SUMMARIZING, PARAPHRASING AND RETELLING



Summarizing, paraphrasing, and retelling are closely related processes, however there are certain
differences among them.


Paraphrasing

When students are asked to “put things in their own words” when taking notes, they are actually
being told to paraphrase. Paraphrasing is, therefore, restating ideas in different words. This is
quite different from retelling and summarizing, both of which require a reader to gain a global
picture of the text.


Retelling

Retelling is a skill we learn very early on. After hearing or reading a story, a child retells the
events to a listener. In recent years, retelling has become more popular as a tool for both
instruction and assessment.


A summary is a shortened version of an original text, stating the main ideas and important details
of the text with the same text structure and order of the original.


Summarizing language:


As was previously stated/mentioned…

As has been mentioned,…

As has been noted,…

All in all,…

To put it briefly…

Given these points, …

To summarize, …

In summary,…

To sum up, …

To be brief,…Briefly…

On the whole, …

In conclusion, …

Consequently,…

In short,…

Overall,…

So…

Thus…

Then…

In all…

Hence…