difference between paraphrasing and summary writing

Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing (Differences, Examples, How To)

It can be confusing to know when to paraphrase and when to summarize. Many people use the terms interchangeably even though the two have different meanings and uses.

Today, let’s understand the basic differences between paraphrasing vs. summarizing and when to use which . We’ll also look at types and examples of paraphrasing and summarizing, as well as how to do both effectively.

Let’s look at paraphrasing first.

What is paraphrasing?

It refers to rewriting someone else’s ideas in your own words. 

It’s important to rewrite the whole idea in your words rather than just replacing a few words with their synonyms. That way, you present an idea in a way that your audience will understand easily and also avoid plagiarism. 

It’s also important to cite your sources when paraphrasing so that the original author of the work gets due credit.

When should you paraphrase?

The main purpose of paraphrasing is often to clarify an existing passage. You should use paraphrasing when you want to show that you understand the concept, like while writing an essay about a specific topic. 

You may also use it when you’re quoting someone but can’t remember their exact words. 

Finally, paraphrasing is a very effective way to rewrite outdated content in a way that’s relevant to your current audience.

How to paraphrase effectively

Follow these steps to paraphrase any piece of text effectively:

• Read the full text and ensure that you understand it completely. It helps to look up words you don’t fully understand in an online or offline dictionary.
• Once you understand the text, rewrite it in your own words. Remember to rewrite it instead of just substituting words with their synonyms.
• Edit the text to ensure it’s easy to understand for your audience.
• Mix in your own insights while rewriting the text to make it more relevant.
• Run the text through a plagiarism checker to ensure that it does not have any of the original content.

Example of paraphrasing

Here’s an example of paraphrasing:

• Original:  The national park is full of trees, water bodies, and various species of flora and fauna.
• Paraphrased:  Many animal species thrive in the verdant national park that is served by lakes and rivers flowing through it.

What is summarizing?

Summarizing is also based on someone else’s text but rather than presenting their ideas in your words, you only sum up their main ideas in a smaller piece of text.

It’s important to not use their exact words or phrases when summarizing to avoid plagiarism. It’s best to make your own notes while reading through the text and writing a summary based on your notes.

You must only summarize the most important ideas from a piece of text as summaries are essentially very short compared to the original work. And just like paraphrasing, you should cite the original text as a reference.

When should you summarize?

The main purpose of summarizing is to reduce a passage or other text to fewer words while ensuring that everything important is covered.

Summaries are useful when you want to cut to the chase and lay down the most important points from a piece of text or convey the entire message in fewer words. You should summarize when you have to write a short essay about a larger piece of text, such as writing a book review.

You can also summarize when you want to provide background information about something without taking up too much space.

How to summarize effectively

Follow these steps to summarize any prose effectively:

• Read the text to fully understand it. It helps to read it a few times instead of just going through it once.
• Pay attention to the larger theme of the text rather than trying to rewrite it sentence for sentence.
• Understand how all the main ideas are linked and piece them together to form an overview.
• Remove all the information that’s not crucial to the main ideas or theme. Remember, summaries must only include the most essential points and information.
• Edit your overview to ensure that the information is organized logically and follows the correct chronology where applicable.
• Review and edit the summary again to make it clearer, ensure that it’s accurate, and make it even more concise where you can.
• Ensure that you cite the original text.

Example of summarization

You can summarize any text into a shorter version. For example, this entire article can be summarized in just a few sentences as follows:

• Summary:  The article discusses paraphrasing vs. summarizing by explaining the two concepts. It specifies when you should use paraphrasing and when you should summarize a piece of text and describes the process of each. It ends with examples of both paraphrasing and summarizing to provide a better understanding to the reader.

Paraphrasing vs. summarizing has been a long-standing point of confusion for writers of all levels, whether you’re writing a college essay or reviewing a research paper or book. The above tips and examples can help you identify when to use paraphrasing or summarizing and how to go about them effectively.

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About the author

Dalia Y.: Dalia is an English Major and linguistics expert with an additional degree in Psychology. Dalia has featured articles on Forbes, Inc, Fast Company, Grammarly, and many more. She covers English, ESL, and all things grammar on GrammarBrain.

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Writing > The Difference Between Summarizing & Paraphrasing

The Difference Between Summarizing & Paraphrasing

Summarizing and paraphrasing are helpful ways to include source material in your work without piling on direct quotes. Understand the differences between these approaches and when to use each.

Summarizing vs. Paraphrasing: The Biggest Differences

Though summarizing and paraphrasing are both tools for conveying information clearly and concisely, they help you achieve this in different ways. In general, the difference is rooted in the scale of the source material: To share an entire source at once, you summarize; to share a specific portion of a source (without quoting directly, of course), you paraphrase.

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What is Summarizing?

Summarizing is simplifying the content of a source to its main points in your own words. You literally sum up something, distill it down to its most essential parts. Summaries cover whole sources rather than a piece or pieces of a source and don’t include direct quotes or extraneous detail.

How to Summarize

• Understand the original thoroughly. You may start by scanning the original material, paying close attention to headers and any in-text summaries, but once you’re sure that this source is something you’re going to use in your research paper , review it more thoroughly to gain appropriate understanding and comprehension.
• Take notes of the main points. A bulleted list is appropriate here-note the main idea of each portion of the source material. Take note of key words or phrases around which you can build your summary list and deepen your understanding.
• Build your summary. Don’t just use the list you’ve already created—this was a first draft . Craft complete sentences and logical progression from item to item. Double check the source material to ensure you’ve not left out any relevant points and trim anything extraneous. You can use a bulleted or numbered list here or write your summary as a paragraph if that’s more appropriate for your use. Make sure to follow the rules of parallelism if you choose to stay in list form.

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is rephrasing something in your own words; the word comes from the Greek para -, meaning “beside” or “closely resembling”, 1 combined with “phrase,” which we know can mean a string of words or sentences. 2 Paraphrasing isn’t practical for entire sources—just for when you want to highlight a portion of a source.

How to Paraphrase

• Read actively . Take notes, highlight or underline passages, or both if you please-whatever makes it easiest for you to organize the sections of the source you want to include in your work.
• Rewrite and revise. For each area you’d like to paraphrase, take the time to rewrite it in your own words. Retain the meaning of the original text, but don’t copy it too closely; take advantage of a thesaurus to ensure you’re not relying too heavily on the source material.
• Check your work and revise again as needed . Did you retain the meaning of the source material? Did you simplify the language of the source material? Did you differentiate your version enough? If not, try again.

Summarizing and paraphrasing are often used in tandem; you’ll likely find it appropriate to summarize an entire source and then paraphrase specific portions to support your summary. Using either approach for including sources requires appropriate citing, though, so ensure that you follow the correct style guide for your project and cite correctly.

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Paraphrase and Summary

Paraphrase and summary are different writing strategies that ask you to put another author’s argument in your own words. This can help you better understand what the writer of the source is saying, so that you can communicate that message to your own reader without relying only on direct quotes. Paraphrases are used for short passages and specific claims in an argument, while summaries are used for entire pieces and focus on capturing the big picture of an argument. Both should be cited using the appropriate format (MLA, APA, etc.).  See KU Writing Center guides on APA Formatting , Chicago Formatting , and MLA Formatting for more information. 

When you paraphrase, you are using your own words to explain one of the claims of your source's argument, following its line of reasoning and its sequence of ideas. The purpose of a paraphrase is to convey the meaning of the original message and, in doing so, to prove that you understand the passage well enough to restate it. The paraphrase should give the reader an accurate understanding of the author's position on the topic. Your job is to uncover and explain all the facts and arguments involved in your subject. A paraphrase tends to be about the same length or a little shorter than the thing being paraphrased.

To paraphrase:

• Alter the wording of the passage without changing its meaning. Key words, such as names and field terminology, may stay the same (i.e. you do not need to rename Milwaukee or osteoporosis), but all other words must be rephrased. 
• Retain the basic logic of the argument, sequence of ideas, and examples used in the passage. 
• Accurately convey the author's meaning and opinion. 
• Keep the length approximately the same as the original passage. 
• Do not forget to cite where the information came from. Even though it is in your own words, the idea belongs to someone else, and that source must be acknowledged. 

A summary covers the main points of the writer’s argument in your own words. Summaries are generally much shorter than the original source, since they do not contain any specific examples or pieces of evidence. The goal of a summary is to give the reader a clear idea of what the source is arguing, without going into any specifics about what they are using to argue their point.

To summarize:  

• Identify what reading or speech is being summarized. 
• State the author’s thesis and main claims of their argument in your own words. Just like paraphrasing, make sure everything but key terms is reworded. 
• Avoid specific details or examples. 
• Avoid your personal opinions about the topic. 
• Include the conclusion of the original material. 
• Cite summarized information as well. 

In both the paraphrase and summary, the author's meaning and opinion are retained. However, in the case of the summary, examples and illustrations are omitted. Summaries can be tremendously helpful because they can be used to encapsulate everything from a long narrative passage of an essay, to a chapter in a book, to an entire book.

When to Use Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing 

Updated June 2022  

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Know the Differences & Comparisons

Difference Between Summary and Paraphrase

On the other hand, paraphrase means the restatement of the passage, in explicit language, so as to clarify its hidden meaning, without condensing it. In paraphrasing, the written material, idea or statement of some other person is presented in your own words, which is easy to understand.

These two are used in an excerpt to include the ideas of other author’s but without the use of quotations. Let us talk about the difference between summary and paraphrase.

Content: Summary Vs Paraphrase

Comparison chart, definition of summary.

A summary is an abridged form of a passage, which incorporates all the main or say relevant points of the original text while keeping the meaning and essence intact. It is used to give an overview of the excerpt in brief, to the reader. In summary, the author’s ideas are presented in your own words and sentences, in a succinct manner.

A summary encapsulates the gist and the entire concept of the author’s material in a shorter fashion. It also indicates the source of the information, using citation. Basically the length of the summary depends on the material being condensed.

It encompasses the main idea of every paragraph and the facts supporting that idea. It does not end with a conclusion, however, if there is a message in the conclusion, it is included in the summary. It also uses the keywords from the original material, but it does not use the same phrases or sentences.

Summaries save a lot of time of the reader, as the reader need not go through the entire work to filter the most important information contained in it, rather the reader gets the most relevant information in hand.

Definition of Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is not a reproduction of a similar copy of another author’s work, rather it means to rewrite the excerpt in your own language, using comprehensible words and restructuring the sentences, but without changing the context. Hence, in paraphrasing, the original idea and meaning of the text are maintained, but the sentence structure and the words used to deliver the message would be different.

The paraphrased version of the text is simple and easily understandable. The length is almost similar to the original text, as it only translates the original text into simplest form. It is not about the conversion of the text in a detailed manner, rather it is presented in such a way that goes well with your expression.

In paraphrasing, someone else’s written material is restated or rephrased in your own language, containing the same degree of detail. It is the retelling of the concept, using a different tone to address a different audience.

Key Differences Between Summary and Paraphrase

The points discussed below, explains the difference between summary and paraphrase

• To summarize means to put down the main ideas of the essential points of the excerpt, in your own words, while keeping its essence intact. On the contrary, to paraphrase means to decode the original text in your own words without distorting its meaning or essence.
• A summary is all about emphasizing the central idea (essence) and the main points of the text. In contrast, paraphrasing is done to simplify and clarify the meaning of the given excerpt, so as to enhance its comprehension.
• If we talk about the length of the summary in comparison to the original text, it is shorter, because summary tends to highlight the main points only and excludes the irrelevant material of the text. As against, in case of paraphrasing, the length is almost equal to the original text, because its aim is to decipher, i.e. to convert the complex text in a language which is easily understandable without excluding any material from the text.
• The main objective of summarizing is to compile and present the gist of the author’s idea or concept in a few sentences or points. Conversely, the primary objective of paraphrasing is to clarify the meaning of author’s work in a clear and effective manner when the words used by him/her are not important or the words are too complex to understand.
• A summary is used when you want to give a quick overview of the main ideas to the reader about the topic. On the contrary, Paraphrase is used when the idea or main point is more significant than the actual words used in the material and also when you want to use your own voice to explain the concept or idea.
• A summary does not include lengthy explanations, examples and what the reader has understood. In contrast, a paraphrase does not include the exact same wordings or paragraphs used in the original source, so as to avoid plagiarism.

Steps for Summarizing

• First of all, you need to read the entire passage twice or thrice to grasp the meaning and essence of the material.
• Identify and underline all the important points, ideas and supporting facts which you have read.
• Now, explain the material to yourself, for better understanding.
• Rewrite in your own words, the salient points and central idea from the original text, in a few sentences.
• Omit unnecessary detailing and examples.
• Make a comparison of the original text and the summary which you’ve created.

Steps for Paraphrasing

• Read the entire text carefully, twice or thrice, to absorb the meaning and essence.
• Rewrite the author’s ideas in a unique language, i.e. in your own voice. Make sure that the sentences and words used are your own and it should not be a mere substitution or swapping of words and phrases.
• Further, the sequence in which idea is presented, need not be different from the original source.
• Compare the paraphrased version with the main text, and ensure that the essence clearly presented, as well as make sure that it is free from plagiarism.
• Check that the words and phrases which are directly taken from the text are within quotation marks.
• Provide references.

In a nutshell, a summary is nothing but a shorter version of an excerpt or passage. On the contrary, a paraphrase is the restatement of the original text or excerpt. One can use any of the two sources, as per the requirement, when the idea of any of the sources is relevant to your material, but the wording is not that important.

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Paraphrase and Summary

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When should I paraphrase, and when should I summarize?

To paraphrase means to restate someone else’s ideas in your own language at roughly the same level of detail. To summarize means to reduce the most essential points of someone else’s work into a shorter form. Along with quotation, paraphrase and summary provide the main tools for integrating your sources into your papers. When choosing which to use, consider first your discipline and the type of writing in which you are engaged. For example, literature reviews in science reports rely almost exclusively on summary. Argumentative essays, by contrast, rely on all three tools.

Paraphrase and summary are indispensable in argumentative papers because they allow you to include other people’s ideas without cluttering up your paragraphs with quotations . These techniques help you take greater control of your essay. Consider using either tool when an idea from one of your sources is important to your essay but the wording is not. Space limitations may guide you in your choice. But above all, think about how much of the detail from your source is relevant to your argument. If your reader needs to know only the bare bones, then summarize.

Though paraphrase and summary are often preferable to quotation, do not rely too heavily on them, either. Your ideas are what matter most. Allow yourself the space to develop those ideas.

How do I paraphrase?

Whenever you paraphrase, remember these two points:

• You must provide a reference.
• The paraphrase must be in your own words. You must do more than merely substitute phrases here and there. You must also create your own sentence structures.

Finding new words for ideas that are already well expressed can be hard, but changing words should not be your chief aim anyway. Focus, rather, on filtering the ideas through your own understanding. The following strategy will make the job of paraphrasing a lot easier:

• When you are at the note-taking stage, and you come across a passage that may be useful for your essay, do not copy the passage verbatim unless you think you will want to quote it.
• If you think you will want to paraphrase the passage, make a note only of the author’s basic point (or points). You don’t even need to use full sentences.
• In your note, you should already be translating the language of the original into your own words. What matters is that you capture the original idea.
• Make sure to jot down the source as well as the page number so that you can make a proper reference later on.

When it comes time to write the paper, rely on your notes rather than on the author’s work. You will find it much easier to avoid borrowing from the original passage because you will not have seen it recently. Follow this simple sequence:

• Convert the ideas from your notes into full sentences.
• Provide a reference.
• Go back to the original to ensure that (a) your paraphrase is accurate and (b) you have truly said things in your own words.

Let’s look at examples of illegitimate and legitimate paraphrase, using a passage from Oliver Sacks’ essay “An Anthropologist on Mars”:

The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence is about one in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its features remarkably consistent even in extremely different cultures. It is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year. Though Asperger regarded it as a biological defect of affective contact—innate, inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it as a psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most especially of a chillingly remote, often professional, “refrigerator mother.” At this time, autism was often regarded as “defensive” in nature, or confused with childhood schizophrenia. A whole generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were made to feel guilty for the autism of their children.

What follows is an example of illegitimate paraphrase :

The cause of the condition autism has been disputed. It occurs in approximately one in a thousand children, and it exists in all parts of the world, its characteristics strikingly similar in vastly differing cultures. The condition is often not noticeable in the child’s first year, yet it becomes more apparent as the child reaches the age of two or three. Although Asperger saw the condition as a biological defect of the emotions that was inborn and therefore similar to a physical defect, Kanner saw it as psychological in origin, as reflecting poor parenting and particularly a frigidly distant mother. During this period, autism was often seen as a defence mechanism, or it was misdiagnosed as childhood schizophrenia. An entire generation of mothers and fathers (but especially mothers) were made to feel responsible for their offspring’s autism (Sacks 247-48).

Most of these sentences do little more than substitute one phrase for another. An additional problem with this passage is that the only citation occurs at the very end of the paragraph. The reader might be misled into thinking that the earlier sentences were not also based on Sacks.

The following represents a legitimate paraphrase of the original passage:

In “An Anthropologist on Mars,” Sacks lists some of the known facts about autism. We know, for example, that the condition occurs in roughly one out of every thousand children. We also know that the characteristics of autism do not vary from one culture to the next. And we know that the condition is difficult to diagnose until the child has entered the second or third year of life. As Sacks points out, often a child who goes on to develop autism will show no sign of the condition at the age of one (247). Sacks observes, however, that researchers have had a hard time agreeing on the causes of autism. He sketches the diametrically opposed positions of Asperger and Kanner. On the one hand, Asperger saw the condition as representing a constitutional defect in the child’s ability to make meaningful emotional contact with the external world. On the other hand, Kanner regarded autism as a consequence of harmful childrearing practices. For many years confusion about this condition reigned. One unfortunate consequence of this confusion, Sacks suggests, was the burden of guilt imposed on so many parents for their child’s condition (247-48).

This paraphrase illustrates a few basic principles that can help you to paraphrase more effectively:

• Refer explicitly to the author in your paraphrase. The passage above makes explicit right away that the ideas come from Sacks. Its indebtedness is signaled in a few strategic places. The single parenthetical note at the end of each paragraph is therefore all that is needed by way of citation. Referring to Sacks also strengthens the passage by clarifying the source of its ideas.
• Don’t just paraphrase. Analyze. In the paraphrase of Sacks, the decision to split the original passage into two paragraphs adds an analytical dimension: the new passage doesn’t just reiterate his points but lays out the two-part structure of his argument.
• Not all of the details from the original passage need to be included in the paraphrase.
• You don’t need to change every word. For the sake of clarity, keep essential terms the same (e.g., autism , culture , children ). However, avoid borrowing entire phrases (e.g., reflection of bad parenting ) unless they are part of the discourse of your field (e.g., psychogenic disorder ).

How do I summarize?

Summary moves much further than paraphrase from point-by-point translation. When you summarize a passage, you need first to absorb the meaning and then to capture in your own words the most important elements from the original passage. A summary is necessarily shorter than a paraphrase.

Here is a summary of the passage from “An Anthropologist on Mars”:

In “An Anthropologist on Mars,” Sacks notes that although there is little disagreement on the chief characteristics of autism, researchers have differed considerably on its causes. As he points out, Asperger saw the condition as an innate defect in the child’s ability to connect with the external world, whereas Kanner regarded it as a consequence of harmful childrearing practices (247-48).

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Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

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This handout is intended to help you become more comfortable with the uses of and distinctions among quotations, paraphrases, and summaries. This handout compares and contrasts the three terms, gives some pointers, and includes a short excerpt that you can use to practice these skills.

What are the differences among quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing?

These three ways of incorporating other writers' work into your own writing differ according to the closeness of your writing to the source writing.

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.

Why use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries?

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve many purposes. You might use them to:

• Provide support for claims or add credibility to your writing
• Refer to work that leads up to the work you are now doing
• Give examples of several points of view on a subject
• Call attention to a position that you wish to agree or disagree with
• Highlight a particularly striking phrase, sentence, or passage by quoting the original
• Distance yourself from the original by quoting it in order to cue readers that the words are not your own
• Expand the breadth or depth of your writing

Writers frequently intertwine summaries, paraphrases, and quotations. As part of a summary of an article, a chapter, or a book, a writer might include paraphrases of various key points blended with quotations of striking or suggestive phrases as in the following example:

In his famous and influential work The Interpretation of Dreams , Sigmund Freud argues that dreams are the "royal road to the unconscious" (page #), expressing in coded imagery the dreamer's unfulfilled wishes through a process known as the "dream-work" (page #). According to Freud, actual but unacceptable desires are censored internally and subjected to coding through layers of condensation and displacement before emerging in a kind of rebus puzzle in the dream itself (page #).

How to use quotations, paraphrases, and summaries

Practice summarizing the essay found here , using paraphrases and quotations as you go. It might be helpful to follow these steps:

• Read the entire text, noting the key points and main ideas.
• Summarize in your own words what the single main idea of the essay is.
• Paraphrase important supporting points that come up in the essay.
• Consider any words, phrases, or brief passages that you believe should be quoted directly.

There are several ways to integrate quotations into your text. Often, a short quotation works well when integrated into a sentence. Longer quotations can stand alone. Remember that quoting should be done only sparingly; be sure that you have a good reason to include a direct quotation when you decide to do so. You'll find guidelines for citing sources and punctuating citations at our documentation guide pages.

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When to Summarize, Paraphrase, and Quote

Summarizing

Summaries are significantly shorter than the original material, and they take a broad overview of the source material as a whole. Summary must be cited with in-text citations and on your reference page.

Summarize when:

You want to establish background or offer an overview of a topic

You want to describe knowledge (from several sources) about a topic

You want to determine the main ideas of a single source

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is stating an idea or passage in your own words. You must significantly change the wording, phrasing, and sentence structure (not just a few words here and there) of the source. These also must be noted with in-text citations and the reference page.

Paraphrase when:

You want to clarify a short passage from a text

You want to avoid overusing quotations

You want to explain a point when exact wording isn’t important

You want to explain the main points of a passage

You want to report numerical data or statistics (preferred in APA papers)

Quotations are the exact words of an author, copied directly from a source, word for word. Quotations must appear with quotation marks, and they need to be cited with in-text citations and on the reference page.

Use quotations when:

You want to add the power of an author’s words to support your argument

You want to disagree with an author’s argument

You want to highlight particularly eloquent or powerful phrases or passages

You are comparing and contrasting specific points of view

You want to note the important research that precedes your own

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To help the flow of your writing, it is beneficial to not always quote but instead put the information in your own words. You can paraphrase or summarize the author’s words to better match your tone and desired length. Even if you write the ideas in your own words, it is important to cite them with in-text citations or footnotes (depending on your discipline’s citation style ). 

Definitions

• Paraphrasing allows you to use your own words to restate an author's ideas.
• Summarizing allows you to create a succinct, concise statement of an author’s main points without copying and pasting a lot of text from the original source.

What’s the difference: Paraphrasing v. Summarizing

Explore the rest of the page to see how the same material could be quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. Depending on the length, tone, and argument of your work, you might choose one over the other. 

• Bad Paraphrase
• Good Paraphrase
• Reread: Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
• Write on your own: Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
• Connect: Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material.
• Check: Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
• Quote: Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
• Cite: Record the source (including the page) on your note card or notes document so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Explore the tabs to see the difference between an acceptable and unacceptable paraphrase based on the original text in each example.

Original Text

“Business communication is increasingly taking place internationally – in all countries, among all peoples, and across all cultures. An awareness of other cultures – of their languages, customs, experiences and perceptions – as well as an awareness of the way in which other people conduct their business, are now essential ingredients of business communication” (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59). 

More and more business communication is taking place internationally—across all countries, peoples, and cultures.  Awareness of other cultures and the way in which people do business are essential parts of business communication (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59)

Compare the Original and Paraphrase

Too much of the original is quoted directly, with only a few words changed or omitted. The highlighted words are too similar to the original quote: 

More and more business communication is taking place internationally —across all countries, peoples, and cultures .  Awareness of other cultures and the way in which people do business are essential parts of business communication (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59)

Original Text 

“Business communication is increasingly taking place internationally – in all countries, among all peoples, and across all cultures. An awareness of other cultures – of their languages, customs, experiences and perceptions – as well as an awareness of the way in which other people conduct their business, are now essential ingredients of business communication” (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59).

The importance of understanding the traditions, language, perceptions, and the manner in which people of other cultures conduct their business should not be underestimated, and it is a crucial component of business communication (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p. 59).

The original’s ideas are summarized and expressed in the writer’s own words with minimal overlap with the original text's language:

The importance of understanding the traditions, language, perceptions, and the manner in which people of other cultures conduct their business should not be underestimated, and it is a crucial component of business communication (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p. 59).

• Bad Summary
• Good Summary
• Find the main idea: Ask yourself, “What is the main idea that the author is communicating?”
• Avoid copying: Set the original aside, and write one or two sentences with the main point of the original on a note card or in a notes document.
• Connect: Jot down a few words below your summary to remind you later how you envision using this material.

Business communication is worldwide, and it is essential to build awareness of other cultures and the way in which other people conduct their business. (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59). 

Compare the Original and Summary

Too much of the original is quoted directly, with only a few words changed or omitted. The highlighted words are too similar to the original text:

Business communication is worldwide, and it is essential to build awareness of other cultures and the way in which other people conduct their business . (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59). 

In a world that is increasingly connected, effective business communication requires us to learn about other cultures, languages, and business norms (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59). 

The original’s ideas are summarized and expressed in the writer’s own words with minimal overlap:

In a world that is increasingly connected, effective business communication requires us to learn about other cultures , languages , and business norms (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59). 

No matter what the source or style, you need to cite it both in-text and at the end of the paper with a full citation! Write down or record all the needed pieces of information when researching to ensure you avoid plagiarism. 

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Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting

Depending on the conventions of your discipline, you may have to decide whether to summarize a source, paraphrase a source, or quote from a source.

Scholars in the humanities tend to summarize, paraphrase, and quote texts; social scientists and natural scientists rely primarily on summary and paraphrase.

When and how to summarize

When you summarize, you provide your readers with a condensed version of an author's key points. A summary can be as short as a few sentences or much longer, depending on the complexity of the text and the level of detail you wish to provide to your readers. You will need to summarize a source in your paper when you are going to refer to that source and you want your readers to understand the source's argument, main ideas, or plot (if the source is a novel, film, or play) before you lay out your own argument about it, analysis of it, or response to it.

Before you summarize a source in your paper, you should decide what your reader needs to know about that source in order to understand your argument. For example, if you are making an argument about a novel, you should avoid filling pages of your paper with details from the book that will distract or confuse your reader. Instead, you should add details sparingly, going only into the depth that is necessary for your reader to understand and appreciate your argument. Similarly, if you are writing a paper about a journal article, you will need to highlight the most relevant parts of the argument for your reader, but you should not include all of the background information and examples. 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.

Guidelines for summarizing a source in your paper

• Identify the author and the source.
• Represent the original source accurately.
• Present the source’s central claim clearly.
• Don’t summarize each point in the same order as the original source; focus on giving your reader the most important parts of the source
• Use your own words. Don’t provide a long quotation in the summary unless the actual language from the source is going to be important for your reader to see.

Stanley Milgram (1974) reports that ordinarily compassionate people will be cruel to each other if they are commanded to be by an authority figure. In his experiment, a group of participants were asked to administer electric shocks to people who made errors on a simple test. In spite of signs that those receiving shock were experiencing great physical pain, 25 of 40 subjects continued to administer electric shocks. These results held up for each group of people tested, no matter the demographic. The transcripts of conversations from the experiment reveal that although many of the participants felt increasingly uncomfortable, they continued to obey the experimenter, often showing great deference for the experimenter. Milgram suggests that when people feel responsible for carrying out the wishes of an authority figure, they do not feel responsible for the actual actions they are performing. He concludes that the increasing division of labor in society encourages people to focus on a small task and eschew responsibility for anything they do not directly control.

This summary of Stanley Milgram's 1974 essay, "The Perils of Obedience," provides a brief overview of Milgram's 12-page essay, along with an APA style parenthetical citation. You would write this type of summary if you were discussing Milgram's experiment in a paper in which you were not supposed to assume your reader's knowledge of the sources. Depending on your assignment, your summary might be even shorter.

When you include a summary of a paper in your essay, you must cite the source. If you were using APA style in your paper, you would include a parenthetical citation in the summary, and you would also include a full citation in your reference list at the end of your paper. For the essay by Stanley Milgram, your citation in your references list would include the following information:

Milgram, S. (1974). The perils of obedience. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.), The Blair reader (pp.725-737).

When and how to paraphrase

When you paraphrase from a source, you restate the source's ideas in your own words. Whereas a summary provides your readers with a condensed overview of a source (or part of a source), a paraphrase of a source offers your readers the same level of detail provided in the original source. Therefore, while a summary will be shorter than the original source material, a paraphrase will generally be about the same length as the original source material.

When you use any part of a source in your paper—as background information, as evidence, as a counterargument to which you plan to respond, or in any other form—you will always need to decide whether to quote directly from the source or to paraphrase it. Unless you have a good reason to quote directly from the source , you should paraphrase the source. Any time you paraphrase an author's words and ideas in your paper, you should make it clear to your reader why you are presenting this particular material from a source at this point in your paper. You should also make sure you have represented the author accurately, that you have used your own words consistently, and that you have cited the source.

This paraphrase below restates one of Milgram's points in the author's own words. When you paraphrase, you should always cite the source. This paraphrase uses the APA in-text citation style. Every source you paraphrase should also be included in your list of references at the end of your paper. For citation format information go to the Citing Sources section of this guide.

Source material

The problem of obedience is not wholly psychological. The form and shape of society and the way it is developing have much to do with it. There was a time, perhaps, when people were able to give a fully human response to any situation because they were fully absorbed in it as human beings. But as soon as there was a division of labor things changed.

--Stanley Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience," p.737.

Milgram, S. (1974). The perils of obedience. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.), The Blair reader (pp.725-737). Prentice Hall.

Milgram (1974) claims that people's willingness to obey authority figures cannot be explained by psychological factors alone. In an earlier era, people may have had the ability to invest in social situations to a greater extent. However, as society has become increasingly structured by a division of labor, people have become more alienated from situations over which they do not have control (p.737).

When and how much to quote

The basic rule in all disciplines is that you should only quote directly from a text when it's important for your reader to see the actual language used by the author of the source. While paraphrase and summary are effective ways to introduce your reader to someone's ideas, quoting directly from a text allows you to introduce your reader to the way those ideas are expressed by showing such details as language, syntax, and cadence.

So, for example, it may be important for a reader to see a passage of text quoted directly from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried if you plan to analyze the language of that passage in order to support your thesis about the book. On the other hand, if you're writing a paper in which you're making a claim about the reading habits of American elementary school students or reviewing the current research on Wilson's disease, the information you’re providing from sources will often be more important than the exact words. In those cases, you should paraphrase rather than quoting directly. Whether you quote from your source or paraphrase it, be sure to provide a citation for your source, using the correct format. (see Citing Sources section)

You should use quotations in the following situations:

• When you plan to discuss the actual language of a text.
• When you are discussing an author's position or theory, and you plan to discuss the wording of a core assertion or kernel of the argument in your paper.
• When you risk losing the essence of the author's ideas in the translation from their words to your own.
• When you want to appeal to the authority of the author and using their words will emphasize that authority.

Once you have decided to quote part of a text, you'll need to decide whether you are going to quote a long passage (a block quotation) or a short passage (a sentence or two within the text of your essay). Unless you are planning to do something substantive with a long quotation—to analyze the language in detail or otherwise break it down—you should not use block quotations in your essay. While long quotations will stretch your page limit, they don't add anything to your argument unless you also spend time discussing them in a way that illuminates a point you're making. Unless you are giving your readers something they need to appreciate your argument, you should use quotations sparingly.

When you quote from a source, you should make sure to cite the source either with an in-text citation or a note, depending on which citation style you are using.  The passage below, drawn from O’Brien’s  The Things They Carried , uses an MLA-style citation.

On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs. There was a steady rain falling, which made it difficult, but he used heat tabs and Sterno to build a small fire, screening it with his body holding the photographs over the tight blue flame with the tip of his fingers.

He realized it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid. (23)

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried . New York: Broadway Books, 1990.

Even as Jimmy Cross burns Martha's letters, he realizes that "it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental too, but mostly just stupid" (23).

If you were writing a paper about O'Brien's The Things They Carried in which you analyzed Cross's decision to burn Martha's letters and stop thinking about her, you might want your reader to see the language O'Brien uses to illustrate Cross's inner conflict. If you were planning to analyze the passage in which O'Brien calls Cross's realization stupid, sentimental, and then stupid again, you would want your reader to see the original language.

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Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing - NMU Writing Center

Quoting, Paraphrasing and Summarizing

This page is designed to aid you in quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing in order to help you avoid plagiarism. These three writing techniques are often used to provide support to your writing in ways that support an argument or call attention to something. 

What are the differences between the three?

Quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing are similar in that they allow a writer to incorporate another writer's work into his or her own work. However, they are different in the methods of application.

Quotation s are identical in every way to the original. To quote a source, write out the exact words in the original document and put those words in quotation marks (" "). After the quotation, there will always be an in-text citation attributing it to the original source. Quotations are at their most effective when you use them to comment on the specific wording of the original text. For example:

“ But while both the new and the native Americans were substantially dependent on corn, the plant’s dependence on the Americans had become total. Had maize failed to find favor among the conquerors, it would have risked extinction, because without humans to plant it every spring, corn would have disappeared from the earth in a matter of a few years. The novel cob-and-husk arrangement that makes corn such a convenient grain for us renders the plant utterly dependent for its survival on an animal in possession of the opposable thumb needed to remove the husk, separate the seeds, and plant them” (Pollan 26-27).

Paraphrasing is when you put a passage from the original source material into your own words. As with a quotation, you must do an in-text citation attributing the information back to the original source at the end of the paraphrased section. Paraphrasing usually means the section is shorter than the original passage because it is condensed. For example:

The largest factor contributing to corn’s continued existence is North American society (both pre- and post-colonial); corn needs humans far more than humans need corn. In fact, the crop would likely go extinct in a few years if it weren’t for the fact that we like it so much and work to keep it around. A corncob’s unusual shape, with all the seeds packed close together and wrapped in a husk, makes it so the plant would be unable to grow without the help of human hands (Pollan 26-27).

Summarizing is when the main ideas are put into your own words. This means that the main points of the information you are using are reworked into your own words, but the rest of it is left out. As the other two, this information also needs to be cited at the end. For example:

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan states that the shape of a corn cob makes it almost impossible for corn to grow in the wild, because none of the individual kernels will grow as long as they are still attached to each other. He suggests that, without human intervention, corn would quickly go extinct (Pollan 26-27).

How do I use them?

To use paraphrasing, quoting and summaries, make sure that you always cite the information in-text. You can find information on this in MLA , APA, or Chicago Style pages depending on the citation style you're using. If you're using a quotation, keep it short and sweet, and always explain why you used it afterwards. Quoting should only be done sparingly in order to show your professor and audience that you have your own ideas.

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Home » Language » Difference Between Summary and Paraphrase

Difference Between Summary and Paraphrase

Main difference – summary vs. paraphrase.

The two terms Summary and Paraphrase often confuse us as both of them refer to similar things. Summary and Paraphrase are two essential writing tools that help us to incorporate other writers ideas and work into our writing. Although we should always use our own ideas in writing, sometimes we need another author’s work to support our arguments or to illustrate a dissimilar opinion. It is summaries and paraphrases that come to our help in such instances. The main difference between summary and paraphrase is that summary involves writing an account of the main points in brief while paraphrase involves expressing the meaning of another text in our words in order to clarify the meaning .

What is a Summary

A summary is an abridged version of a text that only contains the main points . A summary should always contain your own words though you can sometimes use a brief quotation.

The main purpose of a summary is to condense the text into a smaller text. Thus, a summary is essentially shorter than the original text. It should present the original text’s central ideas and concepts clearly and concisely. However, it is possible to omit certain facts that do not relate to your text as long as the meaning of the original text is not distorted.

What is a Paraphrase

A paraphrase is a piece of writing that expresses the meaning of a text using different words. The main purpose of paraphrasing is achieving greater clarity and understanding. A paraphrase also should be written in your own words, just like in summarizing. This is the most important point you must remember in paraphrasing. You should change the words as well as the sentence structure of the original text. In addition, you must always provide a reference to the original text and author.

A paraphrase must contain all the ideas and concepts included in the original text. This means that we cannot change or omit information. Furthermore, there is no rule saying that a paraphrase has to be shorter than the original text. It can be the same length as the original, or even longer. A paraphrase is definitely shorter than a summary.

Since we have discussed the two writings separately, the difference between summary and paraphrase can be summarized as below.

A summary is a brief statement or account of the main points of a text.

A paraphrase is rewording of a text to clarify the content.

A summary is written in order to condense the text.

A paraphrase is written in order to clarify the text.

A summary is shorter than the original text and paraphrase.

A paraphrase is longer than a summary and sometimes it can be longer than the original test as well.

A summary contains only the main ideas of the original text.

A paraphrase contains all ideas and concepts of the original text.

A summary can be selective; some points can be omitted.

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• / What is the difference between quotation, paraphrase, and summary?

Writing in college often means using ideas from other sources. There are times when it may be best to quote the sources directly, while other times may be better served by paraphrasing or summary. In order to decide which technique to use, it is helpful to think about how you are using the information in your paper.

Definitions

• Quotation reproduces a statement word-for-word as it appears in its original source
• Paraphrase explains a statement by using your own words and sentence structure
• Summary explains a statement using your words, but typically condenses a larger statement into a shorter explanation

How to decide which approach to use

Direct quotations can be useful when the exact wording of a statement is important. The exact wording of a quotation may be significant to your claim. In example 1 below, the contrast between adjectives are important to the claim. Also, direct quotation may be important when you want to make sure you are being precise in representing the author’s position. Finally, you might choose to use a direct quotation when the original statement is particularly well written or structurally persuasive. If a statement uses elements such as parallelism or alliteration, you might not be able to recreate that same effect. An important element of the quotation in example 1 is the parallel structure between "lowest and vilest alleys" and "smiling and beautiful countryside."

When Sherlock tells Watson "the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside,” he intensifies suspense by equating innocence with evil ("The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" 502).

Paraphrasing is usually expected in research and argumentative essays. These type of papers benefit from paraphrasing because it shows that you understand the source and are therefore a reliable voice on that source. Paraphrasing can make the evidence more straightforward. Another reason to paraphrase is to adjust your tone for your audience. If the assignment asks you to write a presentation for your classmates, you do not want to quote scientific jargon. Your source is only persuasive and supportive if your readers understand it. The paraphrase of the quotation below is shorter, and more direct.

Original quotation:  “In the case of Facebook, it has changed its format multiple times, and merged other literacy practices – email, instant messaging, games – into its structure in an attempt to keep users on the site” (Keller 2014, 74).

Paraphrase: Facebook has tried to hold on to its users by incorporating new functions like games and email (Keller 2014).

Summaries can also be used in reviews, research papers, and argumentative essays. They have a similar purpose as paraphrasing, but they condense a large work (i.e. an entire chapter, article, or book) into a shorter text such as a paragraph or a short essay. Summaries allow you to focus your description on  the parts that are relevant to your discussion. Example 3 briefly summarizes Anne of Green Gables, focusing on Anne as a strong female character and could lead into a discussion of how the series teaches girls self-respect while also cherishing romance.

Anne of Green Gables is a book series that follows the life of an unruly red-headed orphan as she grows from an romantic adolescent into an independent young woman.

What can the Writing Center do to help?

Writing Center consultants can help you if you aren't sure what style of source integration works best for an assignment. Some essays require a mix of methods. Consultants can help you determine if your writing needs a better balance of integration methods. If you are less familiar with one of the three uses of sources, the Writing Center can give you additional pointers.

See our section on how to incorporate sources for more on punctuating and introducing quotations. Also see our section on avoiding plagiarism to learn how to paraphrase and summarize.

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Differences in a Paraphrase, Summary, and Précis

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Look up “paraphrase,” “summary,” and “précis” in the dictionary, and you’re going to find a lot of overlapping ideas, but the uses of these terms (especially in academic writing) have quite well-defined boundaries.

All these terms deal with the idea that you’re reading something someone else wrote and then putting it in different terms while maintaining the meaning. But these similarities come to an end when you consider the different purposes for these tasks.

Let’s Start with the Paraphrase

A paraphrase is specifically different from a quote. To qualify, it must relay all the same information but in different words.

Not seeing how this is different from the others? Think about the purpose. A paraphrase reveals that you know what is being said and can rephrase it in words of your own choosing. You are proving you “get it.”

Get a free sample proofread and edit for your document. Two professional proofreaders will proofread and edit your document.

A paraphrase thus has no space limits. Indeed, a paraphrase might be much longer than the original text. One paraphrase of, “To be, or not to be / That is the question,” is: “I am asking myself whether I should decide to go on living, or kill myself, and this may be ‘the question’ in terms of all existence. Should humanity bother to keep on going or just snuff it?”

A paraphrase may also be much shorter. One paraphrase of:

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power,

would be: “Hey, let’s have sex before we get all old and stuff.”

Of course, that second paraphrase might not get you a good grade in English Lit.

A Summary Is a Whole Different Deal

A summary is generally understood to be of something long enough to benefit from a summary. There’s no real summary for, “I am going to the store.” (A paraphrase would be, “The speaker is traveling to the shop.”) A summary is understood to be smaller than the original and may use some of the same words.

A summary also does not have to be complete. A summary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech can just be, “White and Black people should try to get along better.” A paraphrase of the speech would have to cover all the bases.

A summary’s purpose is not to interpret meaning so much as to relay information, so the pressure is off to make sure the words are different. We might even throw in a quote or two. Think of summarizing a movie you just saw for a friend. You might do a line of dialogue like, “To the pain!” or “Excuse me while I whip this out.”

A Précis Is for You

“Précis” is just an academic term for “summary,” and you might never be assigned to do one, but it’s a handy thing. The purpose here is to remind yourself of what the original said.

Let’s say you’re reading a bunch of books and articles that might be important for a test, and you decide just taking a few notes isn’t enough. You can write a précis with the idea that you’ll read it again later to refresh your memory. A précis might then include details about the article beyond the text, such as that this is the first time a certain procedure was successful or that this approach to writing code was useful for a while but is now obsolete.

If you do a precise for the primary sources for your discipline, you’ll have that as a resource not only for tests, but also for papers you might want to write: sort of your own version of CliffsNotes (Coles Notes for you Canadians, York Notes for you Brits). Because you do them yourself, they are geared toward your interests and your style of thinking.

So, while the main idea is the same, the different purposes of these ways of summing things up require different skills. (Note that that final line there is a summary for the purpose of a conclusion. Ain’t I a tricky one?)

Julia H. (except for the poem, which is Andrew M.)

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Home / Guides / Citation Guides / Citation Basics / Quoting vs. Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing

Quoting vs. Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing

If you’ve ever written a research essay, you know the struggle is real. Should you use a direct quote? Should you put it in your own words? And how is summarizing different from paraphrasing—aren’t they kind of the same thing?

Knowing how you should include your source takes some finesse, and knowing when to quote directly, paraphrase, or summarize can make or break your argument. Let’s take a look at the nuances among these three ways  of using an outside source in an essay.

What is quoting?

The concept of quoting is pretty straightforward. If you use quotation marks, you must use precisely the same words as the original , even if the language is vulgar or the grammar is incorrect. In fact, when scholars quote writers with bad grammar, they may correct it by using typographical notes [like this] to show readers they have made a change.

“I never like[d] peas as a child.”

Conversely, if a passage with odd or incorrect language is quoted as is, the note [sic] may be used to show that no changes were made to the original language despite any errors.

“I never like [sic] peas as a child.”

The professional world looks very seriously on quotations. You cannot change a single comma or letter without documentation when you quote a source. Not only that, but the quote must be accompanied by an attribution, commonly called a citation. A misquote or failure to cite can be considered plagiarism.

When writing an academic paper, scholars must use in-text citations in parentheses followed by a complete entry on a references page. When you quote someone using MLA format , for example, it might look like this:

“The orphan is above all a character out of place, forced to make his or her own home in the world. The novel itself grew up as a genre representing the efforts of an ordinary individual to navigate his or her way through the trials of life. The orphan is therefore an essentially novelistic character, set loose from established conventions to face a world of endless possibilities (and dangers)” (Mullan).

This quote is from www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/orphans-in-fiction , which discusses the portrayal of orphans in Victorian English literature. The citation as it would look on the references page (called Works Cited in MLA) is available at the end of this guide.

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing means taking a quote and putting it in your own words.

You translate what another writer has said into terms both you and your reader can more easily understand. Unlike summarizing, which focuses on the big picture, paraphrasing is involved with single lines or passages. Paraphrasing means you should focus only on segments of a text.

Paraphrasing is a way for you to start processing the information from your source . When you take a quote and put it into your own words, you are already working to better understand, and better explain, the information.

The more you can change the quote without changing the original meaning , the better. How can you make significant changes to a text without changing the meaning?

Here are a few paraphrasing techniques:

• Use synonyms of words
• Change the order of words
• Change the order of clauses in the sentences
• Move sentences around in a section
• Active – passive
• Positive – negative
• Statement-question

Let’s look at an example. Here is a direct quote from the article on orphans in Victorian literature:

“It is no accident that the most famous character in recent fiction – Harry Potter – is an orphan. The child wizard’s adventures are premised on the death of his parents and the responsibilities that he must therefore assume. If we look to classic children’s fiction we find a host of orphans” (Mullan).

Here is a possible paraphrase:

It’s not a mistake that a well-known protagonist in current fiction is an orphan: Harry Potter. His quests are due to his parents dying and tasks that he is now obligated to complete. You will see that orphans are common protagonists if you look at other classic fiction (Mullan).

What differences do you spot? There are synonyms. A few words were moved around. A few clauses were moved around. But do you see that the basic structure is very similar?

This kind of paraphrase might be flagged by a plagiarism checker. Don’t paraphrase like that.

Here is a better example:

What is the most well-known fact about beloved character, Harry Potter? That he’s an orphan – “the boy who lived”. In fact, it is only because his parents died that he was thrust into his hero’s journey. Throughout classic children’s literature, you’ll find many orphans as protagonists (Mullan).

Do you see that this paraphrase has more differences? The basic information is there, but the structure is quite different.

When you paraphrase, you are making choices: of how to restructure information, of how to organize and prioritize it.  These choices reflect your voice in a way a direct quote cannot, since a direct quote is, by definition, someone else’s voice.

Which is better: Quoting or paraphrasing?

Although the purpose of both quoting and paraphrasing is to introduce the ideas of an external source, they are used for different reasons. It’s not that one is better than the other, but rather that quoting suits some purposes better, while paraphrasing is more suitable for others.

A direct quote is better when you feel the writer made the point perfectly and there is no reason to change a thing. If the writer has a strong voice and you want to preserve that, use a direct quote.

For example, no one should ever try to paraphrase John. F. Kenney’s famous line: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

However, think of direct quotes like a hot pepper: go ahead and sprinkle them around to add some spice to your paper, but… you might not want to overdo it.

Conversely, paraphrasing is useful when you want to bring in a longer section of a source into your piece, but you don’t have room for the full passage . A paraphrase doesn’t simplify the passage to an extreme level, like a summary would. Rather, it condenses the section of text into something more useful for your essay. It’s also appropriate to paraphrase when there are sentences within a passage that you want to leave out.

If you were to paraphrase the section of the article about Victorian orphans mentioned earlier, you might write something like this:

Considering the development of the novel, which portrayed everyday people making their way through life, using an orphan as a protagonist was effective. Orphans are characters that, by definition, need to find their way alone. The author can let the protagonist venture out into the world where the anything, good or bad, might happen (Mullan).

You’ll notice a couple of things here. One, there are no quotation marks, but there is still an in-text citation (the name in parentheses). A paraphrase lacks quotation marks because you aren’t directly quoting, but it still needs a citation because you are using a specific segment of the text. It is still someone else’s original idea and must be cited.

Secondly, if you look at the original quote, you’ll see that five lines of text are condensed into four and a half lines. Everything the author used has been changed.

A single paragraph of text has been explained in different words—which is the heart of paraphrasing.

What is summarizing?

Next, we come to summarizing. Summarizing is on a much larger scale than quoting or paraphrasing. While similar to paraphrasing in that you use your own words, a summary’s primary focus is on translating the main idea of an entire document or long section.

Summaries are useful because they allow you to mention entire chapters or articles—or longer works—in only a few sentences. However, summaries can be longer and more in-depth. They can actually include quotes and paraphrases. Keep in mind, though, that since a summary condenses information, look for the main points. Don’t include a lot of details in a summary.

In literary analysis essays, it is useful to include one body paragraph that summarizes the work you’re writing about. It might be helpful to quote or paraphrase specific lines that contribute to the main themes of such a work. Here is an example summarizing the article on orphans in Victorian literature:

In John Mullan’s article “Orphans in Fiction” on bl.uk.com, he reviews the use of orphans as protagonists in 19 th century Victorian literature. Mullan argues that orphans, without family attachments, are effective characters that can be “unleashed to discover the world.” This discovery process often leads orphans to expose dangerous aspects of society, while maintaining their innocence. As an example, Mullan examines how many female orphans wind up as governesses, demonstrating the usefulness of a main character that is obligated to find their own way.

This summary includes the main ideas of the article, one paraphrase, and one direct quote. A ten-paragraph article is summarized into one single paragraph.

As for giving source credit, since the author’s name and title of the source are stated at the beginning of the summary paragraph, you don’t need an in-text citation.

How do I know which one to use?

The fact is that writers use these three reference types (quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing) interchangeably. The key is to pay attention to your argument development. At some points, you will want concrete, firm evidence. Quotes are perfect for this.

At other times, you will want general support for an argument, but the text that includes such support is long-winded. A paraphrase is appropriate in this case.

Finally, sometimes you may need to mention an entire book or article because it is so full of evidence to support your points. In these cases, it is wise to take a few sentences or even a full paragraph to summarize the source.

No matter which type you use, you always need to cite your source on a References or Works Cited page at the end of the document. The MLA works cited entry for the text we’ve been using today looks like this:

Mullan, John. Orphans in Fiction” www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/orphans-in-fiction.  Accessed 20. Oct. 2020

————–

See our related lesson with video:  How to Quote and Paraphrase Evidence

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Difference Between Paraphrasing And Summarizing

Paraphrasing involves restating the content of a passage in your own words, while Summarizing involves concisely stating the main points of a work or passage. Paraphrasing usually Retains more detail from the original text, while summarizing focuses on capturing the main points of the original text. Paraphrasing can be similar to or longer than the original text, while summaries are usually Significantly shorter.

Fredrick Eghosa

May 21, 2024

Table of Contents

Key Takeaways

What is paraphrasing, when to use paraphrasing:, when you're incorporating a source into your writing:, to avoiding plagiarism:, to simplify complex information:, to tailoring content for specific audiences:, for creating original content:, to avoid overrelying on direct quotations:, how to paraphrase, ensure you understand the original text:, identify key information in the original text:, set the text aside:, express in your own words:, maintain the original meaning:, check for accuracy:, cite the source:, use cowriter:, paraphrased examples generated by cowriter, tips for effective paraphrasing:, what is summarizing, when to use summarizing, to understanding complex texts:, for preparation for presentations or discussions:, for reviewing and studying:, extracting key information:, writing abstracts:, how to summarize, read the text carefully:, identify the main ideas:, outline the structure:, write a first draft of the summary:, always focus on clarity and conciseness:, omit irrelevant details:, edit and check for accuracy:, provide proper attribution:, examples of summaries generated by cowriter, tips for effective summarizing:, difference between paraphrasing and summarizing:, wrapping up.

• Focus on Paraphrasing the text's main idea or central argument rather than trying to rephrase every detail.
• If you need to retain specific terminology from the original text, indicate that it's a direct quote using quotation marks.
• When paraphrasing information from multiple sources, paraphrase each source separately before integrating them into your writing.
• Remember, paraphrasing is a skill that can be improved with practice.

• When summarizing a text, focus on identifying the main ideas, central arguments, and key details crucial for understanding the content.
• Exclude irrelevant examples, anecdotes, or supporting information that do not contribute to the text's core message.
• Present information objectively without introducing personal biases or interpretations.
• Use clear and concise language to convey the summary effectively.
• Aim to keep summaries under 10% of the original length.

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Paraphrase and Summary

When should i paraphrase, and when should i summarize.

To paraphrase means to restate someone else’s ideas in your own language at roughly the same level of detail. To summarize means to reduce the most essential points of someone else’s work into a shorter form. Along with quotation, paraphrase and summary provide the main tools for integrating your sources into your papers. When choosing which to use, consider first your discipline and the type of writing in which you are engaged. For example, literature reviews in science reports rely almost exclusively on summary. Argumentative essays, by contrast, rely on all three tools.

Paraphrase and summary are indispensable in argumentative papers because they allow you to include other people’s ideas without cluttering up your paragraphs with quotations . These techniques help you take greater control of your essay. Consider using either tool when an idea from one of your sources is important to your essay but the wording is not. Space limitations may guide you in your choice. But above all, think about how much of the detail from your source is relevant to your argument. If your reader needs to know only the bare bones, then summarize.

Though paraphrase and summary are often preferable to quotation, do not rely too heavily on them, either. Your ideas are what matter most. Allow yourself the space to develop those ideas.

How do I paraphrase?

Whenever you paraphrase, remember these two points:

• You must provide a reference.
• The paraphrase must be in your own words. You must do more than merely substitute phrases here and there. You must also create your own sentence structures.

Finding new words for ideas that are already well expressed can be hard, but changing words should not be your chief aim anyway. Focus, rather, on filtering the ideas through your own understanding. The following strategy will make the job of paraphrasing a lot easier:

• When you are at the note-taking stage, and you come across a passage that may be useful for your essay, do not copy the passage verbatim unless you think you will want to quote it.
• If you think you will want to paraphrase the passage, make a note only of the author’s basic point (or points). You don’t even need to use full sentences.
• In your note, you should already be translating the language of the original into your own words. What matters is that you capture the original idea.
• Make sure to jot down the source as well as the page number so that you can make a proper reference later on.

When it comes time to write the paper, rely on your notes rather than on the author’s work. You will find it much easier to avoid borrowing from the original passage because you will not have seen it recently. Follow this simple sequence:

• Convert the ideas from your notes into full sentences.
• Provide a reference.
• Go back to the original to ensure that (a) your paraphrase is accurate and (b) you have truly said things in your own words.

Let’s look at examples of illegitimate and legitimate paraphrase, using a passage from Oliver Sacks’ essay “An Anthropologist on Mars”:

The cause of autism has also been a matter of dispute. Its incidence is about one in a thousand, and it occurs throughout the world, its features remarkably consistent even in extremely different cultures. It is often not recognized in the first year of life, but tends to become obvious in the second or third year. Though Asperger regarded it as a biological defect of affective contact—innate, inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defect—Kanner tended to view it as a psychogenic disorder, a reflection of bad parenting, and most especially of a chillingly remote, often professional, "refrigerator mother." At this time, autism was often regarded as "defensive" in nature, or confused with childhood schizophrenia. A whole generation of parents—mothers, particularly—were made to feel guilty for the autism of their children.

What follows is an example of illegitimate paraphrase :

The cause of the condition autism has been disputed. It occurs in approximately one in a thousand children, and it exists in all parts of the world, its characteristics strikingly similar in vastly differing cultures. The condition is often not noticeable in the child’s first year, yet it becomes more apparent as the child reaches the age of two or three. Although Asperger saw the condition as a biological defect of the emotions that was inborn and therefore similar to a physical defect, Kanner saw it as psychological in origin, as reflecting poor parenting and particularly a frigidly distant mother. During this period, autism was often seen as a defence mechanism, or it was misdiagnosed as childhood schizophrenia. An entire generation of mothers and fathers (but especially mothers) were made to feel responsible for their offspring’s autism (Sacks 247-48).

Most of these sentences do little more than substitute one phrase for another. An additional problem with this passage is that the only citation occurs at the very end of the paragraph. The reader might be misled into thinking that the earlier sentences were not also based on Sacks.

The following represents a legitimate paraphrase of the original passage:

In "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks lists some of the known facts about autism. We know, for example, that the condition occurs in roughly one out of every thousand children. We also know that the characteristics of autism do not vary from one culture to the next. And we know that the condition is difficult to diagnose until the child has entered the second or third year of life. As Sacks points out, often a child who goes on to develop autism will show no sign of the condition at the age of one (247). Sacks observes, however, that researchers have had a hard time agreeing on the causes of autism. He sketches the diametrically opposed positions of Asperger and Kanner. On the one hand, Asperger saw the condition as representing a constitutional defect in the child's ability to make meaningful emotional contact with the external world. On the other hand, Kanner regarded autism as a consequence of harmful childrearing practices. For many years confusion about this condition reigned. One unfortunate consequence of this confusion, Sacks suggests, was the burden of guilt imposed on so many parents for their child's condition (247-48).

This paraphrase illustrates a few basic principles that can help you to paraphrase more effectively:

• Refer explicitly to the author in your paraphrase. The passage above makes explicit right away that the ideas come from Sacks. Its indebtedness is signaled in a few strategic places. The single parenthetical note at the end of each paragraph is therefore all that is needed by way of citation. Referring to Sacks also strengthens the passage by clarifying the source of its ideas.
• Don’t just paraphrase. Analyze. In the paraphrase of Sacks, the decision to split the original passage into two paragraphs adds an analytical dimension: the new passage doesn’t just reiterate his points but lays out the two-part structure of his argument.
• Not all of the details from the original passage need to be included in the paraphrase.
• You don't need to change every word. For the sake of clarity, keep essential terms the same (e.g., autism , culture , children ). However, avoid borrowing entire phrases (e.g., reflection of bad parenting ) unless they are part of the discourse of your field (e.g., psychogenic disorder ).

How do I summarize?

Summary moves much further than paraphrase from point-by-point translation. When you summarize a passage, you need first to absorb the meaning and then to capture in your own words the most important elements from the original passage. A summary is necessarily shorter than a paraphrase.

Here is a summary of the passage from "An Anthropologist on Mars":

In "An Anthropologist on Mars," Sacks notes that although there is little disagreement on the chief characteristics of autism, researchers have differed considerably on its causes. As he points out, Asperger saw the condition as an innate defect in the child's ability to connect with the external world, whereas Kanner regarded it as a consequence of harmful childrearing practices (247-48).

Written by Jerry Plotnick, Director, University College Writing Centre

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Difference Between Paraphrasing and Summarizing

• Categorized under Language | Difference Between Paraphrasing and Summarizing

Paraphrasing vs Summarizing

Paraphrasing and summarizing are both related terms. They are often confusing for people. Paraphrasing and summarizing are essential techniques for an effective and efficient essay. These are an absolute must when dealing with scientific concepts. Both paraphrasing and summarizing are allowed and accepted till due credit is given to the original source, and only till the work is not copied and is free from any kind of plagiarism.

Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is reading over a text and interpreting it in one’s own words without changing the meaning of the original text. This excludes copying of text in any form. It is like grabbing the idea about a topic from another writer’s work then transforming it into your own method of thoughts and words. Paraphrased material is almost equal to or slightly shorter in comparison to the original material. Paraphrasing is required sometimes to prove your point. It provides support and adds credibility to your own writing. It is also used to add depth to your work. Paraphrasing is used;

When another writer’s work has to be used. When quotes are not used in the text. When the ideas have a greater relevance than the style of writing. When you want to simplify the work of another person.

Summarizing Summarizing is the tool in writing which is used when you need the main idea of the text. It is a condensed form of the written text in your own words with only the highlights of the text. A summary is much shorter than the original text. It excludes the explanation of the text. Only the main idea or the basic information is included. Summarizing is used to refer to work that culminates into the present writing that you are doing. It is sometimes used when you want to draw attention to an important point. It is also applicable when you want to distance yourself from the original text.

Summarizing is used;

When only the main ideas of the writer are to be identified. When only an overview of the whole work is required. When simplification is required. When only the main highlights of the work have to be mentioned.

1.Paraphrasing is writing any particular text in your own words while summarizing is mentioning only the main points of any work in your own words. 2.Paraphrasing is almost equal to or somewhat less than the original text while summarizing is substantially shorter than the original. 3.Paraphrasing may be done for the purpose of simplifying the original work while summarizing is done to mention only the major points without any kind of explanation about the matter.

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Cite APA 7 Kaushik, N. (2011, May 20). Difference Between Paraphrasing and Summarizing. Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects. http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-paraphrasing-and-summarizing/. MLA 8 Kaushik, Nimisha. "Difference Between Paraphrasing and Summarizing." Difference Between Similar Terms and Objects, 20 May, 2011, http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-paraphrasing-and-summarizing/.

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• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 20 May 2024

The great detectives: humans versus AI detectors in catching large language model-generated medical writing

• Jae Q. J. Liu 1 ,
• Kelvin T. K. Hui 1 ,
• Fadi Al Zoubi 1 ,
• Zing Z. X. Zhou 1 ,
• Dino Samartzis 2 ,
• Curtis C. H. Yu 1 ,
• Jeremy R. Chang 1 &
• Arnold Y. L. Wong   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5911-5756 1  

International Journal for Educational Integrity volume  20 , Article number:  8 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

205 Accesses

4 Altmetric

Metrics details

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in academic writing has raised concerns regarding accuracy, ethics, and scientific rigour. Some AI content detectors may not accurately identify AI-generated texts, especially those that have undergone paraphrasing. Therefore, there is a pressing need for efficacious approaches or guidelines to govern AI usage in specific disciplines.

Our study aims to compare the accuracy of mainstream AI content detectors and human reviewers in detecting AI-generated rehabilitation-related articles with or without paraphrasing.

Study design

This cross-sectional study purposively chose 50 rehabilitation-related articles from four peer-reviewed journals, and then fabricated another 50 articles using ChatGPT. Specifically, ChatGPT was used to generate the introduction, discussion, and conclusion sections based on the original titles, methods, and results. Wordtune was then used to rephrase the ChatGPT-generated articles. Six common AI content detectors (Originality.ai, Turnitin, ZeroGPT, GPTZero, Content at Scale, and GPT-2 Output Detector) were employed to identify AI content for the original, ChatGPT-generated and AI-rephrased articles. Four human reviewers (two student reviewers and two professorial reviewers) were recruited to differentiate between the original articles and AI-rephrased articles, which were expected to be more difficult to detect. They were instructed to give reasons for their judgements.

Originality.ai correctly detected 100% of ChatGPT-generated and AI-rephrased texts. ZeroGPT accurately detected 96% of ChatGPT-generated and 88% of AI-rephrased articles. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of ZeroGPT were 0.98 for identifying human-written and AI articles. Turnitin showed a 0% misclassification rate for human-written articles, although it only identified 30% of AI-rephrased articles. Professorial reviewers accurately discriminated at least 96% of AI-rephrased articles, but they misclassified 12% of human-written articles as AI-generated. On average, students only identified 76% of AI-rephrased articles. Reviewers identified AI-rephrased articles based on ‘incoherent content’ (34.36%), followed by ‘grammatical errors’ (20.26%), and ‘insufficient evidence’ (16.15%).

Conclusions and relevance

This study directly compared the accuracy of advanced AI detectors and human reviewers in detecting AI-generated medical writing after paraphrasing. Our findings demonstrate that specific detectors and experienced reviewers can accurately identify articles generated by Large Language Models, even after paraphrasing. The rationale employed by our reviewers in their assessments can inform future evaluation strategies for monitoring AI usage in medical education or publications. AI content detectors may be incorporated as an additional screening tool in the peer-review process of academic journals.

Introduction

Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT; OpenAI, USA) is a popular and responsive chatbot that has surpassed other Large Language Models (LLMs) in terms of usage (ChatGPT Statistics 2023 ). Being trained with 175 billion parameters, ChatGPT has demonstrated its capabilities in the field of medicine and digital health (OpenAI 2023 ). It has been reported to be able to solve higher-order reasoning questions in pathology (Sinha 2023 ). Currently, ChatGPT has been used in generating discharge summaries (Patel &Lam 2023 ), aiding in diagnosis (Mehnen et al. 2023 ), and providing health information to patients with cancer (Hopkins et al. 2023 ). Currently, ChatGPT has become a valuable writing assistant, especially in medical writing (Imran & Almusharaf 2023 ).

However, scientists did not support granting ChatGPT authorship in academic publishing because it could not be held accountable for the ethics of the content (Stokel-Walker 2023 ). Its tendency to generate plausible but non-rigorous or misleading content has raised doubts about the reliability of its outputs (Sallam 2023 ; Manohar & Prasad 2023 ). This poses a risk of disseminating unsubstantiated information. Therefore, scholars have been exploring ways to detect AI-generated content to uphold academic integrity, although there are conflicting perspectives on the utilization of detectors in academic publishing. Previous research found that 14 existing AI detection tools exhibited an average accuracy of less than 80% (Weber-Wulff et al. 2023 ). However, the availability of paraphrasing tools further complicates the detection of LLM-generated texts. Some AI content detectors were ineffective in identifying paraphrased texts (Anderson et al. 2023 ; Weber-Wulff et al. 2023 ). Moreover, some detectors may misclassify human-written articles, which can undermine the credibility of academic publications (Liang et al. 2023 ; Sadasivan et al. 2023 ).

Nevertheless, there have been advancements in AI content detectors. Turnitin and Originality.ai have shown excellent accuracy in discriminating between AI-generated and human-written essays in various academic disciplines (e.g., social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities) (Walters 2023 ). However, their effectiveness in detecting paraphrased academic articles remains uncertain. Importantly, the accuracy of universal AI detectors has shown inconsistencies across studies in different domains (Gao et al. 2023 ; Anderson et al. 2023 ; Walters 2023 ). Therefore, continuous efforts are necessary to identify detectors that can achieve near-perfect accuracy, especially in the detection of medical texts, which is of particular concern to the academic community.

In addition to using AI detectors to help identify AI-generated articles, it is crucial to assess the ability of human reviewers to detect AI-generated formal academic articles. A study found that four peer reviewers only achieved an average accuracy of 68% in identifying ChatGPT-generated biomedical abstracts (Gao et al. 2023 ). However, this study had limitations because the reviewers only assessed abstracts instead of full-text articles, and their assessments were limited to a binary choice of ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without providing any justifications for their decisions. The reported moderate accuracy is inadequate for informing new editorial policy regarding AI usage. To establish effective regulations for supervising AI usage in journal publishing, it is necessary to continuously explore the accuracy of experienced human reviewers and to understand the patterns and stylistic features of AI-generated content. This can help researchers, educators, and editors develop discipline-specific guidelines to effectively supervise AI usage in academic publishing.

Against this background, the current study aimed to (1) compare the accuracy of several common AI content detectors and human reviewers with different levels of research training in detecting AI-generated academic articles with or without paraphrasing; and (2) understand the rationale by human reviewers for determining AI-generated content.

The current study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of a university. This study consisted of four stages: (1) identifying 50 published peer-reviewed papers from four high-impact journals; (2) generating artificial papers using ChatGPT; (3) rephrasing the ChatGPT-generated papers using a paraphrasing tool called Wordtune; and (4) employing six AI content detectors to distinguish between the original papers, ChatGPT-generated papers, and AI-rephrased papers. To determine human reviewers’ ability to discern between the original papers and AI-rephrased papers, four reviewers reviewed and assessed these two types of papers (Fig. 1 ).

An outline of the study

Identifying peer-reviewed papers

As this study was conducted by researchers involved in rehabilitation sciences, only rehabilitation-related publications were considered. A researcher searched on PubMed in June 2023 using a search strategy involving: (“Neurological Rehabilitation”[Mesh]) OR (“Cardiac Rehabilitation”[Mesh]) OR (“Pulmonary Rehabilitation” [Mesh]) OR (“Exercise Therapy”[Mesh]) OR (“Physical Therapy”[Mesh]) OR (“Activities of Daily Living”[Mesh]) OR (“Self Care”[Mesh]) OR (“Self-Management”[Mesh]). English rehabilitation-related articles published between June 2013 and June 2023 in one of four high-impact journals ( Nature, The Lancet, JAMA, and British Medical Journal [BMJ] ) were eligible for inclusion. Fifty articles were included and categorized into four categories (musculoskeletal, cardiopulmonary, neurology, and pediatric) (Appendix 1 ).

Generating academic articles using ChatGPT

ChatGPT (GPT-3.5-Turbo, OpenAI, USA) was used to generate the introduction, discussion, and conclusion sections of fabricated articles in July 2023. Specifically, before starting a conversation with ChatGPT, we gave the instruction “ Considering yourself as an academic writer ” to put it into a specific role. After that, we entered “ Please write a convincing scientific introduction on the topic of [original topic] with some citations in the text” into GPT-3.5-Turbo to generate the ‘Introduction’ section. The ‘Discussion’ section was generated by the request “Please critically discuss the methods and results below: [original method] and [original result], Please include citations in the text” . For the ‘Conclusions’ section, we instructed ChatGPT to create a summary of the generated discussion section with reference to the original title. Collectively, each ChatGPT-generated article comprised fabricated introduction, discussion, and conclusions sections, alongside the original methods and results sections.

Rephrasing ChatGPT-generated articles using a paraphrasing tool

Wordtune (AI21 Labs, Tel Aviv, Israel) (Wordtune 2023 ), a widely used AI-powered writing assistant, was applied to paraphrase 50 ChatGPT-generated articles, specifically targeting the introduction, discussion, and conclusion sections, to enhance their authenticity.

Identification of AI-generated articles

Using ai content detectors.

Six AI content detectors, which have been widely used (Walters 2023 ; Crothers 2023 ; Top 10 AI Detector Tools 2023 ), were applied to identify texts generated by AI language models in August 2023. They classified a given paper as “human-written” or “AI-generated”, with a confidence level reported as an AI score [% ‘confidence in predicting that the content was produced by an AI tool’] or a perplexity score [randomness or particularity of the text]. A lower perplexity score indicates that the text has relatively few random elements and is more likely to be written by generative AI (GPTZero 2023 ). The 50 original articles, 50 ChatGPT-generated articles, and 50 AI-rephrased articles were evaluated for authenticity by two paid (Originality.ai, Originality. AI Inc., Ontario, Canada; and Turnitin’s AI writing detection, Turnitin LLC, CA, USA) and four free AI content detectors (ZeroGPT, Munchberg, Germany; GPTZero, NJ, USA; Content at Scale, AZ, USA; and GPT-2 Output Detector, CA, USA). The authentic methods and results sections were not entered into the AI content detectors. Since the GPT-2 Output Detector has a restriction of 510 tokens per attempt, each article was divided into several parts for input, and the overall AI score of the article was calculated based on the mean score of all parts.

Peer reviews by human reviewers

Four blinded reviewers with backgrounds in physiotherapy and varying levels of research training (two college student reviewers and two professorial reviewers) were recruited to review and discern articles. To minimize the risk of recall bias, a researcher randomly assigned the 50 original articles and 50 AI-rephrased articles (ChatGPT-generated articles after rephrasing) to two electronic folders by a coin toss. If an original article was placed in Folder 1, the corresponding AI-rephrased article was assigned to Folder 2. Reviewers were instructed to review all the papers in Folder 1 first and then wait for at least 7 days before reviewing papers in Folder 2. This approach would reduce the reviewers’ risk of remembering the details of the original papers and AI-rephrased articles on the same topic (Fisher & Radvansky 2018 ).

The four reviewers were instructed to use an online Google form (Appendix 2 ) to make their decision and provide reasons behind their decision. Reviewers were instructed to enter the article number on the Google form before reviewing the article. Once the reviewers had gathered sufficient information/confidence to make the decision, they would give a binary response (“AI-rephrased” or “human-written”). Additionally, they should select their top three reasons for their decision from a list of options (i.e., coherence creativity, evidence-based, grammatical errors, and vocabulary diversity) (Walters 2019; Lee 2022 ). The definitions of these reasons (Appendix 3 ) were explained to the reviewers beforehand. If they could not find the best answers, they could enter additional responses. When the reviewer submitted the form, the total duration was automatically recorded by the system.

Statistical analysis

Descriptive analyses were reported when appropriate. Shapiro-Wilk tests were used to evaluate the normality of the data, while Levene’s tests were employed to assess the homogeneity of variance. Logarithmic transformation was applied to the data related to ‘time taken’ to achieve the normal distribution. Separate two-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc comparisons were conducted to evaluate the effect of detectors and AI usage on AI scores, and the effect of reviewers and AI usage on the time taken. Separate paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction were applied for pairwise comparisons. The GPTZero Perplexity scores were compared among groups of articles using one-way repeated ANOVA. Subsequently, separate paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction were used for pairwise comparisons. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to determine cutoff values for the highest sensitivity and specificity in detecting AI articles by AI content detectors. The area under the ROC curve (AUROC) was also calculated. Inter-rater agreement was calculated using Fleiss’s kappa, and Cohen’s kappa with Bonferroni correction was used for multiple comparisons. The significance level was set at p  < 0.05. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS (version 26; SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).

The accuracy of AI detectors in identifying AI articles

The accuracy of AI content detectors in identifying AI-generated articles is shown in Fig. 2 a and b. Notably, Originality.ai demonstrated perfect accuracy (100%) in detecting both ChatGPT-generated and AI-rephrased articles. ZeroGPT showed near-perfect accuracy (96%) in identifying ChatGPT-generated articles. The optimal ZeroGPT cut-off value for distinguishing between original and AI articles (ChatGPT-generated and AI-rephrased) was 42.45% (Fig. 3 a) , with a sensitivity of 98% and a specificity of 92%. The GPT-2 Output Detector achieved an accuracy of 96% in identifying ChatGPT-generated articles based on an AI score cutoff value of 1.46%, as suggested by previous research (Gao et al. 2023 ). Likewise, Turnitin showed near-perfect accuracy (94%) in discerning ChatGPT-generated articles but only correctly discerned 30% of AI-rephrased articles. GPTZero and Content at Scale only correctly identified 70 and 52% of ChatGPT-generated papers, respectively. While Turnitin did not misclassify any original articles, Content at Scale and GPTZero incorrectly classified 28 and 22% of the original articles, respectively. AI scores, or perplexity scores, in response to the original, ChatGPT-generated, and AI-rephrased articles from each AI content detector are shown in Appendix 4 . The classification of responses from each AI content detector is shown in Appendix 5 .

The accuracy of artificial intelligence (AI) content detectors and human reviewers in identifying large language model (LLM)-generated texts. a The accuracy of six AI content detectors in identifying AI-generated articles; b the percentage of misclassification of human-written articles as AI-generated ones by detectors; c the accuracy of four human reviewers (reviewers 1 and 2 were college students, while reviewers 3 and 4 were professorial reviewers) in identifying AI-rephrased articles; and d the percentage of misclassifying human-written articles as AI-rephrased ones by reviewers

The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the area under the ROC (AUROC) of artificial intelligence (AI) content detectors. a The ROC curve and AUROC of ZeroGPT for discriminating between original and AI articles, with the AUROC of 0.98; b the ROC curve and AUROC of GPTZero for discriminating between original and AI articles, with the AUROC of 0.312

All AI content detectors, except Originality.ai, gave rephrased articles lower scores as compared to the corresponding ChatGPT-generated articles (Fig. 4 a). Likewise, GPTZero demonstrated that the perplexity scores of ChatGPT-generated (p<0.001) and AI-rephrased (p<0.001) texts were significantly lower than those of the original articles (Fig. 4 b) . The ROC curve of GPTZero perplexity scores for identifying original articles and AI articles showed that the respective AUROC were 0.312 (Fig. 3 b).

Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated articles demonstrated reduced AI scores after rephrasing. a The mean AI scores of 50 ChatGPT-generated articles before and after rephrasing; b ChatGPT-generated articles demonstrated lower Perplexity scores computed by GPTZero as compared to original articles although increased after rephrasing; * p  < 0·05, ** p  < 0·01, *** p  < 0·001

The accuracy of reviewers in identifying AI-rephrased articles

The median time spent by the four reviewers to distinguish original and AI-rephrased articles was 5 minutes (min) 45 seconds (s) (interquartile range [IQR] 3 min 42 s, 9 min 7 s). The median time taken by each reviewer to distinguish original and AI-rephrased articles is shown in Appendix 6 . The two professorial reviewers demonstrated extremely high accuracy (96 and 100%) in discerning AI-rephrased articles, although both misclassified 12% of human-written articles as AI-rephrased (Fig. 2 c and d , and Table 1 ). Although three original articles were misclassified as AI-rephrased by both professorial reviewers, they were correctly identified by Originality and ZeroGPT. The common reasons for an article to be classified as AI-rephrased by reviewers included ‘incoherence’ (34.36%), ‘grammatical errors’ (20.26%), ‘insufficient evidence-based claims’ (16.15%), vocabulary diversity (11.79%), creativity (6.15%) , ‘misuse of abbreviations’(5.87%), ‘writing style’ (2.71%), ‘vague expression’ (1.81%), and ‘conflicting data’ (0.9%). Nevertheless, 12 of the 50 original articles were wrongly considered AI-rephrased by two or more reviewers. Most of these misclassified articles were deemed to be incoherent and/or lack vocabulary diversity. The frequency of the primary reason given by each reviewer and the frequency of the reasons given by four reviewers for identifying AI-rephrased articles are shown in Fig. 5 a and b, respectively.

A The frequency of the primary reason for artificial intelligence (AI)-rephrased articles being identified by each reviewer. B The relative frequency of each reason for AI-rephrased articles being identified (based on the top three reasons given by the four reviewers)

Regarding the inter-rater agreement between two professorial reviewers, there was near-perfect agreement in the binary responses, with κ = 0.819 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.705, 0.933, p <0.05), as well as fair agreements in the primary and second reasons, with κ = 0.211 (95% CI 0.011, 0.411, p <0.05) and κ = 0.216 (95% CI 0.024, 0.408, p <0.05), respectively.

“Plagiarized” scores of ChatGPT-generated or AI-rephrased articles

Turnitin results showed that the content of ChatGPT-generated and AI-rephrased articles had significantly lower ‘plagiarized’ scores (39.22% ± 10.6 and 23.16% ± 8.54%, respectively) than the original articles (99.06% ± 1.27%).

Likelihood of ChatGPT being used in original articles after the launch of GPT-3.5-Turbo

No significant differences were found in the AI scores or perplexity scores calculated by the six AI content detectors (p>0.05), or in the binary responses evaluated by reviewers ( p >0.05), when comparing the included original papers published before and after November 2022 (the release of ChatGPT).

Our study found that Originality.ai and ZeroGPT accurately detected AI-generated texts, regardless of whether they were rephrased or not. Additionally, Turnitin did not misclassify human-written articles. While professorial reviewers were generally able to discern AI-rephrased articles from human-written ones, they might misinterpret some human-written articles as AI-generated due to incoherent content and varied vocabulary. Conversely, AI-rephrased articles are more likely to go unnoticed by student reviewers.

What is the performance of generative AI in academic writing?

Lee et al found that sentences written by GPT-3 tended to generate fewer grammatical or spelling errors than human writers (Lee 2022 ). However, ChatGPT may not necessarily minimize grammatical mistakes. In our study, reviewers identified ‘grammatical errors’ as the second most common reason for classifying an article as AI-rephrased. Our reviewers also noted that generative AI was more likely to inappropriately use medical terminologies or abbreviations, and even generate fabricated data. These might lead to a detrimental impact on academic dissemination. Collectively, generative AI is less likely to successfully create credible academic articles without the development of discipline-specific LLMs.

Can generative AI generate creative and in-depth thoughts?

Prior research reported that ChatGPT correctly answered 42.0 to 67.6% of questions in medical licensing examinations conducted in China, Taiwan, and the USA (Zong 2023 ; Wang 2023 ; Gilson 2023 ). However, our reviewers discovered that AI-generated articles offered only superficial discussion without substantial supporting evidence. Further, redundancy was observed in the content of AI-generated articles. Unless future advancements in generative AI can improve the interpretation of evidence-based content and incorporate in-depth and insightful discussion, its utility may be limited to serving as an information source for academic works.

Who can be deceived by ChatGPT? How can we address it?

ChatGPT is capable of creating realistic and intelligent-sounding text, including convincing data and references (Ariyaratne et al. 2023 ). Yeadon et al , found that ChatGPT-generated physics essays were graded as first-class essays in a writing assessment at Durham University (Yeadon et al. 2023 ). We found that AI-generated content had a relatively low plagiarism rate. These factors may encourage the potential misuse of AI technology for generating written assignments and the dissemination of misinformation among students. In a current survey, Welding ( 2023 ) reported that 50% of 1000 college students admitted to using AI tools to help complete assignments or exams. However, in our study, college student reviewers only correctly identified an average of 76% of AI-rephrased articles. Notably, our professorial reviewers found fabricated data in two AI-generated articles, while the student reviewers were unaware of this issue, which highlights the possibility of AI-generated content deceiving junior researchers and impacting their learning. In short, the inherent limitations of ChatGPT as reported by experienced reviewers may help research students understand some key points in critically appraising academic articles and be more competent in detecting AI-generated articles.

Which detectors are recommended for use?

Our study revealed that Originality.ai emerged as the most sensitive and accurate platform for detecting AI-generated (including paraphrased) content, although it requires a subscription fee. ZeroGPT is an excellent free tool that exhibits a high level of sensitivity and specificity for detecting AI articles when the AI score threshold is set at 42.45%. These findings could help monitor the AI use in academic publishing and education, to promisingly tackle ethical challenges posed by the iteration of AI technologies. Additionally, Turnitin, a widely used platform in educational institutions or scientific journals, displayed perfect accuracy in detecting human-written articles and near-perfect accuracy in detecting ChatGPT-generated content but was proved susceptible to deception when confronted with AI-rephrased articles. This raises concerns among educators regarding the potential for students to evade Turnitin AI detection by using an AI rephrasing editor. As generative AI technologies continue to evolve, educators and researchers should regularly conduct similar studies to identify the most suitable AI content detectors.

AI content detectors employ different predictive algorithms. Some publicly available detectors use perplexity scores and related concepts for identifying AI-generated writing. However, we found that the AUROC curve of GPTZero perplexity scores in identifying AI articles performed worse than chance. As such, the effectiveness of utilizing perplexity-based methods as the machine learning algorithm for developing an AI content detector remains debatable.

As with any novel technology, some merits and demerits require continuous improvement and development. Currently, AI content detectors have been developed as general-purpose tools to analyze text features, primarily based on the randomness of word choice and sentence lengths (Prillaman 2023 ). While technical issues such as algorithms, model turning, and development are beyond the scope of this study, we have provided empirical evidence that offers potential directions for future advancements in AI content detectors. One such area that requires further exploration and investigation is the development of AI content detectors trained using discipline-specific LLMs.

Should authors be concerned about their manuscripts being misinterpreted?

While AI-rephrasing tools may help non-native English writers and less experienced researchers prepare better academic articles, AI technologies may pose challenges to academic publishing and education. Previous research has suggested that AI content detectors may penalize non-native English writers with limited linguistic expressions due to simplified wording (Liang et al. 2023 ). However, scientific writing emphasizes precision and accurate expression of scientific evidence, often favouring succinctness over vocabulary diversity or complex sentence structures (Scholar Hangout 2023 ). This raises concerns about the potential misclassification of human-written academic papers as AI-generated, which could have negative implications for authors’ academic reputations. However, our results indicate that experienced reviewers are unlikely to misclassify human-written manuscripts as AI-generated if the articles present logical arguments, provide sufficient evidence-based support, and offer in-depth discussions. Therefore, authors should consider these factors when preparing their manuscripts to minimize the risk of misinterpretation.

Our study revealed that both AI content detectors and human reviewers occasionally misclassified certain original articles as AI-generated. However, it is noteworthy that no human-written articles were misclassified by both AI-content detectors and the two professorial reviewers simultaneously. Therefore, to minimize the risk of misclassifying human-written articles as AI-generated, editors of peer-reviewed journals may consider implementing a screening process that involves a reliable, albeit imperfect, AI-content detector in conjunction with the traditional peer-review process, which includes at least two reviewers. If both the AI content detectors and the peer reviewers consistently label a manuscript as AI-generated, the authors should be given the opportunity to appeal the decision. The editor-in-chief and one member of the editorial board can then evaluate the appeal and make a final decision.

Limitations

This study had several limitations. Firstly, the ChatGPT-3.5 version was used to fabricate articles given its popularity. Future studies should investigate the performance of upgraded LLMs. Secondly, although our analyses revealed no significant differences in the proportion of original papers classified as AI-written before and after November 2022 (the release of ChatGPT), we cannot guarantee that all original papers were not assisted by generative AI in their writing process. Future studies should consider including papers published before this date to validate our findings. Thirdly, although an excellent inter-rater agreement in the binary score was found between the two professorial reviewers, our results need to be interpreted with caution given the small number of reviewers and the lack of consistency between the two student reviewers. Future studies should address these limitations and expand our methodology to include other disciplines/industries with more reviewers to enhance the generalizability of our findings and facilitate the development of strategies for detecting AI-generated content in various fields.

Conclusions

This is the first study to directly compare the accuracy of advanced AI detectors and human reviewers in detecting AI-generated medical writing after paraphrasing. Our findings substantiate that the established peer-reviewed system can effectively mitigate the risk of publishing AI-generated academic articles. However, certain AI content detectors (i.e., Originality.ai and ZeroGPT) can be used to help editors or reviewers with the initial screening of AI-generated articles, upholding academic integrity in scientific publishing. It is noteworthy that the current version of ChatGPT is inadequate to generate rigorous scientific articles and carries the risk of fabricating data and misusing medical abbreviations. Continuous development of machine-learning strategies to improve AI detection accuracy in the health sciences field is essential. This study provides empirical evidence and valuable insights for future research on the validation and development of effective detection tools. It highlights the importance of implementing proper supervision and regulation of AI usage in medical writing and publishing. This ensures that relevant stakeholders can responsibly harness AI technologies while maintaining scientific rigour.

Availability of data and materials

The data and materials used in the manuscript are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Abbreviations

• Artificial intelligence

Large language model

Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer

Receiver Operating Characteristic

Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic

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The current study was supported by the GP Batteries Industrial Safety Trust Fund (R-ZDDR).

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Jae Q. J. Liu, Kelvin T. K. Hui, Fadi Al Zoubi, Zing Z. X. Zhou, Curtis C. H. Yu, Jeremy R. Chang & Arnold Y. L. Wong

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Jae QJ Liu, Kelvin TK Hui and Arnold YL Wong conceptualized the study; Fadi Al Zoubi, Zing Z.X. Zhou, Curtis CH Yu, and Arnold YL Wong acquired the data; Jae QJ Liu and Kelvin TK Hui curated the data; Jae QJ Liu and Jeremy R Chang analyzed the data; Arnold YL Wong was responsible for funding acquisition and project supervision; Jae QJ Liu drafted the original manuscript; Arnold YL Wong and Dino Samartzis edited the manuscript.

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Liu, J.Q.J., Hui, K.T.K., Al Zoubi, F. et al. The great detectives: humans versus AI detectors in catching large language model-generated medical writing. Int J Educ Integr 20 , 8 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-024-00155-6

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Received : 27 December 2023

Accepted : 13 March 2024

Published : 20 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-024-00155-6

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