Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing Reproduced from: Purdue Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/)
What are the differences between quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing? Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author. Paraphrasing involves putting a passage from source material into your own words. A paraphrase must also be attributed to the original source. Paraphrased material is usually shorter than the original passage, taking a somewhat broader segment of the source and condensing it slightly. Summarizing involves putting the main idea(s) into your own words, including only the main point(s). Once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. Summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material. Where to Get Started? Once you have chosen a project topic, you need to start your initial research. A great place to start is the Encyclopedia of Earth (http://www.eoearth.org/). You can search for your topic within the Encyclopedia of Earth (EoE) by going to the ‘Topics’ tab and clicking on your topic of interest to see all the articles the EoE has to offer. The advantage of using the EoE, over Wikipedia, is that all the articles on the EoE are peer-edited and written by experts in the field. This will make all information in their articles credible for you to use in your Background Research Paper. Once you have read an EoE article on your topic, you can go to the News section of the EnvironMentors Portal (the third tab at the top of the EnvironMentors Portal page) to find out the latest information on your topic. Articles from the EoE and an environmental news article should be your first Annotated Bibliography entries.