What is the Difference between Summarizing and Paraphrasing?

Writing requires a lot of effort.

Be it a 2000-word blog or a 8-word social media post’s content – it’s not easy to write. And then once you’ve written come the edits. You try to concise everything up, and see if your points are correctly being conveyed or not.

In this blog, we’ll be reviewing 2 popular editing techniques – summarizing and paraphrasing. Both these techniques are essential in polishing and making a write-up easier to understand and comprehend.

Quick Summary

In this blog, we’ll get an idea of what paraphrasing and summarizing is. We’ll also solve a couple of examples for the same.

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is expressing the meaning of (something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity. There’s rarely any alteration to length, but the words become easier, and the content becomes far more readable.
For example, there are words that people don’t usually know the meaning of or sentences that are on the lengthier side – then paraphrasing is something that will help you out.

Example of paraphrasing

• Full text: Climate change is a global challenge that affects every aspect of human life. Rising temperatures contribute to extreme weather events, sea level rise, and loss of biodiversity occurs. These changes disrupt ecosystems and threaten food security, water resources, and human health. Urgent collective action is required to mitigate these effects and adapt.

• Paraphrased: Global warming presents a worldwide issue impacting all parts of life. Higher temperatures lead to severe weather, rising seas, and declining biodiversity. This affects ecosystems, lowers food and water supplies, and poses health risks. Immediate and unified efforts are important to reduce and manage these impacts.

What is summarizing?

Summarizing refers to shortening the length of a given piece of content. This makes it more concise and to-the-point.

You’re actively shortening the length and making the content clearer. Then, you eliminate unnecessary fluff and stick to what’s actually important.

Think of it as your teacher/professor explaining your complex study material. They do so after assessing and taking out the main points from the main text.

Example of summarizing

• Full text: Social media connects people worldwide, sharing ideas and information quickly. However, it also spreads misinformation, affects mental health, and increases screen time. Despite this, it builds communities, promotes businesses, and raises awareness.

• Solution: Social media connects and informs but also spreads misinformation and affects mental health.

Paraphrasing and summarizing are similar in what ways?

Both paraphrasing and summarizing make it easier to understand content. Paraphrasing helps by simplifying and making sentences more readable, and summarizing helps by making the text more concise and to the point.

The ultimate goal is making content more understandable to readers.

What is the right time to paraphrase?

There are certain instances wherein it is wise to paraphrase text. This includes the following instances:

Usage of hard words:

When there’s a lot of hard words used, it is high time that you paraphrase the text. Hard words require more effort and energy to read and comprehend, and there’s always substitutes that you can use to simplify these hard words.

Hard to understand language:

Hard to understand language can mean boring sentence formations and uninteresting ways of expression. Paraphrasing helps shorten sentence structures and provides easier, more readable content.

Tough, technical concepts:

Tough and technical concepts need to be explained in a particular way. They need to be simplified using basic terminologies and sentence formations. Paraphrasing helps with that.

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What is the Best time to summarize?

There are certain instances where it is essential to summarize. Let’s discuss some of them below:

Length of content:

When the content is too lengthy, it is a telltale sign that it needs to be summarized. Summarization slashes the length to just a couple of main pointers, making the idea clear and concise to the reader.

Technical information:

When there’s a load of technical information, the text is better understood when it has been summarized. It also reduces a lot of the fluff that comes with technical content.

Time restrictions:

When you’re short on time, summarizing text helps. It gives you what the main points aim to convey, and it saves a lot of time in the process.

Key Differences Between Summarizing and Paraphrasing

A comparison of summarizing, paraphrasing, and direct quoting

Summarizing refers to shortening and condensing text. Paraphrasing refers to rewriting existing text without much emphasis on length, more so to language, while direct quoting is basically copying text in a word-to-word fashion.

Examples of Quoting, Paraphrasing, And Summarizing

Original Text:

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

• Robert Frost

Quoting:

Robert Frost said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

Paraphrasing:

Robert Frost encapsulates his life experience by stating that, no matter what challenges or joys come our way, life keeps moving forward. He emphasizes the inevitability of change and the importance of resilience.

Summarizing:

The author emphasizes resilience and the inevitability of life moving forward, regardless of circumstances.

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How to Avoid Mistakes When Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Here in, we’ll get to know how to avoid mistakes people usually make while summarizing and paraphrasing:

Avoiding mistakes while summarizing:

While summarizing, you need to make sure that you read the text thoroughly well. For summarizing, you need to become a master of the given content. Only then can you aspire to cover all major and main points, further condensing them.

Avoiding mistakes while paraphrasing:

While paraphrasing, you need to make sure that the main idea of the content remains the same. Simply use different words and alter the sentence structures. Re-read the finished piece of content once to review it and compare it with the original content.

Student Practice Exercises

Marketing refers to using ways to put out your product/service in the market. It includes creating and communicating your offerings to satisfy customer needs and generate revenue. It is aimed at attracting an audience through high-quality messaging.

Paraphrase

Example:

Marketing refers to using ways to put out your product/service in the market. It includes creating and communicating your offerings to satisfy customer needs and generate revenue. It is aimed at attracting an audience through high-quality messaging.

Solution:

The definition of marketing is when you use methods to introduce your offerings to the market. It involves imparting what you manufacture/provide and fulfilling the needs of customers, aimed at generating revenue. Through this, a company attracts an audience with top-end marketing.

Summarize

Example:

The human body is a fascinating structure composed of 206 bones, all working in perfect harmony. It guarantees stability, movement, and functionality. This synchronization minimizes the chances of mishaps and allows the body to perform efficiently. Tendons are tough and flexible tissues that connect muscles to bones. They enable the transfer of force that facilitates movement. Ligaments link bones to one another at the joints, providing support and stability. Cartilage, a smooth and elastic tissue acts as a soft padding between bones.

Solution:

The human body has 206 bones. They all work in harmony with one another. Tendons are responsible for connecting muscle-to-bone, ligaments connect bone-to-bone and cartilage makes up the soft padding between bones. It helps facilitate movement. All 3 form a cohesive musculoskeletal system.

Summarizing and Paraphrasing

Read the passage below and create both a summary and a paraphrase:

Original Passage:

Deforestation leads to habitat loss and reduced biodiversity. This causes increased greenhouse gas emissions. Effects can be mitigated through reforestation programs. This includes promoting sustainable logging practices. Also, raising awareness regarding the importance of forest conservation helps.

Paraphrased:

With deforestation, comes the loss of habitat. It decreases biodiversity. The impact of this increases greenhouse gas emissions. But, reforestation can fix this. Its endeavors include sustainable wood-cutting practices and letting people know how integral forest conservation is.

Summarized:

Deforestation harms biodiversity and increases emissions. Reforestation and sustainable practices can help manage its effects.

Conclusion

So, there you have it!

We went through what summarizing and paraphrasing is and also did some exercises regarding the same. English as a language is full of surprises, and there are various tricks that it brings.

Summarizing and paraphrasing are both powerful techniques to improve your English skills. Tune into more of our blogs and experience education at its best.

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