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Reginald Thomas

Professor Christopher Lane

Engl 1302

October 6, 2020

Chapter 26: Synopsis Summary

This chapter provides the guidelines on the three ways an author can incorporate sources

in their writing: quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing (542). As highlighted in the chapter’s

opening, the main challenge in academic writing is determining how to “integrate other voices

with your own” (542). Quotes should be used to depict “complex ideas that are expressed so

clearly that paraphrasing or summarizing could distort or oversimplify them” (542). Quotes can

also be used to present expert opinions that help the author establish their own credibility and

authority. Quotations should be enclosed in quotation marks and should be no longer than four

typed lines (MLA) or forty words (APA) (543). They should also be well punctuated: commas,

question marks, and exclamations go inside closing quotation marks while periods, colons, and

semicolons appear after the quotation marks. When paraphrasing, the author should restate

information or ideas from a given source in their own words. However, the paraphrase should

cover the same points depicted in the original source. Paraphrasing should be used when

expressing details in the absence of exact words or where the text is too technical or complex for

the audience to understand (544). Summarizing involves presenting information from a source in

a summary that condenses information and highlights the most important points. Summaries are

done in an author’s own words and vary in length, depending on the size of the original text

(542). The chapter further explains the various techniques used when incorporating source

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material. Regardless of the technique used, the author should be careful to distinguish source

material and his own ideas (551). Finally, the chapter closes by describing various ways of

incorporating visual and audio sources. Audiovisual sources may be cited by providing a link to

the recorded element or embedding a media player into the text.

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Work Cited

Lunsford, Andrea A., et al. Everyone's an Author. WW Norton, 2017.