Study skills and advice from an experienced Open University lecturer on modules DD102 (Introducing the social sciences), D120 (Encountering psychology in context), E232 (Exploring childhood and youth), E225 (Child Development). Most content also useful for students at other universities, especially social sciences.
There’s really only two occasions when it’s OK to include a quotation in an essay. The first is if you are quoting someone famous saying something in a famous way. You wouldn’t paraphrase Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream…” speech, or a line of Amanda Gorman’s poetry; you’d quote it directly. The other occasion is when you are quoting an extract of qualitative data; something said by a participant or one of the people the research is about. If you are describing research about people with disabilities, people who have experienced trauma, members of the Roma community, etc, you shouldn’t put words in their mouth but let them speak in their own words.
For everything else, you should paraphrase. Explain the ideas of textbook authors, journal article authors etc. in your words. Paraphrasing, rather than quoting, demonstrates that you understand what they meant. You should also explain why you chose these ideas to answer the question, rather than simply quoting and leaving the reader to guess why you chose that quotation.
I’ve attached a downloadable worksheet which guides you through the process of teasing apart a quotation to help you paraphrase it rather than quote it. I’ve adapted the worksheet with permission from an activity by Natalie Lancer of unicoach.org I highly recommend Natalie’s workshops for academic writing.
It’s normal to find writing in your own words hard at first. One thing that makes it much harder is when you read one sentence from the textbook, and then try to put that sentence in your own words, and then you read another sentence from the textbook and try to put that into your own words. It’s almost impossible to do that without just paraphrasing, which is a form of plagiarism. What you should do instead is to read a whole paragraph or section of the textbook and then close the textbook and try to explain the key ideas from that section in your own words. When I say “in your own words” I mean in the way you normally talk. You could use a voice recorder app on your phone to record yourself while you explain in words what you just read. Don’t try to sound “academic”, just use your normal way of talking as though you were describing something to a friend. It might sound something like this:
“Ummm, so there was this guy Booth and he did some research in London and he went round people’s houses in every street and made notes about who was living there and their ages and occupations. And he also made some notes about their ummmm I guess, like, their social class or status. And they seemed sort of judgmental calling people some people dirty and vicious and other people he called respectable. And he coloured in a map with different colours for the different social classes so you can see where the rich people lived and where the poor people lived. It’s important because, erm, because he was sort of inventing social science, how to do social science”
Then you can write that up into notes, tidying it up a little bit (removing the umms and errs for example) and maybe looking up the odd important detail, such as Booth’s first name and the date:
“Charles Booth did some research in London between 1886 and 1903. He went round people’s houses in every street and made notes about who was living there and their ages and occupations. He also made notes about their social class or status. These notes were sometimes judgmental, for example he called some people dirty and vicious, and other people he described as respectable. Booth used these notes to make a map with different colours for the different social classes. The map made it so you can see where the rich people lived and where the poor people lived. Booth’s work was important because he was inventing how to do social science. (Book 1, Chapter 1, pages 9-11)”
Now those are your notes, written up in your own words. None of these sentences are the same as the sentences in the textbook. It’s all your words.
When it comes to writing an assignment, you should use your notes as the primary resource and only refer to the textbook for references and to pick up additional details. For example if you were answering a question such as “How does social science differ from other ways of investigating social life, for example journalism or art?” and you wanted to write a paragraph about Booth you might write something like:
“One way that social science differs from other ways of investigating social life is that it attempts to be systematic. For example, one of the first systematic studies of social life in London was a survey done by Charles Booth between 1886 and 1903 (Blakeley and Staples, 2014). By visiting the houses in every street and making notes about who was living there and their social status, Booth produced a colour coded map of the city which showed where the rich people lived and where the poor people lived. This differs from a journalist or an artist because they might only talk to a few people and ask them different questions each time. But Booth visited every house and collected data about the same things in each one i.e. he was systematic. In some ways though Booth’s research was more like journalism or art because he also made moral judgements about people. For example he called some people dirty and vicious, and other people he described as respectable. Modern social scientists are supposed to avoid making moral judgments like this.”
After some practice you’ll be able to skip the voice recording part and write notes in your own words after reading a paragraph or section.
Step by step guide to writing in your own words
DON’T read a sentence from your textbook then try to write that sentence in your own words.
DO read a whole paragraph or section of your textbook at a time
THEN close your textbook and record yourself explaining the main points of that section in your own words
WRITE UP your spoken notes, tidying up the “umms” and “errs” and adding in important details checked from the textbook
BASE YOUR ESSAY mainly on your notes, using your textbook for additional details
Melanie Rimmer 