Learn to summarise and paraphrase better

I originally wrote this article for HubPages, but as the Arena Platform has closed that site, I’m republishing selected articles here on LearnedWords.

summarising is a very important skill in today’s fast-paced world. Being able to convey the most important information concisely and accurately, without wasting any time or causing misunderstandings, is a skill that many managers prize in their employees, and many employees appreciate in their managers.

Paraphrasing is equally important, as it is often used to check understanding of a task or problem. If you can paraphrase accurately and simply, many misunderstandings can be prevented.

Why summarise?

Summaries omit the detail and focus on the core, most important points in a longer piece of information. They are top-down, bird’s-eye views, and are used in all aspects of our lives.

Summarise to study better

When studying, summarising is important for note-taking, for the same reasons as paraphrasing: It helps link new information to existing information and cements the most important information in our thoughts. Being able to summarise lengthy articles or papers and link them together, provides the best background or base for a research report.

By learning how to summarise, we are also training ourselves to recogise important information quickly. This is especially useful and time-saving when skimming articles, papers, or websites for information that’s required to solve a problem.

Summarise at work

In the workplace, being able to summarise can save time, when checking your understanding of a task, describing a problem, preparing reports, or recommending solutions to problems. Meetings run faster, and documents are concise and clear.

Advertising is one form that we are exposed to all the time. Only the important (useful) features of a product are noted, usually in very short phrases, designed to catch our attention and desire.

Summarise in daily life

We summarise for our families and friends all the time. Instead of explaining every single detail of a trip recently taken or a movie recently seen, we choose to explain only the highlights. Or when giving directions, we explain only the most important decision points (not every street lamp or graffitied wall). Or even when we write notes for our parents to follow, so they don’t forget how to access and use their email.  

Summarising do’s and don’ts

One person’s summary will never be the same as another’s, as each individual has their own ideas of what information is most important. It is important that language teachers allow for this difference when planning tasks that require summarization skills.

Do:

• use your own words.
• only note the most important points, using keywords and phrases.
• read the original text multiple times, ensuring you don’t miss any critical points.
• ensure a summary is much shorter than the original source.
• include the original source in the references for a written document.
• read widely and try to develop a summary of the article/book in your head as you read.
• whenever you read anything, think about how you could write it better, more succinctly.

Don’t:

• include unnecessary details, examples, or supporting information.
• include your own opinions or thoughts.
• repeat phrases word for word—this is plagiarism.
• rely on AI and LLM tools to do it for you

Summarise visually

Mind maps or concept maps and other concise graphical representations of information are also summaries and can be used for learning new information, and also for planning documents or speeches, or for teaching a wide range of topics. You may find it easier to remember your notes if you scribble them into pictures and graphics.

Why learn to paraphrase?

Describing information that you have read or heard using your own words is paraphrasing. When a text has been well paraphrased, all of the details in the original text should be retained and should have the same meaning. It is much longer than a summary, which contains only the most important information.

Paraphrase to learn and teach better

Every person learns differently, they have different background knowledge. When a student learns something new, they build on existing knowledge. Writing notes in their own words links the new information much more solidly and clearly to their existing knowledge, and is therefore less likely to be forgotten.

It is vitally important that teachers are able to paraphrase, to ensure explanations or sections of textbooks are understood by each student. It is common for teachers to have to present the same information in many ways before the entire class understands.

Paraphrasing at work

Everyone will paraphrase differently, just as everyone uses language differently. Teachers (and managers or parents) will ask students and workers to paraphrase information or task instructions, to check that they have been understood correctly.

In the workplace, you can proactively paraphrase to confirm your understanding when asked to do a task. This saves time and avoids conflict when action is taken based on misunderstood requirements—how often have you heard (or said) “But I thought you meant … “?

Paraphrasing do’s and don’ts

Do:

• use your own words, synonyms or synonym phrases.
• change the order of the information, and change the grammar and sentence structure.
• keep the meaning, as well as the emphasis on and relationships between main and supporting points the same.
• reference the original text when paraphrasing written material.
• whenever you read anything, think about how you could write it better, more succinctly.

Don’t:

• repeat the information word for word, or change a word here and there, leaving most of the * text and the sentence order the same—this is plagiarism.
• add your own opinions or thoughts—the information should be the same as in the original source.
• rely on AI and LLMs to paraphrase - use your own words to gain and retain understanding.

Use paraphrasing and summarising together

Combined, the skills of paraphrasing and summarising will save you time and make great impressions in a workplace, where clear communication, good information recall, and efficient learning is rewarded.

These skills are vitally important when studying, both for note-taking and report writing. By summarising and paraphrasing you demonstrate a full understanding of the topic, identify the most important information, and explain using your own words.

And if you have to work with generated content from AI tools, you need to be able to summarise and paraphrase the tools’ overly wordy and oft repetitive output.

Paraphrase to learn a language

Summarising and paraphrasing both help with language acquisition, linking words and phrases together and improving the retention of new vocabulary.

Learning and remembering new vocabulary is a problem faced by most students. By regularly paraphrasing sentences, thoughts, and questions in the language you are learning, you will increase your vocabulary, encourage quick recall of words, and develop a more fluent grasp of the target language’s grammar.

summarising longer articles or speeches also helps in a number of ways, as more attention is paid to grammar and words to find the most important information. New words and unfamiliar grammar forms have a higher chance of being remembered when they have been simplified in a summary.

Other short note-taking skills such as mind-mapping can also help with vocabulary building, but work best when combined with paraphrasing to link the new knowledge to existing and reinforce sentence grammar.

Paraphrase to avoid plagiarism

One of the biggest problems for teachers in secondary and further education is plagiarism. Incorrectly paraphrased, copied sections of text from books or the internet mean that many students will fail or lose marks at some time during their studies.

This is becoming an even larger problem in today’s world with AI and LLM content generation tools regurgitating other people’s content with few if any changes.

Even years on, plagiarism can catch up with you. Politicians and high-ranking officials in universities and companies regularly lose their positions when it is found out that portions of their university work are plagiarised. The vice-chancellor of my university in Australia lost his job because he copied work. And several politicians in Germany have lost their jobs and pensions because they plagiarised in their university publications.

It’s important that everyone learns how to paraphrase, summarise, and present information in their own words to avoid being in such a situation.

Parents and teachers have a responsibility to educate younger children and discourage them from taking the “easy way out” and copying information.

These skills are most easily taught in the context of language classes but are used in all subjects. One way is to regularly model these skills to children — paraphrasing and summarising what they have just told you.

Practice every day to improve

Summarise: When you read a news article, think about how to summarise it to your best friend. Or to your parent. Or to a young child.

How did you change the language based on your target audience? Did you change the sentence structures or your explanations?

Paraphrase: When you read a quote, a message or an email from someone, or a definition of a word or phrase, paraphrase it into your own words to link it in your memory.