Quoting is, very simply, relaying someone else’s words, exactly as they were originally written. Quotes must be indicated with quotation marks or, in the case of longer passages, with an indented paragraph.
Short quote:
Darwin (1859) concluded his seminal work with this elegant reflection on the process of evolution: “…from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved” (p. 490).
Long quote:
Darwin (1859) concludes his seminal work with this elegant reflection on the process of evolution:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved (p. 490).
It is not enough to simply alter a few words here and there. That type of paraphrasing is called patchwriting and, even though it may be cited correctly, it’s still considered plagiarism.
Original passage:
“Many late-talking children grow up to be engineers, mathematicians, and scientists, including the physicists Richard Feynman and Edward Teller. Perhaps this is because different mental functions compete for brain real estate as they develop in the cerebral cortex” (Pinker, 1999, p. A11).
Patchwriting:
Some children who are late talkers grow up to be engineers, mathematicians, and scientists. Two famous examples are the physicists Richard Feynman and Edward Teller. These mathematically gifted children may talk late because different mental functions compete for real estate in the developing brain (Pinker, 1999, p. A11).
Acceptable paraphrasing:
It has been theorized that some mathematically and scientifically gifted children, such as Richard Feynman and Edward Teller, talk later than normal because the regions of the brain involved in math take up more resources and space in the growing brain than those involved in language (Pinker, 1999, p. A11).
The purpose of a summary is to condense the main points of an idea or argument. As with paraphrasing, state these ideas in your own words.
Passage from Oliver Sacks’ essay “An Anthropologist on Mars”:
The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence is about one in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its features remarkably consistent even in extremely different cultures. It is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year. Though Asperger regarded it as a biological defect of affective contact—innate, inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it as a psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most especially of a chillingly remote, often professional, "refrigerator mother." At this time, autism was often regarded as "defensive" in nature, or confused with childhood schizophrenia. A whole generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were made to feel guilty for the autism of their children.
Acceptable summary of the above passage:
In "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks notes that although there is little disagreement on the chief characteristics of autism, researchers have differed considerably on its causes. As he points out, Asperger saw the condition as an innate defect in the child's ability to connect with the external world, whereas Kanner regarded it as a consequence of harmful childrearing practices (247-48).
Taken from: Plotnick. J. (n.d.). Paraphrase and summary. http://www.uc.utoronto.ca/paraphrase