Summary and Paraphrase-Essentials Skills for Self-Writing

Summary and Paraphrase are both somehow similar terms and are interrelated. Most people find their meanings confusing and difficult to understand. And for their significant importance for essay writing, they are both more than essential, especially for Scientific and legal concepts. Here are the meanings of these confusing terms in the simplest way for a better understanding.

Summary:

Summary means a concise and comprehensive abstract from a piece of work. Summary refers to the process of defining the main idea of a paragraph or essay in the most comprehensive and concise statements. We can say that a summary is the concise version of the original text without changing its actual essence.

Paraphrase:

Paraphrasing means rewriting the original text in your own words without changing the actual meaning. Paraphrasing is usually shorter than the original version but it has to be written with the same meaning. In that way, the actual concept will be the same and will not seem distorted.

Guide for Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Summarizing and Paraphrasing seem similar but their way of writing is different. You can say that we cannot use the same steps or guidelines for both. So, here we provide the simple and easy-to-understand guidelines for summarizing and paraphrasing.

How to Summarize a text?

• Read the whole passage carefully to get its actual meaning and concept.
• Once you get the meaning, then identify the key points, main concepts, and facts.
• Now rewrite the text in your own words using identified points.
• Avoid all unnecessary details.
• Now, you need to compare the summary written with the original text to check the accuracy of the actual essence and meaning.

How to Paraphrase a text?

• Read the whole passage carefully to understand its actual meaning and concept.
• Rewrite the text in your own words. Make sure to use your own unique words to rephrase the text. It should not be the synonyms or substitution of the original passage.
• Make sure to use the same way to present the main idea of the text. The main concept of the text must be identifiable.
• The exact words taken from the original text must be quoted.
• Compare the rephrase text with the original version. Rephrase text should make sense with the actual meaning, if it does not make sense, revise it.

In a nutshell, Summary and Paraphrases are necessary for self-writing. They are easy to use, you just need to have a clear understanding of their meaning and process. You can write your essays, articles, journals, etc. conveniently.