Paraphrasing and Summarizing

If you don't know when you should paraphrase and when you should summarize this link will be helpful. Each one has different uses and it depends on what is required."To paraphrase means to restate someone else's ideas in your own language. To summarize means to reduce the most essential points of someone else's work into a shorter form," wrote Jerry Plotnick, Director of The College Writing Center of The University of Toronto. 

Paraphrase is about writing in your own words, replacing phrases and using new words for some statements, without changing the main topic and the intention of the author. The main strategy is to take notes about the important points in your own words, making sure that you reference the source (page) and that it is accurate. Like Plotnick says "what matters is that you capture the original idea."

On the other hand, on this link you will find examples about paraphrasing and summarazing. According  to the publication of the Harvard College Writing Program, "when you summarize, you provide your readers with a condensed version of an author´s key points."  A summary is shorter than a paraphrase because it has to be related to the most important elements of the original text. But be careful, because it depends on the complexity and on the amount of relevant details the original passage has. The Harvard Publication wrote"When you have to decide how much summary to put in a paper, it´s a good idea to consult your instructor about whether you are supposed to assume your reader´s knowledge of the sources" i.e. it is important to know if you are supposed to include the background information as part of the summary.