How do I introduce a short quotation?

The following offers just one way of introducing the above quotation:

The ancient Greeks never saw a need to justify wars that were waged outside the walls of the city state. As Hannah Arendt points out in On Revolution, "We must turn to Roman antiquity to find the first justification of war, together with the first notion that there are just and unjust wars" (12). Yet the Roman conception of a just war differs sharply from more modern conceptions.

Since the quotation is relatively short, the brief introduction works.

You could, however, strengthen your analysis by demonstrating the significance of the passage within your own argument. Introducing your quotation with a full sentence would help you assert greater control over the material:

The ancient Greeks never saw a need to justify wars that were waged outside the walls of the city state. In On Revolution, Hannah Arendt points to the role the Romans played in laying the foundation for later thinking about the ethics of waging war: "We must turn to Roman antiquity to find the first justification of war, together with the first notion that there are just and unjust wars" (12). Yet the Roman conception of a just war differs sharply from more modern conceptions.

In these two examples, observe the forms of punctuation used to introduce the quotations. When you introduce a quotation with a full sentence, you should always place a colon at the end of the introductory sentence. When you introduce a quotation with an incomplete sentence, you usually place a comma after the introductory phrase. However, it has become grammatically acceptable to use a colon rather than a comma:

Arendt writes: "We must turn to Roman antiquity to find the first justification of war . . ."

If you are blending the quotation into your own sentence using the conjuction that, do not use any punctuation at all:

Arendt writes that "we must turn to Roman antiquity to find the first justification of war . . ."

If you are not sure whether to punctuate your introduction to a quotation, mentally remove the quotation marks, and ask yourself whether any punctuation is still required.

Finally, note that you can deviate from the common pattern of introduction followed by quotation. Weaving the phrases of others into your own prose offers a stylistically compelling way of maintaining control over your source material. Moreover, the technique of weaving can help you to produce a tighter argument. The following condenses twelve lines from Arendt's essay to fewer than three:

What Arendt refers to as the "well-known realities of power politics" began to lose their moral legitimacy when the First World War unleashed "the horribly destructive" forces of warfare "under conditions of modern technology" (13).

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What verbs and phrases can I use to introduce my quotations?

Familiarize yourself with the various verbs commonly used to introduce quotations. Here is a partial list:

argues

writes

points out

concludes

comments

notes

maintains

suggests

insists

observes

counters

implies

states

claims

demonstrates

says

explains

reveals

Each verb has its own nuance. Make sure that the nuance matches your specific aims in introducing the quotation.

There are other ways to begin quotations. Here are three common phrasings:

In the words of X, . . .

According to X, . . .

In X's view, . . .

Vary the way you introduce quotations to avoid sounding monotonous. But never sacrifice precision of phrasing for the sake of variety.

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How do I introduce a long quotation?

If your quotation is lengthy, you should almost always introduce it with a full sentence that helps capture how it fits into your argument. If your quotation is longer than four lines, do not place it in quotation marks. Instead, set it off as a block quotation:

Although Dickens never shied away from the political controversies of his time, he never, in Orwell's view, identified himself with any political program:

The truth is that Dickens' criticism of society is almost exclusively moral. Hence his lack of any constructive suggestion anywhere in his work. He attacks the law, parliamentary government, the educational system and so forth, without ever clearly suggesting what he would put in their places. Of course it is not necessarily the business of a novelist, or a satirist, to make constructive suggestions, but the point is that Dickens' attitude is at bottom not even destructive. . . . For in reality his target is not so much society as human nature. (416)

The full-sentence introduction to a block quotation helps demonstrate your grasp of the source material, and it adds analytical depth to your essay. But the introduction alone is not enough. Long quotations almost invariably need to be followed by extended analysis. Never allow the quotation to do your work for you. Usually you will want to keep the quotation and your analysis together in the same paragraph. Hence it is a good idea to avoid ending a paragraph with a quotation. But if your analysis is lengthy, you may want to break it into several paragraphs, beginning afresh after the quotation.

Once in a while you can reverse the pattern of quotation followed by analysis. A felicitously worded or an authoritative quotation can, on occasion, nicely clinch an argument.

There is some flexibility in the rule that block quotations are for passages of four lines or more: a shorter passage can be represented as a block quotation if it is important enough to stand on its own. For example, when you are quoting two or more lines of poetry, you will probably want to display the verse as it appears on the page:

In the opening heroic couplet of The Rape of the Lock, Pope establishes the unheroic nature of the poem's subject matter:

What dire offense from amorous causes springs,

What mighty contests rise from trivial things. (1-2)

If you choose to integrate verse into your own sentence, then use a slash surrounded by spaces to indicate line breaks:

In Eliot's The Waste Land, the symbols of a mythic past lie buried in "A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief" (22-23).

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How do I let my reader know I've altered my sources?

If you need to alter your quotations in any way, be sure to indicate just how you have done so. If you remove text, then replace the missing text with an ellipsisthree periods surrounded by spaces:

In The Mirror and the Lamp, Abrams comments that the "diversity of aesthetic theories . . . makes the task of the historian a very difficult one" (5).

If the omitted text occurs between sentences, then put a space after the period at the end of sentence, and follow that by an ellipsis. In all, there will be four periods. (See Orwell on Dickens, above.)

Many people overuse ellipses at the beginning and end of quotations. Use an ellipsis in either place only when your reader might otherwise mistake an incomplete sentence for a complete one:

Abraham Lincoln begins "The Gettysburg Address" with a reminder of the act upon which the United States was founded: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation . . ." (1).

Do not use an ellipsis if you are merely borrowing a phrase from the original:

In "The Gettysburg Address" Abraham Lincoln reminds his listeners of the principles that had inspired the creation of "a new nation" (1).

If you need to alter or replace text from the original, enclose the added text within square brackets. You may, for example, need to alter text to ensure that pronouns agree with their antecedents. Do not write,

Gertrude asks her son Hamlet to "cast your nighted colour off" (1.2.68).

Square brackets allow you to absorb Gertrude's words into your own statement:

Gertrude asks her son Hamlet to "cast [his] nighted colour off" (1.2.68).

Alternatively, you can include Gertrude's original phrasing in its entirety so long as the introduction to the quotation is not fully integrated with the quotation. The introduction can be an independent clause:

Gertrude implores her son Hamlet to stop mourning the death of his father: "cast your nighted colour off" (I.ii.68).

Or it can be an incomplete sentence:

Gertrude implores her son Hamlet, "cast your nighted colour off" (1.2.68).

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How is punctuation affected by quotation?

You must preserve the punctuation of a quoted passage, or else you must enclose in square brackets any punctuation marks that are your own.

There is, however, one important exception to this rule. You are free to alter the punctuation just before a closing quotation mark. You may need to do so to ensure that your sentences are fully grammatical. Do not worry about how the original sentence needs to be punctuated before that quotation mark; think about how your sentence needs to be punctuated. Note, for example, that if you are using the MLA system of referencing, a sentence always ends after the parenthetical reference. Do not also include a period before closing the quotation mark, even if there is a period there in the original. For example, do not write,

According to Schama, Louis XVI remained calm during his trial: "The Terror had no power to frighten an old man of seventy-two." (822).

The period before the closing quotation mark must go:

According to Schama, Louis XVI remained calm during his trial: "The Terror had no power to frighten an old man of seventy-two" (822).

However, if you are using footnotes, the period remains inside the quotation mark, while the footnote number goes outside:

According to Schama, Louis XVI remained calm during his trial: "The Terror had no power to frighten an old man of seventy-two."¹

In Canada and the United States, commas and periods never go outside a quotation mark. They are always absorbed as part of the quotation, whether they belong to you or to the author you are quoting:

"I am a man / more sinned against than sinning," Lear pronounces in Act 3, Scene 2 (59-60)

However, stronger forms of punctuation such as question marks and exclamation marks go inside the quotation if they belong to the author, and outside if they do not:

Bewildered, Lear asks the fool, "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" (1.4.227).

Why is Lear so rash as to let his "two daughters' dowers digest the third" (1.1.127)?

Finally, use single quotation marks for all quotations within quotations:

When Elizabeth reveals that her younger sister has eloped, Darcy drops his customary reserve: "'I am grieved, indeed,' cried Darcy, 'grievedshocked'" (Austen 295).

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Written by Jerry Plotnick, Director, University College Writing Workshop, University of Toronto.
Copyright 2002. All rights reserved.

http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/quotations.html

How Not to Plagiarize

http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html

From the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters:

It shall be an offence for a student knowingly:

(d) to represent as one's own any idea or expression of an idea or work of another in any academic examination or term test or in connection with any other form of academic work, i.e. to commit plagiarism.

Wherever in the Code an offence is described as depending on "knowing", the offence shall likewise be deemed to have been committed if the person ought reasonably to have known.

You've already heard the warnings about plagiarism. Obviously it's against the rules to buy essays or copy chunks from your friend's homework, and it's also plagiarism to borrow passages from books or articles or Web sites without identifying them. You know that the purpose of any paper is to show your own thinking, not create a patchwork of borrowed ideas. But you may still be wondering how you're supposed to give proper references to all the reading you've done and all the ideas you've encountered.

The point of documenting sources in academic papers is not just to avoid unpleasant visits to the office, but to demonstrate that you know what is going on in your field of study. It's also a courtesy to your readers because it helps them consult the material you've found. So mentioning what others have said doesn't lessen the credit you get for your own thinkingin fact, it adds to your credibility.

That's not to say that questions about ownership of ideas are simple. But the real challenge is establishing the relationship of your thinking to the reading you've done (yes, that includes the Internet). Here are some common questions and basic answers.

· Can't I avoid problems just by listing every source in the Works Cited? No, you need to integrate your acknowledgements into what you're saying. Give the reference as soon as you've mentioned the idea you're using, not just at the end of the paragraph. It's often a good idea to name the authors ("X says" and "Y argues against X,") and then indicate your own stand ("A more inclusive perspective, however, . . . "). The examples in this file and the one on Standard Documentation Formats show various wordings. Have a look at journal articles in your discipline to see how they refer to their sources.

· If I put the ideas into my own words, do I still have to clog up my pages with all those names and numbers? Sorryyes, you do. In academic papers, you need to keep mentioning authors and pages and dates to show how your ideas are related to those of the experts. It's sensible to use your own words because that saves space and lets you connect ideas smoothly. But whether you quote a passage directly in quotation marks, paraphrase it closely in your own words, or just summarize it rapidly, you need to identify the source then and there. (That applies to Internet sources too: you still need author and date as well as title and URL.)

· But I didn't know anything about the subject until I started this paper. Do I have to give an acknowledgement for every point I make? You're safer to over-reference than to skimp. But you can cut down the clutter by recognizing that some ideas are "common knowledge" in the fieldthat is, taken for granted by people knowledgeable about the topic. Facts easily found in standard reference books are considered common knowledge: the date of the Armistice for World War I, for example, or the present population of Canada. You don't need to name a specific source for them, even if you learned them only when doing your research. In some disciplines, information covered in class lectures doesn't need acknowledgement. Some interpretive ideas may also be so well accepted that they don't need referencing: that Picasso is a distinguished modernist painter, for instance, or that smoking is harmful to health. Check with your professor or TA if you're in doubt whether a specific point is considered common knowledge in your field.

· How can I tell what's my own idea and what has come from somebody else? Careful record-keeping helps. Always write down the author, title and publication information (including the identifying information for web pages) so you can attach names and dates to specific ideas. Taking good notes is also essential. Don't paste passages from webpages into your draft: that's asking for trouble. As you read any textonline or on the pagesummarize useful points in your own words. If you record a phrase or sentence you might want to quote, put quotation marks around it in your notes to remind yourself that you're copying the author's exact words. And make a deliberate effort as you read to notice connections among ideas, especially contrasts and disagreements, and also to jot down questions or thoughts of your own. If you find as you write that you're following one or two of your sources too closely, deliberately look back in your notes for other sources that take different views; then write about the differences and why they exist.

· So what exactly do I have to document? With experience reading academic prose, you'll soon get used to the ways writers in your field refer to their sources. Here are the main times you should give acknowledgements. (You'll notice many different formats in these examples. See the file on Standard Documentation Formats for advice on these systems.)

a. Quotations, paraphrases, or summaries: If you use the author's exact words, enclose them in quotation marks, or indent passages of more than four lines. (For more on the mechanics of quoting, visit the UC Writing Workshop's file on using quotations.) But it's seldom worthwhile to use long quotations. In literary studies, quote a few words of the work you're analysing and comment on them. In other disciplines, quote only when the original words are especially memorable. In most cases, use your own words to paraphrase or summarize the idea you want to discuss, emphasizing the points relevant to your argument. But be sure to name sources even when you are not using the exact original words. As in the examples below, it's often a good idea to mention the author's name. That gains you some reflected authority and indicates where the borrowing starts and stops.

§ e.g. As Morris puts it in The Human Zoo (1983), "we can always be sure that today's daring innovation will be tomorrow's respectability" (p. 189). [APA system]

§ e.g. Northrop Frye discusses comedy in terms of the spring spirit, which he defines as the infusion of new life and hope into human awareness of universal problems (Anatomy 163). The ending of The Tempest fits this pattern. [new MLA systemshort title to distinguish among different works by same author].

b. Specific facts used as evidence for your argument or interpretation: First consider whether the facts you're mentioning are "common knowledge" according to the definition in point 3 above; if so, you may not need to give a reference. But when you're relying on facts that might be disputed within your disciplineperhaps newly published dataestablish that they're trustworthy by showing that you got them from an authoritative source.

(c. Distinctive or authoritative ideas, whether you agree with them or not: The way you introduce a reference can indicate your attitude and lead into your own argument.

§ e.g. Writing in 1966, Ramsay Cook asserted that Canada was in a period of critical instability (174). That period is not yet over, judging by the same criteria of electoral changeability, economic uncertainty, and confusion in policy decisions. [new MLA system]

§Standard Documentation Formats

Traditional Endnotes or Footnotes

MLA Parenthetical System | Electronic Sources

Different disciplines use their own systems to set out information about sources, but learning one or two of them should serve for most of your studies. These samples of the four main systems show the items of information that different disciplines consider important, as well as the different details of punctuation and indentation they use.

(NOTE: The appearance of the examples may be altered by your browser. If in doubt about matters such as spacing or indentation, check the reference works mentioned.) Please note also that many of the examples cited are fictional.

]

MLA System: Parenthetical Author-Page References (humanities)

This streamlined format gives author and page in parentheses within the text of the paper, then sets out full references in a Works Cited (or Works Consulted) list. Developed by the Modern Language Association, it is now widely accepted in the humanities. The 1999 edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (LB 2369 G53) gives detailed advice and examples. It includes sections on non-print sources such as films, paintings, and sound recordings, and now on Internet sources such as Web pages. See also the MLA website for recommendations on details of referring to non-print sources.

NOTE: In listing a Web page as a source, include the date you read the page as well as the URL. That information lets your reader judge whether he or she is seeing the same version of the web page you looked at. See also our note on Electronic Sources.

Example:

When Hamlet protests to his mother, "Leave wringing of your hands," he is naming a universally recognizable gesture(III.iv.35). As Singh says, similar broad physical movements are "still the most direct way of indicating inner turmoil" (434). Zygmundi confirms their continuing usefulness in contemporary productions of other sixteenth-century plays ("Acting"). Renaissance audiences would have recognized hand-wringing as a signal for inner distress,specifically for a condition that the Elizabethan author Reynolds named "ague of the spirits" (qtd. in Mahieu 69).

Works Cited

Brown, Joan. The Renaissance Stage. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1996.

Mahieu, Aline. Acting Shakespeare. Toronto: Gibson, 1998.

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, The Norton Introduction to Literature, ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, Kelly J. Mays, and Jerome Beaty, 8th ed. New York: Norton, 2001. 941-1033.

Singh, Jasmine. "Renovating Hamlet for Contemporary Audiences." UTQ 53 (1998): 431-42.

Zygmundi, David. "Acting Out the Moralities for Today's Audiences." Termagant Society. 31 Nov. 2001 <http://www.nouniv.ca/soc/termagant/moral.html>.

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A Note on Electronic Sources

To refer to sources such as videos or Internet documents, follow your chosen system as far as possible in giving author, title, and date; you may not be able to give the equivalent of publisher or page numbers, but should supply URLs. Include whatever extra information to help your reader recognize and find the itemfor instance, the type of medium if that might be ambiguous; the sender's address for e-mail messages and online postings; and the date you read a Web page, to indicate the version.

These types of references are now in the process of being standardized. In some cases you may have to improvise. For up-to-date advice, consult Harnack and Kleppinger's excellent Online!The Internet Guide for Students and Writers. Some of the key chapters of their book are conveniently located online. Visit their FAQ page. And for advice on specific systems, visit their files on MLA style. See also the official MLA Web site on electronic sources.

e.g. [e-mail message: MLA system, item in Works Cited]:

Sills, Laine. <lsills@mcmaster.ca> "Took that First Step!" Personal e-mail to Margaret Procter. 16 Nov. 2002.

e.g. [Web document: MLA system, item in Works Cited]:

Procter, Margaret. "Writing an effective admissions letter." Writing at the University of Toronto. 10 Feb. 2002 <http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/admiss.html>

ee.g. [article in online journal: MLA system, item in Works Cited]:

Hill, Robin. "What Sample Size is Enough in Internet Survey Research?" Interpersonal Computing and Technology 6:3 (July 1998). <http://nau.edu/ipct/1998/n3/hill.html>

What is a topic sentence? | Where does it go? | Must it be at the beginning of a paragraph?

What makes a good one? | Does every paragraph need one?

What is a Topic Sentence?

A topic sentence states the main point of a paragraph: it serves as a mini-thesis for the paragraph. You might think of it as a signpost for your readersor a headlinesomething that alerts them to the most important, interpretive points in your essay. When read in sequence, your essay's topic sentences will provide a sketch of the essay's argument. Thus topics sentences help protect your readers from confusion by guiding them through the argument. But topic sentences can also help you to improve your essay by making it easier for you to recognize gaps or weaknesses in your argument.

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Where do topic sentences go?

Topic sentences usually appear at the very beginning of paragraphs. In the following example from Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye establishes the figure of the tragic hero as someone more than human, but less than divine. He backs up his claim with examples of characters from literature, religion and mythology whose tragic stature is a function of their ability to mediate between their fellow human beings and a power that transcends the merely human:

The tragic hero is typically on top of the wheel of fortune, half-way between human society on the ground and the something greater in the sky. Prometheus, Adam, and Christ hang between heaven and earth, between a world of paradisal freedom and a world of bondage. Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divine lightning: Milton's Samson destroys the Philistine temple with himself, and Hamlet nearly exterminates the Danish court in his own fall.

The structure of Frye's paragraph is simple yet powerful: the topic sentence makes an abstract point, and the rest of the paragraph elaborates on that point using concrete examples as evidence.

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Does a topic sentence have to be at the beginning of a paragraph?

No, though this is usually the most logical place for it. Sometimes a transitional sentence or two will come before a topic sentence:

We found in comedy that the term bomolochos or buffoon need not be restricted to farce, but could be extended to cover comic characters who are primarily entertainers, with the function of increasing or focusing the comic mood. The corresponding contrasting type is the suppliant, the character, often female, who presents a picture of unmitigated helplessness and destitution. Such a figure is pathetic, and pathos, though it seems a gentler and more relaxed mood than tragedy, is even more terrifying. Its basis is the exclusion of an individual from the group; hence it attacks the deepest fear in ourselves that we possess--a fear much deeper than the relatively cosy and sociable bogey of hell. In the suppliant pity and terror are brought to the highest possible pitch of intensity, and the awful consequences of rejecting the suppliant for all concerned is a central theme of Greek tragedy.

The context for this passage is an extended discussion of the characteristics of tragedy. In this paragraph, Frye begins by drawing a parallel between the figure of the buffoon in comedy and that of the suppliant in tragedy. His discussion of the buffoon occurred in a earlier section of the chapter, a section devoted to comedy. The first sentence of the current paragraph is transitional: it prepares the way for the topic sentence. The delayed topic sentence contributes to the coherence of Frye's discussion by drawing an explicit connection between key ideas in the book. In essays, the connection is usually between the last paragraph and the current one.

Sometimes writers save a topic sentence for the end of a paragraph. You may, for example, occasionally find that giving away your point at the beginning of a paragraph does not allow you to build your argument toward an effective climax.

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How do I come up with a topic sentence? And what makes a good one?

Ask yourself what's going on in your paragraph. Why have you chosen to include the information you have? Why is the paragraph important in the context of your argument? What point are you trying to make?

Relating your topic sentences to your thesis can help strengthen the coherence of your essay. If you include a thesis statement in your introduction, then think of incorporating a keyword from that statement into the topic sentence. But you need not be overly explicit when you echo the thesis statement. Better to be subtle rather than heavy-handed. Do not forget that your topic sentence should do more than just establish a connection between your paragraph and your thesis. Use a topic sentence to show how your paragraph contributes to the development of your argument by moving it that one extra step forward. If your topic sentence merely restates your thesis, then either your paragraph is redundant or your topic sentence needs to be reformulated. If several of your topic sentences restate your thesis, even if they do so in different words, then your essay is probably repetitive.

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Does every paragraph need one?

No, but most do. Sometimes a paragraph helps to develop the same point as in the previous paragraph, and so a new topic sentence would be redundant. And sometimes the evidence in your paragraph makes your point so effectively that your topic sentence can remain implicit. But if you are in doubt, it's best to use one.

http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/topic.html

When should I paraphrase, and when should I summarize?

To paraphrase means to express someone else's ideas in your own language. To summarize means to distill only the most essential points of someone else's work.

Paraphrase and summary are indispensable tools in essay writing because they allow you to include other people's ideas without cluttering up your essay with quotations. They help you take greater control of your essay. Consider relying on either tool when an idea from one of your sources is important to your essay but the wording is not. You should be guided in your choice of which tool to use by considerations of space. But above all, think about how much of the detail from your source is relevant to your argument. If all your reader needs to know is the bare bones, then summarize.

Ultimately, be sure not to rely too heavily on either paraphrase or summary. 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 entirely in your own words. You must do more than merely substitute phrases here and there. You must also completely alter the sentence structure.

It can be difficult to find new words for an idea that is already well expressed. 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. 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 include the page number of the original passage 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 recently seen it. 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. The original passage is 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 contactinnate, inborn, analogous to a physical or intellectual defectKanner 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 parentsmothers, particularlywere 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 ages 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 defense 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 last sentence in the paragraph. The reader might be misled into thinking that the earlier sentences were not also indebted to Sacks' essay.

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 its second or third year of life. As Sacks points out, often a child who goes on to develop autism will still appear perfectly normal 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 (247-448).

Notice that this passage makes explicit right from the beginning that the ideas belong to Sacks, and the passage's indebtedness to him is signaled in more than one place. The single parenthetical note at the end of each paragraph is therefore all the citation that is needed. The inclusion of explicit references to Sacks not only makes the job of providing citations easier. It also strengthens the passage by clarifying the source of its facts and ideas. And it adds an analytical dimension to the paragraph: the passage doesn't just reiterate the points in Sacks' passage but lays out the structure of his argument. Note that the paraphrase splits the original into two separate paragraphs to accentuate the two-part structure of Sacks' argument. Finally, notice that not all the details from the original passage are included in the paraphrase.

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How do I summarize?

Summary moves much farther than paraphrase away from point-by-point translation. When you summarize a passage, you need first to absorb the meaning of the passage 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).