Today’s Plan:
- Purdue University Guide to Paraphrasing
- Paraphrasing Secondary Material
- Introducing and Contextualizing Sources
I want to spend time today on working with sources. First, we’re going to think about how to condense longer direct quotes into short, efficient paraphrases. Essentially, a paraphrase is simply putting someone else’s work into your own words. Paraphrases condense and clarify sources.
When I draft a paper, I tend to use a lot of direct quotes. As I revise, and especially as I do the work to contextualize and summarize quotations in my paper, I find I can take a lot of them out. We’ll start with the Purdue OWL’s six-step system for paraphrasing. I’ll say upfront that I agree with their claim that working through these steps often helps me better understand the source material I am working with. That is, learning to paraphrase doesn’t just help you communicate better, but also think better too.
(Modified) Purdue University Guide to Paraphrasing
Here’s a link to the original 6 step Purdue Guide. Here’s my slight modification:
- Reread the original passage sentence by sentence until you have a grasp of 1) what it is arguing [the claim] and 2) what it is offering as evidence
- Write out a list of key terms or phrases that you would need to explain to someone who hasn’t read the original work. What specific-tricky-key language does the original contain
- Take a swing at paraphrasing the material
- Afterwards, check to see if you’ve included all of the terms from step #2. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
- Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source. For instance, if I were writing about Sicart, I would quote “player complicity” or “instrumental gaming” the first time those phrases appeared, since they are so specific to his work.
- Craft a quality signal to proceed the paraphrase
Paraphrasing Secondary Material
I have two examples for today’s class:
- Summers and Miller, 2014. From Damsels in Distress to Sexy Superheroes
- Elvery, 2022. Undertale’s Loveable Monsters: Investigating Parasocial Relationships with Non-Player Characters
Introducing and Contextualizing Sources
Finally, I want to swing back to a lecture from earlier in the course.
Homework
For Wednesday, if possible, bring a pair of headphones to plug into the lab computers in Ross 1240.
