Anytime we use information that didn't come from our own heads, our own original experiments, or our own original data, we must have used some outside source. Simply put: either the information is ours or it is someone else's. When we want to convey information from some outside source we've encountered, we have three options for including it in our work. We could 1) quote, 2) paraphrase, or 3) summarize the information.
Indicate a quotation by using quotation marks, quote exactly from the source (preserving capitalizations and misspellings), and integrate a quotation into your own text by, say, using an attributive tag.
Tip: Never plop a quotation into your text alone -- this is called a "dropped quotation." Instead, incorporate the quotation using a signal phrase to help prepare the reader for someone else's words.
Paraphrase: The paraphrase is a common method of conveying information from a source. We rarely remember ideas word-for-word and infrequently need to rely on exact phrasing. Rather, it is the information itself that is important. A successful paraphrase accurately conveys the content of the original and is about the same length as the original, but it uses your own phrasing and sentence structure.
Tip: An unsuccessful paraphrase could be considered plagiarism for the following reasons: it used too much of the original text's language, or it relied on the original's sentence structure and merely substituted synonyms. A good strategy for writing a paraphrase is to write it without looking at the original source. Then check it against the original to ensure that you've accurately restated the content and that you've used your own vocabulary.
Summary: The summary is the best way to provide a great deal of information from an outside source very briefly. The summary is a condensed version of the original text which retains all of the original's important ideas. In other words, the summary restates the original's thesis and reasons using your own words. Because it conveys only the important ideas, a summary does not include anecdotes, examples, statistics, or other kinds of evidence.
Tip: An
unsuccessful summary could be considered plagiarism if it depends too heavily
on the vocabulary of the original text. A good strategy for writing the
summary is to try and write it without looking at the original. Check your
summary against the original source to make sure you've got ALL the important
points restated in your own words. If you're incorporating a summary into
your own text, make liberal use of attributive tags to indicate to your
readers which sentences are still part of the summary.