Skills of Research Writing

1. Skills of Research Writing CCII, Group C Ms. Jennifer Chiu

2. Paraphrase • Paraphrasing is the skill of expressing someone else’s ideas in words of your own. • Paraphrasing is essential for writing a report, a research paper or thesis. • A good paraphrase • Reduces the material slightly • Shows that you read the material carefully • Reflects the author’s ideas accurately and completely • Uses cleareffectivelanguage.

3. How to paraphrase? • Read the passage carefully for its main ideas . • Arrange the major ideas. • Write out in your words. • Check if important information from the original is missing or being distorted in your writing. • Check if your sentence of paraphrase is both grammatically and syntactically correct.

4. Summary • A summary expresses someone else’s ideas in words of your own, but is much shorter than the original. • A good summary • Shows you understand the material • Shows you understand the difference between main points and details • Reflectsobjectivity, completenessandbalance • shows effective writing.

5. How to summarize? • Read the article carefully for main ideas. • Check for thesis and topic sentences. • Select and arrange major ideas. • Write out in your words.

6. Synthesis • To synthesize is to combine related information from different sources into your own text. • You have to be able to paraphrase and summarize well in order to synthesize well.

7. How to synthesize? • Read the different materials. • Summarize and paraphrase the materials. • Check the relationship between the different passages (agreement, addition, contrast) • Write the synthesis.