Sunday, 16 November 2008

Quest Question: to quote or to paraphrase?

As we noted last week, in academic writing, we sometimes want to quote another person's exact words and we sometimes want to paraphrase what the person has written. For example, in "Carving the Roast Beast", Stephen Law both paraphrases and quotes the philosophers Peter Singer (p. 130) and Roger Scruton (p. 134); on page 132, he also paraphrases, but does not quote, the philosopher Mary Midgley. 

Why do we frequently use other people's words or ideas in our writing? Why did Law use Singer, Midgley and Scruton? 
Which do you think is usually preferable, to quote or to paraphrase? Why? 

Next week, we will be looking more closely at the the section on Paraphrasing and Citing Your sources on page 188 of Quest (Hartmann, 2007), but you might like to share your ideas on the more general questions here before we start looking more closely at how to do it. 
________ 
References
Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing (second ed.). McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT 
Law, S. (2003). Carving the roast beast, in The Xmas Files (pp.124 - 140). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

3 comments:

  1. Why do we frequently use other people's words or ideas in our writing?
    - We need information from other sources or prior info to support and compare with our info. Also we show them where we bring that info form and help them decide how much that information and/or our info can be reliable.

    Why did Law use Singer, Midgley and Scruton? These are their Surname.
    - They usually use the author’s last name.

    Which do you think is usually preferable, to quote or to paraphrase? Why?
    - I prefer both but will base on my objectives and how appropriate they are for meaning and writing format. For example, paraphrasing would be better to combine an amount of long information like three or more. Quoting would be better when that information is difficult to understand (difficult words), or that info or word have several meaning and may be changed meaning or misunderstand if do not use them. Or that info is important to keep the same writing to the reader.

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  2. I like Ma's responses, especially the one that I think is exactly wrong. I wonder what other people think about it and Ma's other comments?

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  3. We frequently use other people’s words in our writing because they can support our writing. The other people’s ideas are theory or research that everyone accept it, and sometimes they are the fundamentals that are the beginning of the new things. I think quote is usually preferable because it is the original word. As a result, mistake in understanding is not happen.

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