Paraphrasing: Rephrasing an author’s text

5.5 Writing memorandums or memos: Notes to yourself
Another type of practice-writing that you can do is to compose short memos
for yourself. In these memos you can comment on what you have read. Your
comment may be a brief evaluation or interpretation, or it may be a cross-
reference to another author or text. You may also note where you think you
could place the information in your temporary outline.
3
Here is an example of a memo written by a student who is reading a book
on schools and their communities. This reader has just read through the sec-
tion where the author has described two schools – one has an open-door poli-
cy and parents and other community members are welcome; the other has a
high fence, and in a two-week observation period the only visitors to the
school were officials from the education department and repairmen. She
writes the following memo, in which she reminds herself about theories that
she has read and about aspects of research methodology:
BOOK FINAL 25/10/04 4:37 pm Page 52

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WRITING SUMMARIES: GIVING THE GIST IN YOUR OWN WORDS
Coupled with good (full-sentence) summaries and some neat definitions and
paraphrases, memo writing not only gives you good practice in writing; it is
also a way of making sure that you capture your thinking in written lan-
guage – while you are reading. All these pre-composition activities together
enhance the framework of thoughts and language that you are building prior
to actually starting the writing process. Write your memo and file it accord-
ing to the theme. We suggest that you file all these short chunks of writing in
one system – according to themes. You will be thankful when you write the
essay of having access to a systematic source of organised information.
5.6 Writing summaries: Giving the gist in your own words
One other way to capture information in your personal information system
is to make summaries. Again this is a skill that most of you may have per-
fected by now. The secret of a good summary is that it gives the most impor-
tant information and that it does so in full sentence format. Therefore, when
you need to use the summary in your writing, you will not be confronted
with cryptic one-word entries that mean little to you. When you make cryp-
tic notes or summaries while you read you may fully comprehend what they
mean at the time, but once you have made many different types of notes and
have covered many different themes, they will be useless. Therefore, go to
the trouble of writing in full sentences and, where necessary, even full short
paragraphs. Often you will be almost forced to use the paragraph exactly as
it is, as is the case with the complete definitions you have recorded.
Summaries are especially valuable when you need to cite compressed
lists of information to add credibility to your line of thought. You can also
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An example of observation research in a Soweto school. What was the rest
of the research methodology? What is the author’s view on “community”? I
need to link this with the Sergiovanni book that I read – his explanation of
the theory of “community” of Tönnies – there is also a good link with
Dürkheim’s anomie theory. Why are the people in this school’s community
so alienated from the school and vice versa?