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Paraphrasing Example

The same process can now be applied to the second sentence. However, due to its complex nature, this one is more difficult…

He did, however, change the world by using an assembly line technique to produce cars which could be afforded by everyone.

Below is a short text to be paraphrased.

Henry Ford did not invent the automobile or the assembly line. He did, however, change the world by using an assembly line technique to produce cars which could be afforded by everyone. From 1909 to 1927, the Ford Motor Company built more than 15 million Model T cars. Without a doubt, Henry Ford transformed the economic and social fabric of the 20th century.

The first thing to do is to split it up into individual sentences. Next, the words and phrases that can be altered (and the way in which they can be altered) should be identified.

However – although, but

Change – transform, transformation, revolutionise, revolution

World – global

Using – use, implementing, implementation, applying, application

Assembly line – production line

Technique – method, practice

Produce – production, make, build, manufacture

Cars – automobiles, vehicles

Be afforded – afford, affordable, bought, buy

By everyone – all, anyone, universally

Henry Ford did not invent the automobile or the assembly line.

Invent – invention, inventor, inventive, was invented

Automobile – car

Assembly line – production line

• However, he transformed the world by using production line methods to manufacture vehicles which all people could afford.

• However, his use of production line methods to manufacture vehicles which all people could afford transformed the world.

• However, his use of production line methods to manufacture universally affordable vehicles began a global revolution.

Then, the sentence can be rewritten in a variety of ways. Eg:

• The car and the production line were not invented by Henry Ford.

• Henry Ford was not the inventor of the car or the production line.

• Henry Ford was not responsible for the invention of the car or the production line.

Paraphrase

Top Tips for Paraphrasing

Summary

Think: CLASS

Paraphrase – Summarise - Synthesise

Centre for Learning and Academic Skills Support

Academic Skills

  • A summary is a shortened version of a text.

  • It contains the main points and is written in your own words.

  • It is a mixture of reducing a long text to a short text and selecting relevant information.

  • Summarising is useful when you are using the work of others to support your own view.

  • A good summary shows that you have understood the text.

  • Please remember, though, that even when you summarise someone's work, you must acknowledge it.

Paraphrasing is writing the ideas of another person in your own words.

Paraphrasing is useful when you want to support your opinion using other peoples work.

  • Change words

  • Change word form

  • Change word order

However, you must keep the meaning the same.

Paraphrasing

Summarising

Synthesising

  • Read and understand the text.

  • Make a list of the main ideas.
  • Find the main ideas - the most important words or phrases. Write them down, underline or highlight them.
  • Find alternative words or phrases - do not change specialised vocabulary and common words.

  • Change the structure of the text.
  • Identify the meaning and the relationships between the words and ideas –

e.g. cause/effect, generalisation, and contrast.

  • Modify the grammar of the text: change nouns to verbs, adjectives to adverbs.

Break up long sentences, combine short sentences.

  • Rewrite the main ideas your own words.

  • Check your work.
  • The meaning is the same.
  • The length is the same.
  • Remember to reference the author.

The purpose of academic writing is to express your opinion using evidence or examples from reliable

sources.

You can do this by reporting the works of others in your own words.

You can either:

  • paraphrase if you want to keep the length the same;
  • summarise if you want to make the text shorter; or
  • synthesise if you need to use information from several sources.

In all cases you need to acknowledge other people's work.

Summarising example

Top Tips for Summarising

Summarising example

Summarising activity

Read the text below and identify the key points, then write a summary of the text.

Read the quotes below and summarise them in as few words as possible.

Busy students often overlook small amounts of time that can be actively used for study purposes.

Finding extra time

Students can benefit from using small amounts of time for study purposes. There are lots of small amounts of time people overlook, such as traveling to and from university, or between classes. While these times can sometimes be used to relax and to ‘switch off’, they can also be used more actively; to read a chapter, to solve a problem or revise for a test. These short study sessions are particularly useful for busy students.

Start by reading a short text and highlighting the main points:

  • They may be found in topic sentences.
  • Delete most details and examples, unimportant information, anecdotes, examples, illustrations, data etc.
  • Find alternative synonyms for some of the words - do not change specialised vocabulary .

Change the structure :

  • Identify the meaning relationships between the words/ideas - e.g. cause/effect, generalisation, contrast. Express these relationships in a different way.
  • Change the grammar of the text: rearrange words and sentences.
  • Change nouns to verbs, adjectives to adverbs, etc., break up long sentences, combine short sentences.
  • Simplify the text. Reduce complex sentences to simple sentences, simple sentences to phrases, phrases to single words.

Reread the text and make notes of the main points, leaving out examples, evidence etc.

Without the text, rewrite your notes in your own words; restate the main ideas

Finding extra time

Students can benefit from using small amounts of time for study purposes. There are lots of small amounts of time people overlook, such as travelling to and from university, or between classes. While these times can sometimes be used to relax and to ‘switch off’, they can also be used more actively; to read a chapter, to solve a problem or revise for a test. These short study sessions are particularly useful for busy students.

People whose professional activity lies in the field of politics are not, on the whole, conspicuous for their respect for factual accuracy.

The climatic conditions prevailing in Australia show a pattern of alternating and unpredictable periods of dry and wet weather, accompanied by a similarly irregular cycle of temperature changes.

It is not uncommon to encounter sentences which, though they contain a great number of words and are constructed in a highly complex way, none the less turn out on inspection to convey very little meaning of any kind.

One of the most noticeable phenomena in any big city, such as London or Paris, is the steadily increasing number of petrol-driven vehicles, some in private ownership, others belonging to the public transport system, which congest the roads and render rapid movement more difficult year by year.

Summarising activity

Top Tips for Synthesis

Summarising activity

Synthesise

Synthesis example

Supporting the contention that English is the dominant world language, Bond (2002) and Robertson(2003) point out its importance as the medium of international communication in business, technology and other global forums. However, others argue that despite its apparent dominance, English is not the global language when the number of native speakers of other languages, such as Chinese, is considered (Havir 1999; Kerstjens 2000).

  • A synthesis is a combination, usually a shortened version, of several texts made into one.

  • It contains the important points in the text and is written in your own words.

  • To make a synthesis you need to find suitable sources, and then to select the relevant parts in those sources.

  • You will then use your paraphrase and summary skills to write the information in your own words.

  • The information from all the sources has to fit together into one continuous text.

 

People whose professional activity lies in the field of politics are not, on the whole, conspicuous for their respect for factual accuracy.

Politicians often lie.

The climatic conditions prevailing in Australia show a pattern of alternating and unpredictable periods of dry and wet weather, accompanied by a similarly irregular cycle of temperature changes.

Australian weather is changeable.

It is not uncommon to encounter sentences which, though they contain a great number of words and are constructed in a highly complex way, none the less turn out on inspection to convey very little meaning of any kind.

Some long and complicated sentences mean very little.

One of the most noticeable phenomena in any big city, such as London or Paris, is the steadily increasing number of petrol-driven vehicles, some in private ownership, others belonging to the public transport system, which congest the roads and render rapid movement more difficult year by year.

Big cities have growing traffic problems.

Read the following extracts and select the important points and themes, and summarise them.

 

Surrealism also impacted interior design in important and lasting ways. It set itself up against a reductive modernism that valued simplicity, clarity, rationality and representational honesty. Surrealist design--like its postmodern child a naif century later--was to be complex, obscure, irrational and fantastic. Nothing was what it appeared to be. That was

the point. (Duncan 2009)

 

Inspired by the volumetric treatment of form by the French post- impressionist artist Paul Cezanne, Picasso and Georges Braque painted landscapes in i908 in a style later described 'by a critic as being made of "little cubes," thus leading to the term cubism. Some of their paintings are so similar that many critics find it difficult to tell them apart. ‘Working together between 1908 and 1911, they were Concerned with breaking down and analysing form, and together they developed the first phase of Cubism, known as analytic Cubism. (Johnson 2009)

 

In 1912, pasting paper and a piece of oilcloth to the canvas and combining these with painted areas Picasso created his first collage, "Still Life with Chair Caning". This technique marked a transition to synthetic cubism. This second phase of cubism is more decorative, and colour plays a major role, although shapes remain fragmented and flat.

(Moffat 2006)

 

The Form Master at the Bauhaus furniture workshop in Weimar was Gropius, who had experience of furniture design with the Deutsche Werkbund. Based on his ideas that the needs of all people were the same and that modem life required radically different furniture to that of the past, the workshop produced designs which were based on economical use of materials and simple forms (Art &Deeigri 1999)

The following stages may be useful:

  • Find texts that are suitable for your assignment.

  • Read and understand the texts.

  • Find the relevant ideas in the texts. -Write them down, underline them or highlight them.

  • Make sure you identify the meaning relationships between the words/ideas.

  • Organise the information you have. You could give all similar ideas in different texts the same colour.

  • Transfer all the information onto one piece of paper. Write down all similar information together.

  • Paraphrase and summarise as necessary. Check your notes with for accuracy and relevance.

  • Combine your notes into one continuous text.

Synthesis activity

Think: CLASS

Centre for Learning and Academic Skills Support

Read the articles below and, in a paragraph of around 50 words, explain what is meant by "Culture Shock".

 

Culture shock refers to phenomena ranging from mild irritability to deep psychological panic and crisis.

(From Douglas Brown, Principles of language learning and teaching, 1980, page 131, Published by Prentice-Hall in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.)

 

Culture...taken in its wide ethnographic sense is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other Capabilities and habits acquired by man as members of society.

(From: Tyler, Edward B. Primitive culture. Published in London by J. Murray in 1871. The quotation is from page 1.)

 

Cultures have to have something to mould. they in tact have is an exceedingly complex arrangement ot biochemical machinery, each piece containing certain instructions of a highly specific kind about its development. Culture, too, provides a set of instructions about development. Man is thus subject to two sets of instructions, a Cultural set and an organic set, both of which are with him from Conception to death. The organic: set is in the ascendancy before birth; after birth the Cultural set become steadily more potent, until eventually, towards death, the organic set regains ascendancy.

(From: The biology of human action. By Vernon Reynolds, page 73. Published in Reading, UK, by H Freeman in 1976.)

 

The future evolutionary and ecological success of the species in the face of an ever accelerating rate of environmental change, associated with growing urbanisation and industrialisation, will depend entirely on the extent to which cultural adaptation continues to be effective. The success of cultural adaptation, in turn, will depend on the level of understanding in society in the increasingly complex interactions between natural processes on the one hand and cultural processes on the other.

(From a book by S Boyden, page 436. The impact of of civilisation on the biology of man. Australian National University, Canberra, 1970.)

Thank You

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