English 215:
Writing Summaries, Critiques & Synthesis

Summary:
Brief restatement in your own words of the content or a passage (paragraph, chapter, article, book) that focuses on the central idea of that passage. When reading source material, treat each passage as a discrete unit of thought to be assimilated into your own thoughts. Try to understand the passage as a whole, rather than pausing to write down ideas or phrases that seem, on first inspection, significant. Read purposefully, with a larger conceptual framework in clear view, and integrate each reading into that controlling purpose.

After reaching a clear understanding of the ideas contained in the source, summarize that information in your own words. Remember that you are taking notes, not copying down quotations. Your task is to extract, distill, and compress essential content that will be useful in creating a paraphrase. Occasionally you may find it useful to quote words or phrases directly from the source, but limit yourself to very brief quotations, and be sure to use quotation marks and to record page numbers in your notes.
Uses:
I. Writing a summary is an excellent way to understand what you've read (books, articles, chapters). If you don't understand something, it is very hard to summarize it. This difficulty may indicate that you need to re-read or further work through what you've read. Ands, once you understand the material, you're better able to use it your advantage.
II. Summaries can also be very useful for your readers.

Paraphrase:
Paraphrasing is similar to summarizing in that it involves recasting a passage into your won words and so requires that you fully understand the material. The difference, however, is that while a summary can be characterized as a shortened version of the orifgical, a paraphrase is usually about the same length.
Uses:
I. Paraphrasing is an excellent way to take what may be a passage that is written in a dense, abstract or even archaic language and put it into your own words--prose that may be more accessible to your reader

Quotations:
A quotation records the exact language used by another in speech or written discourse.
Uses:
I. Quotations are useful when another writer's or speaker's language is particularly memorable, poignant, etc.
II. Quotations are also useful when another discourse is clear and economical so that to make the same point in your own words would, by comparison, be less effective.
III. Quotations also provide ethos. Use quotations when you want the ethos of the source to lend authority and credence to your own work.

Important Points to Consider:
I. The work you produce should be your own--in your voice, your ideas, your conclusions, etc. Therefore, references to others' work should be cast primarily as summaries and paraphrases.
II. Quotations should be used sparingly--use them to support your claims and not in place of your claims.

Synthesis:
A discussion that draws upon two or ore sources and makes explicit the relationship you infer. It is the process of inferring relationships among ideas, sources, scholars, etc.