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PARAPHRASING & SUMMARIZING

WRITING 3

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Paraphrasing Example

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Basic Summarizing Example

• Original:• Sales career brings excellent earnings potential.

Actual earnings may vary widely depending on many factors including the type of position, the field, and the ability to earn commissions or bonuses.

• Summary:• Jobs in sales offer varying degrees of financial

rewards.

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Practice 1 (Basic level) paraphrasing and summarizing:Rephrase the main idea of each sample in your own words, without repeating words or

sentence structure from the original statement

1. Right now, smartphones are selling like mad in the U.S. market, where sales jumped 84 percent between 2007 and 2008.

2. There needs to be a shift to local food that is organic, free of pesticides, fertilizers, and preservatives; that is produced in ways that do not harm consumers, food workers, animals, or our soil and water; and that provides dignity to those who produce as well as consume it.

3. There have never been so many opportunities to work in the environmental field. In Canada, more than half a million people are employed in green jobs, and over one hundred thousand organizations have at least one environmental employee

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Conti’d

4. Although poor training and inadequate resources have caused many plagiarism problems, the Internet has added to the challenges. At University of Toronto, plagiarism related to the Internet increased from 50% to 99% of cases between 2000-2001 and 2001-2002.5. Currently the media devotes more attention to problems than solutions, to dramas than success. This has a significant effect on people’s consciousness, leading to the belief that the world is a horrible place, failure is everywhere, and the odds of success poor.

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Practice 2 (Intermediate and advance level) paraphrasing & summarizing.

• 6. Retail stores and shopping malls are facing a variety of competition, ranging from superstores to video shopping, and are countering by introducing entertaining into their retail plans. The Mall of America contracted with Knotts Berry Farm to provide a central amusement core in this, the largest mall in the United States.

• 7. Asthma, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, allergies and many other human health problems have been linked to poor air quality. In the environment, decreased species biodiversity and vegetation productivity have been found. Air pollution can also have a significant impact on our economy. It can cost a lot to change what we buy, what we use, and how it is produced in order to prevent air pollution. Economic costs are also found in fixing the damage caused by poor air pollution, including health and environmental problems

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Conti’d

• 8. Imagine you are at a party. During the evening, you form impressions about people around you. Jonte seems relaxed and even-tempered. Nicole tense and irritable. Kyndra seems open and straightforward. Betty hostile and evasive. Andrew seems happy to see you; Seth definitely is not. How do you reach these conclusions? To a suprising extent, you reach them not on the basis of what people say with words, but because of what they say with their posture, gestures, eyes, and facial expressions. Suppose you are sitting next to Andrew, and he says, “This is a great party. I am really great to be here with you.” However, his body is turned slightly away from you, and keeps looking at someone across the room. Despite whatr he says, you know he is not glad to be here with you

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Conti’d

• 9. One of the problems with using the Internet for information is that this medium is unregulated. The information may be biased, or just plain wrong, because no authority monitors the content of the sites. How do you determine what information is accurate and credible? Ultimately, you will have to make that decision. Ask yourself whether someone would have a reason to present biased information. If at all possible, verify the information through other sources, such as newspaper or magazine articles. If the source is a scholarly article, check for a list of references, and if a list of references is provided, try to determine whether the list is credible by verifying some of the sources. Finally, credible sources often provide the credentials of the individual(s) who wrote the article. If no source is provided, be cautious. Moreover, Web sources should be evaluated like any other source.

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Cont’d

• 10. Twitter is so trendy. The microblogging service has spawned a vocabulary all its own, with words such a tweople (Twitter-speak for people), twirting (flirting) and tweeps (friends) showing up in tweets (posts, which must be under 140 characters). There’s also twitterhea – the unstoppable urge to tweet. The lingo makes Twitter users feel like they’re part of a community, says assistant professor Jennifer Clary-Lemon of the University of Winnipeg.