Framing summarized source material in your paragraphs...

When you write a summary of one of your sources, you need to use proper in-text citation or else you are committing plagiarism. Here is an example of a framing technique used to introduce and end your summary. You frame the summarized material between a signal phrase and the parenthetical in-text citation. I'll write this example in APA style.

you:                     Far fewer women enter computer programming as a career than men. Visit any
signal          computer  sciences department and the disparity will be obvious. According to 
phrase:        Laura Sydell's NPR report (2013) "Blazing the Trail for Female Programmers," 
summary:    female programmers make up only 20% of their field. However, women entrepreneurs
                  who head computer companies are attempting to change the situation. They say that 
                  it is crucial to insist on a diverse hiring pool when dealing with recruiting firms. 
                  Interest in the field is growing among women, too, as evidenced by high enrollment in 
                  workshops like Rails Bridge. An added incentive is that the field can be ideal for 
citation:       women who are raising families and need flexible scheduling (Sydell, 2013). Thus, 
you:            there are many reasons why the gender imbalance in computer programming may 
                  change in the future.   

Replacing that for this plagiarism

This type of plagiarism might be accidental or it might just be sneaky. But it is something to avoid doing, either way. What it looks like is this ... a person likes a particular sentence from an author and tries to "put it in your own words" by replacing certain words with synonyms (words that mean the same thing). For example, let's say the original sentence went like this: Bell bottoms were the most popular pants in the 1970's. Replacing that for this plagiarism would look like this: Wide-legged trousers were the most favored pants in the 70's. This type of plagiarism stands out in a paper because the word choices sound forced and the sentence changes in style compared to those around it. Also, people sometimes argue that if they just put the original author's name in in-text citation after the sentence, then it is not plagiarized -- but that's not true. The sentence is plagiarized even with in-text citation because its structure and general wording were copied. I've seen entire paragraphs plagiarized in this way; one look at the original source and it is obvious that every single sentence is in the same position and has a few words replaced with similar ones. For information on how to truly "put it in your own words" see my other plagiarism posts.

I've been told to paraphrase, but I don't know how.

In my experience paraphrasing, for most new writers, is an invitation to plagiarize. Be very wary of attempting it if you are not already good at quoting, summarizing, and avoiding puzzle piece plagiarism and replacing that for this plagiarism. Paraphrasing means you take a sentence or two of an author's writing and you rephrase it by (...oh, dear, here we go again...) "putting it in your own words." This is some of the worst advice ever given to new writers because they will commit accidental plagiarism when trying to paraphrase. Think of paraphrasing as writing a very small summary of a very small section of text. It is almost impossible for your brain to not hold onto the words you've read many times over when the text you want to reword is just two sentences. Attempts at paraphrasing are riddled with puzzle piece plagiarism and replacing that for this plagiarism. You will only be able to paraphrase correctly if 1) you already understand how to summarize large sections of text without plagiarizing and 2) you know when to just quote the two sentences and save the bother of paraphrasing. My advice for new writers is to learn first how to quote small sections and to summarize longer sections properly without plagiarizing. If you can do that, then you'll start to sense when to paraphrase and how to do it right.

How can I summarize a source without copying?

The biggest cause of accidental plagiarism when summarizing a source is the way people study. Think about times when you've written a paper. You sit at the computer surrounded by your sources, and you alternate between reading a bit and writing a bit. Next thing you know, you've copied! The best way to summarize is to read your source a few times and then lock it away (in the car trunk if you have to) and take a break before returning to the computer and writing the key points from memory. If you stare at the source while summarizing, your smart brain will remember the author's words and sentence structure and spit them back out, earning you an F on your paper. After writing from memory, then go get your source and check the facts so that you don't misrepresent anything. This technique is something you've done before without realizing it: You read the newspaper at work, including an interesting article about a murder, and that evening you tell a friend on the phone all about the murder, summarizing the information when it is no longer in front of you. That's summary! ... But don't forget that when you summarize a source in your writing, you must also include in-text citation.

How do you "put it in your own words"?

The typical advice to take research and "put it in your own words" leaves a lot of room for error. As a result, people tend to commit accidental plagiarism including puzzle piece plagiarism and replacing that for this plagiarism. The problem is not that people aren't trying; it's a matter of how they are studying. Think about what you tend to do when you have to use research to prove your points. You sit in front of your computer, surrounded by the articles you've read, knowing that you must include info from the author to validate your points. So you read a favorite section of the article again, and then start typing "your own" sentences about it. The problem is your brain is too smart for your own good; it will remember words, phrases, and whole sentences from the author and you'll end up typing something a heck of a lot like the original. There are two ways to solve this issue. When you study the source, highlight any really good sentences that you may want to quote directly word-for-word later in your paper. Other than that, you should be summarizing the source, and you can't do so "in your own words" when it's right next to you. You've got to hide it from yourself! See my post on summarizing for more...

Puzzle piece plagiarism

Most plagiarism I have seen is accidental, and it happens because people don't understand what plagiarism looks like. They have heard the advice to "put it in your own words" but don't know how to do that without plagiarizing, not even realizing that what they've written isn't their own. One example of accidental plagiarism is what I call puzzle piece plagiarism. In their attempts to not plagiarize, people take a sentence they've read by an author and move the parts around, thinking that's how to "put it in your own words." For example, let's say the original sentence went like this: Bell bottoms were the most popular pants in the 1970's. It is plagiarism if it is rewritten like this: In the 1970's the most popular pants were bell bottoms. All that's happened is the original sentence was cut up and moved around. Sometimes people argue that if they put the author's name in in-text citation after the sentence then it's not plagiarized. However logical that might seem, it is still wrong because the words were copied and flipped from the original source. To learn how to borrow ideas from an author but truly "put it in your own words" see my other posts under the plagiarism label.