When summarizing an essay it is important to use our own words to convey the essay’s ideas. If we copy long passages from the essay, the reader of our summary cannot be sure if we truly understand the essay’s meaning. However, if we explain the essay’s ideas using different language, it will be apparent that we understand its meaning.
One method of altering an essay’s language is to use synonyms. A synonym is a word that has the same meaning as, or very similar meaning to, another word. For example, “barren” and “desolate” are two words that both mean “devoid of life”. Thus “desolate” is a synonym for “barren” (and vice versa). Another two words that are synonymous are “area” and “region” Therefore, when summarizing the sentence, “Deserts are barren areas of land”, we can write, “the reading explains that deserts are desolate regions of land.” Our summary has the same meaning as the original sentence, but it is not a direct copy. It is our own sentence. By using synonyms in this way we show that we understand the meaning of the original sentence and that we are capable of writing out own sentence.
A thesaurus is a very useful tool for finding synonyms. However, we must be careful when using synonyms from a thesaurus, because many words are polysemic – they have more than one meaning. As a result, depending on context, a word may be synonymous in one instance, but not in another. For example, if a source sentence reads, “I heard a sound,” we can change the sentence to, “I heard a noise,” and the original meaning is retained. However, if the source sentence is, “The word ‘bear’ and ‘bare’ have the same sound,” the word “noise” is not synonymous. We cannot say, “The word bear and bare have the same noise. For this reason, we must be sure that we understand the precise meaning of a word in the specific sentence we are paraphrasing before we choose a synonym for it.
Another, more complex way to demonstrate our understanding of a text is to paraphrase. Paraphrasing involves changing the grammatical structure of the source sentence while retaining its original meaning. For example, when summarizing the sentence “Deserts are barren areas of land”, instead of writing, “the reading explains that deserts are barren areas of land”, we could summarize, “the reading explains that barren land characterizes desert areas.” Of course, even better would be to paraphrase and use synonyms, thus producing “the reading explains that desolate land characterizes desert regions.” Now we have not only shown that we understand the meaning of the original sentence, but also that we have a vocabulary sufficient enough to use synonyms appropriately and that we are capable of reproducing meaning in our own language (by changing the sentence structure).
Ideally, when paraphrasing, you will do so in fewer words than the source material. One way to do this is to combine separate information from the reading into the one, complex sentence. For example, the reading states:
Deserts are barren areas of land. Little vegetation grows in deserts. This is a consequence of harsh weather conditions and the absence of minerals in the soil of these places.
We can combine the meaning of these three sentences and paraphrase them as:
The reading explains that desolate land characterizes desert regions, resulting from their extreme climates and the absence of soil nutrients in these places, which inhibits plant growth.
With this new, complex sentence, we have expressed the meaning of three sentences from the reading, and shown our understanding of that meaning by reproducing it in our own words.
Using synonyms is relatively easy, but still necessary. Restructuring sentences while retaining their original meaning is much more difficult, and much more important. It is one of the defining characteristics of a good writer to be able to impart information in an original way. It is a skill you must practice constantly if you wish to do it well.
