Lesson 6:
Incorporating Resources

Objectives

Understanding Plagiarism

Integrate Your Research

Cite Your Sources

Resources

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Integrating Your Research

Summarizing

A summary is a condensation of a passage. Summaries present a passage's most important idea, but omit some details.

When you summarize a passage, you must...

• Restate the central idea in your own words.
• Include an in-text citation to indicate where the passage you summarized begins and ends.

It's also a good idea to add attributive tags to long summaries. Attributive tags can be used to show where a summary begins. Some examples include:

Lincoln stated... As Mr. Chen suggests... Edwin Booth tells readers that...

Avoid including opinions or feelings about the passage. Opinions must be clearly distinguished from your summary.

To summarize a passage, read it, lay it aside for awhile, and then record your memory of the passage in your own words. Be sure to double-check the passage to make sure you have not remembered the author's exact words or misrepresented his/her ideas.