Paraphrasing and Quoting
When you write, you can use ideas from sources, but you must avoid plagiarism—presenting others’ words as your own. Use one of these strategies:
- Paraphrasing is using your own words to express the ideas from a text.
- Quoting is using a text’s exact words in quotation marks and naming the source.
Listen to "Flying Fish, Ocean Acrobats"
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Flying Fish, Ocean Acrobats
Flying fish are called the dragonflies of the deep, but flying fish don’t have wings like dragonflies or birds. They use two sets of pectoral fins as wings to fly. Their front fins lift them out of the water, and their back fins help them soar over the surface.
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Paraphrase: Flying fish use sets of fins to glide above water.
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Quote: The article “Flying Fish, Ocean Acrobats” points out that “flying fish are called the dragonflies of the deep.”
Teaching Tip
Students may paraphrase well known ideas and established facts without giving credit to a specific source. When students quote a source, however, they must give credit. Students can cite sources by naming the author and title.
Paraphrase and quote.
Read the passage and follow the instructions below.
Listen to "Strange Salt Lake"
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Strange Salt Lake
Unlike most lakes, Great Salt Lake is made up of salt water. How can that be? River water that flows into Great Salt Lake carries salt from the surrounding land. The sun evaporates the water in the lake but not the salt. Over time the water gets saltier. Today, Great Salt Lake is saltier than any ocean!
- Paraphrase the passage in a sentence or two:
- Quote an interesting line from the passage:
Closely read.
Use the SQ3R strategy to closely read the following article.
Listen to "The Plight of Pluto"
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The Plight of Pluto
By Olivia Ramirez
For 76 years, nine planets made up our solar system. That all changed in 2006, when Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet. Now we’re left with eight full-sized planets. So what happened to Pluto? How does a planet become less of a planet?
History of Pluto
Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, becoming the ninth planet in the solar system. Astronomers and students celebrated the icy celestial body for being the smallest and farthest planet from Earth.
In the next 75 years astronomers discovered other icy objects similar to Pluto in size. One was even inside Pluto’s orbit. Then in 2005, astronomers discovered Eris, which is 27 percent larger than Pluto.
New Definition of “Planet”
Influenced by the discovery of Eris, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) met in 2006 to establish new rules for defining full-sized planets. They decided on a set of three criteria.
- The object must orbit around the Sun.
- The object must be big enough to be nearly round.
- The object must have “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit.
Pluto met the first two criteria but failed the third. In all the billions of years it has orbited there, Pluto didn’t have enough gravitational power to clear objects of similar size out of its vicinity. Thus, the IAU downgraded Pluto. Pluto and four other celestial bodies became known as dwarf planets.
To be clear, Pluto still exists. It didn’t change size or orbit or undergo any sort of physical transformation. Only the criteria for defining planets changed. Pluto, the full-sized planet, lost out on a technicality.
Paraphrase, quote, and summarize.
Follow the instructions to paraphrase, quote, and summarize what you’ve read.
- Paraphrase the second to last paragraph, which begins with "Pluto met the first two criteria. . . ."
- Quote an interesting line from the article.
- Summarize the article.
Teaching Tip
Summarizing and paraphrasing are a lot alike. Summarizing means condensing an entire text by restating the most important ideas in your own words. Paraphrasing is rephrasing a single idea or passage in your own words.