Critical Supports ;))

Paraphrasing . . .

A paraphrase is when you write published materials in your own words without changing its original meaning.

Steps for paraphrasing


1. Read the source article or section of the book carefully.
2. Decide what you are going to include, read it carefully and then close the book and/or turn over the article.
3. Write, in your own words, your understanding of that idea, data or theory.
4. Re-read the source and make sure that:
 you have represented their ideas, data, theories accurately;
 you have included the whole idea, theory and/or data; and
 you haven’t copied their sentence structure and/or word usage.
5. Integrate that paraphrase properly into your paper/presentation


Summarizing . . .

involves putting the main idea into your own words, including only the main point. once again, it is necessary to attribute summarized ideas to the original source. summaries are significantly shorter than the original and take a broad overview of the source material.

Steps of summarizings


1. Read article again quickly, looking specifically for the types of details (quotes, statistics, etc.) the author uses to make her point.
2. Immediately after reading, quickly jot down all the examples you recall.
3. Re-read the article to see if these examples are representative of the types of proof used. If not, add to your list as you re-read.
4. Write a summary sentence that introduces all the different categories of proof.
5. Provide one or two representative examples from your list. Choose examples that are either the most common or the most persuasive


Qouting . . .

it must be identical to the original, to using a narrow segment of the source. they must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author.

Steps of Qouting


1. take as little as possible: take only what you need to make your point, the less content you copy, the better off you are. try to keep the content copied in a single span under a sentence or two, a long paragraph at most.
2. add original content: the higher the ratio of original content to copied content, the better the new article will perform. if you can make it so that at least half the content is original, your odds of good SE performance will improve.
3. paraphrase, don't quote: the SEs only detect duplicate content that matches exactly, if you can rewrite what another sites had said, with attribution but without quoting it directly, the SEs will treat it as original content.
4. use the blockquote tag: the blockquote tag is more than just a means to visually separate quoted content, it is also an indication to the SEs that the content is quoted and should not be counted as original content. by being upfront with the SEs, they are less likely to treat you site as spam and demote you.
5. link bacl: though outband linking may seem counter-productive, as with the blockquote tag, a link black to the source tells the SEs where the content came from and that you are not trying to be deceptive. this further encourages the SEs to focus on your new material and rank it well.


synthesizings. . .

information requires a student to process and interact with information rather than simply copying and pasting information. students are actively engaged with information when they categorize, analyze, combine, extract details, re-assess the value of the collected info.

steps of synthesizings

1. Read the material

2. Take brief notes of important points in the written material on 3" x 5" cards or in note books. If cards are used, turn them into flash cards with a word or two on the front and explanation on the back for easy review.

3. Listen to lectures on the subject.

4. Note the main points of the lectures and why they are important in a notebook.

5. Write down what was learned from the reading and lectures without referring to notes or reading. Not everything will be remembered, but it will help to start synthesizing the information, and give an idea of what to focus on in the review.

6. Review reading and lecture notes. Reviewing can be as simple and quick as looking over the notes. Covering parts of the notes and trying to remember what they were about by looking at a key word or two is another way to review.

7. Make new note cards using the information from notes of reading, lectures, and what was learned. These cards become flash cards of all the notes for a more thorough review while helping to synthesize all the information. Put key words and ideas on one side with the explanation on the other.

8. Draw conclusions based on the information studied and make note cards of these. Conclusions emphasize the meaning and importance of the topic.

9. Write an outline of what was learned along with conclusions drawn. An easy way to organize the outline is to use the note cards made in steps 7 and 8. This is all of the information learned along with fresh ideas. The cards can be organized easily and the order changed until the best organization is found.
10. Write a paper using this synthesized information.