Poorly written research papers are often characterized by over-use of sources strung together in an attempt to let the sources write the paper. Student writers should learn to introduce sources, providing smooth transitions between the writer's own words and the words of others. Students should learn to paraphrase , to summarize , and to quote and to use each method of citation appropriately. To paraphrase , writers use their own words to restate the ideas of the original source. The paraphrase changes word choice and sentence structure but maintains the approximate length of the original.
Summaries are always much shorter than the original source.
To quote , writers preserve the exact words, punctuation, and capitalization, and even the errors, of the source. In practice, writers nearly always mix all three methods of citation. In order to summarize a paragraph, a writer may paraphrase the topic sentence but choose to retain, in quotes, the source's most vivid word choice. Hodges , John C., Winifred Bryan Horner, Suzanne Strobeck Webb, and Robert Keith Miller. The Harbrace College Handbook .