Category Archives: writing

Quick Tips Part 8: When to Quote, Paraphrase, and Summarize in Your Papers

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Quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing are all crucial to writing a persuasive, well-reasoned paper. But do you know when and how to use each one? The chart below can help with that.

Citation Technique Key Points When to Use It
Quoting
  • Use exact language of original source
  • Put quotation marks around original language
  • Use proper attribution
  • Avoid using quotes too often
  • Indent quotes of several lines (block quotes)
  • The language of the original text is important
  • The quote lends authority to the argument you are making
  • Paraphrasing or summarizing the text would make it lose some of its meaning or power
  • There is no other way to say something
Paraphrasing
  • Restate the original text in your own words
  • Restated text should have approximately same level of detail as original
  • Wording, sentence structure, and order of ideas should be significantly different from original
  • Faithful to the original meaning of the text
  • Use proper attribution
  • While quotes can be distracting, paraphrasing preserves continuity of style in your paper
  • You want to simplify or clarify vocabulary, sentence structure, or arguments of original text
  • You want to put technical language into language more appropriate for your audience
  • You want to show you’ve understood the text by stating it in your own words
Summarizing
  • Restate the original text in your own words
  • Should be much more condensed than the original
  • States only the main ideas
  • Wording, sentence structure, and order of ideas should be significantly different from original
  • Faithful to the original meaning of the text
  • Use proper attribution
  • The text you are summarizing supports your argument or provides background information
  • You want to draw attention to the points that are relevant to your paper
  • You want to leave out extraneous material
  • You want to simplify the material

Want more tips on how to write a paper?  Check out The Secrets of Top Students!

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Quick Tips Part 5: How to Come Up with a Thesis

Posted in college, college students, education, getting better grades, grades, high school, liberal arts, school, study skills, writing by

By Stefanie Weisman

If you’re a high school or college student, you probably dread having to come up with a thesis.  A thesis is the argument you make in your paper based on research and/or your own experience.  Sometimes a thesis will come to you very quickly, in a flash of inspiration.  But most of the time, it takes a lot more work.

When writing a research paper, consider yourself part of a scholarly debate.  It’s perfectly acceptable – even encouraged – to challenge the ideas you read in a book or heard from your teacher.  A thesis should be your own unique, original contribution to the debate.

To come up with a thesis, think critically as you read books, articles, and other sources.  You should constantly ask yourself questions such as:

  • Why did a person or character do something?  What motivates him/her?
  • Who/ What is responsible for an event or action?
  • What is the cause of something?  What is the effect of something?
  • What is the significance of an action or event?
  • What are some potential flaws in an author’s argument or idea?  Are there other possible explanations?
  • What do you think about an issue?  Do you agree with the given interpretation?  Why or why not?
  • How did an event or action take place?  Why did it take place the way it did?
As you do research, try thinking like a reporter – always ask “who, what, where, when, why, and how?”

Do you have any tips for coming up with a thesis?

For more tips on writing papers, check out The Secrets of Top Students.

Quick Tips Part 4: How to Use Google for Academic Research

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By Stefanie Weisman

Sure, you use Google to look up cute cat videos, but it can also be a great tool for academic research.  Here are some tips on how to use Google to find sources good enough to cite in your papers.

  • Use double quotes to search for an exact term or a set of words in a specific order.
  • Include “site:” to limit your search to a particular website (e.g., “site:nytimes.com”) or top-level domain (e.g., “site:.edu” – this is useful if you only want to search websites hosted by universities).
  • If you’re looking for pdf documents – which tend to be more scholarly than regular websites – enter your search term(s) followed by “filetype:pdf”.
  • When trying to find a term on a web page, don’t forget about Ctrl-F (or Command-F if you use a Mac).  Just type the word or phrase you want to find in the box that pops up, and it’ll show you all the places where it occurs.
  • Use Google Scholar to search for academic articles, and Google Books for easily searchable texts.

What are some Google search techniques you like to use?

For more tips on writing and research, check out The Secrets of Top Students.

Quick Tips Part 3: Common Grammar Mistakes All College Students Should Avoid

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Make sure you know the difference between . . .

  1.  Your vs. You’re
    • “Your” is the second person possessive adjective and describes something as belonging to you.
      • Ex.: Your paper is written very well.
    • “You’re” is the contraction of “you are.”
      • Ex.: You’re going to do very well on this test.
  2. Its vs. It’s
    • “Its” is a possessive adjective meaning “of it” or “belonging to it.”
      • Ex.: I love that bakery.  Its bread is to die for.
    • “It’s” is the contraction of “it is” or “it has.”
      • Ex.: It’s also got amazing coffee.
  3. There vs. Their vs. They’re
    • “There” can indicate a place, introduce a noun or clause, or be used for emphasis.
      • Ex.: I’m going to be sitting over there.
    • “Their” is the third-person plural possessive adjective meaning “of them” or “belonging to them.”
      • Ex.: I don’t like our new neighbors.  Their dog was barking all night.
    • “They’re” is the contraction of “they are.”
      • Ex.: They’re buying a house.
  4. Who’s vs. Whose
    • “Who’s” is the contraction of “who is” or “who has.”
      • Ex.: Who’s going to the baseball game tonight?
    • “Whose” is the possessive form of “who.”
      • Ex.: Whose baseball bat is this?
  5. Who vs. Whom
    • “Who” is a subject, the person performing the action of the verb.
      • Ex.: Who wants ice cream?
    • “Whom” is an object, the person to, about, or for whom the action is being done.
      • Ex.: To whom should I send this letter?
  6. Then vs. Than
    • “Then” can mean “at that point in time,” “next,” “in addition,” “also,” “in that case,” “therefore.”
      • Ex.: The man opened the door.  Then he turned off the light.
    • “Than” is a conjunction used in comparisons.
      • Ex.: He is taller than his brother.

For more tips on grammar and writing, check out The Secrets of Top Students.

Quick Tips Part 2: How to Use Citations in Your Papers

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By Stefanie Weisman

Writing a paper and need help with citations?  Can’t choose between APA, MLA, and Chicago Style?  Here’s a quick overview to help you decide:

The three most common citation styles are APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association), and CMS (Chicago Manual of Style).  Your teacher may tell you which one to use, but MLA is used most often in humanities courses; APA is generally used in social sciences, engineering, and business courses; and CMS tends to be used in history courses.

All of these citation styles consist of two parts:

  1. A section at the end of your paper, in which you list all the sources you used for your paper, in alphabetical order.  In MLA style, this is called the “Works Cited” page.  In APA style, this is called  the “References” page.  And in CMS style, this is called the “Bibliography.”  In this list, you will usually have to include the author of the work, the title, the journal or anthology it comes from (if applicable), the editor or translator (if applicable), the publisher, the publisher’s location, and the date of publication.  If your source is a website, you will probably have to list the web address and the date you accessed it.
  2. Attribution for each quote, paraphrase, and summary in your paper.  Whenever you use someone else’s words or ideas, you must state the source and the page number(s) where they come from.  This may occur in the form of in-text citation, which appears within the body of the paper (as in the case of APA and MLA); or in the form of footnotes or endnotes (as in the case of CMS).
You do NOT need attribution when:

  • You state your own, original ideas.
  • You state something that is common knowledge.

If you’re in doubt about whether something needs attribution, however, you’re better off citing it just to be on the safe side.

 

Here are some great online resources to help you with citations.

Online Guidelines:

  1. Bedford/ St. Martin’s Website guide to researching and documenting sources
  2. The OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab

Online Citation Generators:

  • Griffith University provides a free online referencing tool in which you select what citation style you are using and the type of source you are citing.  It then shows you an example of how to format that citation.
  • Son of a Citation Machine is another free online source in which you choose your citation style and enter information about your source in order to view the correctly formatted citation.
  • EasyBib provides a free citation generator for MLA format.
  • You can also use Zotero to organize your research and generate citations automatically.  This requires you to download some free software.

What are some tools you like to use?

For more tips on writing papers, check out The Secrets of Top Students.

 

Update on The Secrets of Top Students: First Translation!

Posted in college, college students, education, getting better grades, going to grad school, grades, high school, personal, review, school, study skills, writing by

I’m excited to announce that my book, The Secrets of Top Students: Tips, Tools, and Techniques for Acing High School and College, is now available in Chinese!  It’s being sold in Taiwan and you can find it here.  According to Google Translate, the title is “Gifted students do not stay up late! To get into elite precision Learning: time management, note and sit secret.”  I’m sure in Chinese it sounds a little more elegant.

The Secrets of Top Students in Chinese!

The Secrets of Top Students in Chinese!

In other news, my book is now available on the Staples website.

I’d also like to thank The Study Dude for highlighting my book in The Voice Magazine.

Secrets of Top Students Kindle Sale Update

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The Secrets of Top Students Kindle edition is currently the number 1 book in the Student Life and Study Guides categories on Amazon, and number 2 in Study Skills! Thank you for making this sale a success. Remember that you can still get your copy for $2.99 until May 11th!

The Secrets of Top Students on Amazon

The Secrets of Top Students on Amazon

Secrets of Top Students (and Other) Updates

Posted in college, education, getting better grades, grades, high school, study skills, travel, writing by

Many thanks to Nancy Ruhling for writing an article about me that appeared in the Huffington Post!  I am now officially an “Astoria Character.”  Check out the article here.

In other news, I’m super excited to be giving a talk about academic success at Stern College/ Yeshiva University next week.  I’ll be introducing the SMARTER system (SMARTER is an acronym for some of my top studying strategies).

I also recently went on a trip to Turkey.  Did you know that the city of Istanbul is full of beautiful, friendly cats?  It was like I had died and gone to heaven!

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