Doesn’t matter whether you are a student or a writer, you must be aware of some terminologies. It is common to get confused in techniques like paraphrasing and summarizing. The reason is mostly writers consider both processes same as they think these are used for making the content unique and short.
No doubt, both methods are used on content but in different aspects. Don’t you know about those different sections? Do you want to learn what is the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing? If you say yes, you should read this blog till the end.
In this blog, you will able to know about the different benefits of paraphrasing and summarizing for busy students. Also, you will learn the differences between these two methods that will help you in becoming more proficient in your concerned subject of writing.
What is Paraphrasing?
Being a writer, you may have experienced a problem that is called plagiarism. It is common to get into a situation where you have listened that your content is plagiarized or copied. Have you ever thought about why it happens?
It is because of excessive content available on the internet. According to stats, around 7.5 million blogs are published on the internet every day which makes it hard to write with 100% uniqueness. This is where you will find techniques like paraphrasing more beneficial for completing your task.
Paraphrasing is a specific technique in which a writer just rewrites the original text by replacing the words with their synonyms, related phrases, and antonyms. There are different ways to paraphrase the text like changing words, tone, and voice of the sentences.
We will discuss the tips to rewrite the content later on this page. But the main thing to consider here is that paraphrasing means rewriting the text without merging ideas, adding concepts, and changing the core meanings. Yes, the core concept of the original and paraphrased text should be same.
What is Summarizing?
Another effective technique related to writing you should know as a writer is summarizing. It is the best way to make the research process faster and understanding better. Summarizing is the way, to sum up, the entire information in a few lines or passages.
In simple words, it is a technique using which you can understand multiple pages by reading a few lines or paragraphs. While summarizing the content, only important things like facts, figures, and stats are focused on.
The fluff content is removed from the content to shorten its length and make understanding fast. Writers are using different approaches to maximize the output from their work by summarizing blogs through different methods.
How Paraphrasing is Different from Summarizing?
Now, you have got an idea about summarizing and paraphrasing individually. It is time to consider them collectively to know what are the major differences between these two techniques. Let’s have a look at the following paragraphs.
The main difference between these techniques is the way to accomplish them. In paraphrasing, the original content is just replaced without changing the length of the content. Simply, the length of the text won’t get longer or shorter after applying this approach by writers.
On the flip side, summarizing is the main principle of combining concepts, words, and lines to shorten the length of the text. It is not possible to summarize the text in the same or more word count. Being a writer, you have to read the complete text and then write it in your own words by reducing its length.
The second major difference between these techniques is the process to perform them. In paraphrasing, you can keep reading one line after the other and rewrite it by replacing the original words. You won’t have to read the text thoroughly first to start rewriting.
It is pretty simple because you can read the line and replace the original words. Similarly, you can choose the antonyms to replace them just after changing the structure of the sentence. In turn, the process will be a little faster than summarizing.
On the other side, you have to be proficient in the language to summarize the text. Also, it will take a lot of time to summarize the text properly. First of all, you have to read and understand the text properly to summarize it.
You can’t start working just by reading single or two lines. To summarize the text, you have to first read the complete text thoroughly to understand the root meaning/concept. Once you have done with the understanding, you need to start writing that text in your words.
Be mindful that you must be proficient enough to merge sentences, phrases, and words to shorten their length. We all know that summary of the text or topic must be lower than the original length. That’s why, the writer must be proficient in the language to summarize the text properly.
The entire process will take time because you have to understand the text and then write it in your own words by combining sections. These are two major differences between summarizing and paraphrasing that you should know as a writer.
Tips to Paraphrase Text
For a writer, it is important to learn some beneficial tips to paraphrase the text. It is right to say that you should be proficient in paraphrasing for maximizing the output of your work. To help you in learning this skill, we have enlisted a few tips here.
- Find and replace synonyms of the words
- Don’t rely on a single source to paraphrase information
- Extend your research to get a different point of view
- Choose simple words to replace with originals for making the content readable
- Don’t try to merge ideas by combining different lines
- Change the voice of the sentences (Active & Passive)
These are some valuable tips that we are sure will help you in rewriting the text properly. It will help you in rewriting the text on any topic to remove or avoid plagiarism.
Tips to Summarize the Text
It is right to summarize is a more difficult task as compared to paraphrasing. The reason is you must be proficient in the language to understand what the reader wants to say and how you can merge different sentences to write a summary. Here are some tips that will help you in this regard.
- Always read the text thoroughly
- Try to use phrases, idioms, and combining words
- Don’t extend the facts and figures in your summary
- Choose your words nicely that give proper information instead of using multiple words
- Merge similar sentences to summarize the information
Be mindful that you can’t summarize the text unless you are proficient in the language. So, it is right to say that the above tips will be useless if you aren’t proficient in the concerned language of writing.
Conclusion
By reading the above blog, you must have got an idea of what is the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing. We have also shared some tips for you that you can utilize in your writing skills to keep the work high-quality and free from issues like plagiarism.
