Guidelines for Quoting and Summarizing/Paraphrasing
Guidelines for Using
Quotations
Select carefully
the words you wish to quote. Make sure that they really do reinforce
and illustrate the point you wish to make.
Include the
exact words of the author in quotation marks (inverted
commas). Either single 'ˇK' or double "ˇK" inverted commas
are acceptable.
State the
author(s)' surname(s), the year of publication and the page number(s)
from which the quotation has been taken.
Ensure you
quote accurately. Do not introduce spelling or grammatical errors.
Keep the quotation
reasonably short. It is recommended that two to three lines of a
quotation should be sufficient to draw your reader's attention to
the work of another author.
Integrate
the quotation within your own text so that the reader can appreciate
its significance.
Indicate the
omission of any words from the quotation by the use of three dots,
.ˇK This system can be used to indicate omissions at the beginning,
in the middle or the end of a quotation and is a useful device to
avoid excessively long quotations.
Indent the
quotation if you feel you need to have a quote that is longer than
three lines. This will make it more obvious to the reader that a
significant quotation is being provided. Only use a long quotation
however, if it really does add valuable information.
Example quotation
The following is an example of how a writer has integrated a short
quote, using the above guidelines.
According to Hyland (1998, p. 139) ˇ§Variability is a crucial factor
in scientific data, and a great deal of hedging in science involves
the manipulation of precision in quantification, ˇKˇ¨. Hedging can
be observed in the literature by the use of words like approximately,
almost, about, roughly, nearly, and other such non-specific words.
Guidelines for Summarizing/Paraphrasing
Read and make sure that you fully
understand the work to which you wish to refer.
Make notes of the key ideas from
the source material, using your own words.
Use your own words and your own
sentence structure to summarize or paraphrase the information.
Make sure you are not guilty of
plagiarism; the act of using another author's words while pretending
they are your own.
State the author(s)' surname(s)
and the year of publication in any summary you provide of another
author's work.
Example Summary
The following is an example of how an author, Spratt (2001), has
summarized the work of the joint authors, Alcorso and Kalantzis.
In relation to studies of learners' preferences
for activities, studies have tended to focus on the distinction
between communicative and non-communicative activities, and to
suggest that more students prefer the latter to the former. A
study by Alcorso and Kalantzis (1985), for instance, indicated
that learners tended to view more traditional activities as more
useful in a lesson than the more communicative activities.
Spratt, M. (2001). The value of finding out
what classroom activities students like. RELCJournal
Vol.32 No.2. pp. 80-103.