3 sentences = 2-4 sentences

A paraphrase of 1 sentence = 1-2 sentences

1.) A good paraphrase will be either the same length or longer than the original; rarely will paraphrase be shorter.

2.) Paraphrasing is hard work and takes much time to rewrite in your own words and sentence structures while still being true to the meaning of the author’s original ideas.

3.) It is not enough to simply substitute synonyms, nor is it enough to only change the structure of the sentences. You must change BOTH the words AND the sentence structures.

Examples

Original Source -- p. 136

Wanting to change yourself finds its source in two wellsprings: self-hatred and self-affirmation. Self-affirmation takes what already exists in your personality (even if slightly stunted or twisted) and encourages its growth. Where self-affirmation is expansive, self-hatred is reductive, negating one’s own personality while appropriating qualities external to it and applying them like thick pancake makeup.

Paraphrase:

According to Jennifer Crichton, “Wanting to change yourself finds its source in two wellsprings: self-hatred and self-affirmation.” Crichton explains that hating one’s self is diminishing (like moving backward and getting smaller) while approving or encouraging one’s self is growth (like moving forward and getting bigger).  Further, hating one’s self can be compared to hiding your personality by masking it with things outside of it that don’t belong (136).

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3.) Quotation: Copying Words, Phrases, 1-3 Sentences

You do not want to quote too much. First, readers tend to begin skipping over quotations if there are a lot of them. Second, too many quotations may signal to your reader that the paper is a "cut-and-paste" job, where the writer:

1.) doesn't have any ideas of her or his own,

2.) cannot or is unwilling to express them clearly, or

3.) is lazy and doesn't want to do the hard work of thinking and writing.

Quotation Guidelines and "Rules":

1.) You must copy exactly, word for word, letter for letter, punctuation mark for punctuation mark.

2.) You must use "quotation marks."

3.) If you change a word or phrase (verb tenses, pronouns, etc.), or even a single letter (capitalizing it, or making it lower case), you must use [square brackets].

• ADD a verb tense example.
• ADD a pronoun example.

4.) If you remove a word, phrase, or sentence (as long as it does not change the meaning), you must use the ellipses . . . dots (3 spaced periods).

• See example below.

5.) You should capitalize the first letter of a quotation, using [ ] if you need to, if the signal phrase ends in a colon (:) or a comma (,).

• According to David Sedaris, "Humor is the cornerstone of all human understanding" (39).
• According to David Sedaris, "[H]umor is the cornerstone of all human understanding" (39).

6.) If there is NO parenthetical citation following a quotation, the comma or period goes INSIDE the ending quotation marks.

• According to David Sedaris, "Humor is the cornerstone of all human understanding."

7.) If there IS a parenthetical citation following a quotation, the comma or period goes AFTER the ending quotations and the parenthetical citation.

• According to David Sedaris, "Humor is the cornerstone of all human understanding" (39).

8.) The only exception to the rule above is if the quotation ends in a question mark or an exclamation point, then those marks would go INSIDE the quotation marks; a period would then also follow the parenthetical citation.

• David Sedaris once asked, "Is it funny?" (24).

8.) If you are quoting something that already has quotation marks in it -- a quote within a quote -- you will use the double quotation marks " " for your quotation, and any quotation marks within will be changed from double marks to single marks ' '.

• David Sedaris points out that "[w]hat we consider to be 'funny' may not, in fact, be funny" (41).

9.) If you want to quote something someone said, but that person did not write the source you found the quote in, it is called an "Indirect Source."

• David Sedaris admits that "it takes a lot of work to be funny" (qtd. in Boyd 22).

Examples

Original Source -- p. 136

Wanting to change yourself finds its source in two wellsprings: self-hatred and self-affirmation. Self-affirmation takes what already exists in your personality (even if slightly stunted or twisted) and encourages its growth. Where self-affirmation is expansive, self-hatred is reductive, negating one’s own personality while appropriating qualities external to it and applying them like thick pancake makeup.

Quote:

According to Jennifer Crichton, “Self-affirmation takes what already exists in your personality . . . and encourages its growth” while “self-hatred is reductive” (136).

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4.) MLA In-Text Citations: Identifying and Giving Credit to Your Source(s)

MLA stands for the Modern Language Association, which produces a "style and documentation" guide for academic disciplines in "languages and literatures" (both English and many other languages).

But the MLA is only one organization producing such a guide. Each academic discipline has its own style and documentation guide. For example, APA (American Psychological Association) and CBE (Council of Biology Editors) publish guides which are used in the social and physical sciences.

1.) Standard MLA citation form is to use the author’s name in the sentence and then the page number in the parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence but before the period, like this (96).

2.) The first time you use an author’s name, use the full name. Other references to the author are then last name only. Under only rare circumstances would you use the author's first name only.

3.) For the parenthetical citation, you do NOT need to use (page 96) or (pg. 96) or (pp. 96) or (p. 96).

4.) Use variety in your signal phrases (attribution phrases):

According to Michael Perry, . . . (96).

Michael Perry states that . . . (96).

In “Scarlet Ribbons,” Michael Perry writes, “ . . .” (96).

5.) Be accurate and descriptive in the verb you use in your signal phrases: states, says, writes, argues, suggests, etc.

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