Summarizing Vs. Rewriting: What’s The Key Difference?
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Are you confused about how summarizing and rewriting differ? If yes, you are not alone. It is also confusing for many writers, students, and even some business professionals. While both deal with restating an existing piece of content, they have key differences that are essential to understand. With a strong grip on both concepts, it becomes easy to make the most of them. So, why not have a comparative analysis between them? Wouldn’t it be helpful for you? If yes, come along to explore more.
Summarizing & Rewriting—An Introduction
Before we go into the depth of these concepts, let’s first briefly introduce both.
Summarizing
Summarizing refers to condensing an existing piece of content. In simple words, it mainly involves compacting information without losing key points. In this technique, the aim is usually to restate the already present information in a way that becomes short but contains the core message.
Rewriting
On the other hand, rewriting is a skill that requires you to rewrite a sentence, paragraph, or the whole document uniquely. It focuses on giving a new touch to existing material while retaining the message as it was. To put it simply, it is another term used for rephrasing content without losing meaning.
Summarizing Vs. Rewriting: Key Dissimilarities
Now that you have learned the basics of both terms, it is time to dive into their differences. So, let’s get started.
Objective
In the case of summarizing, the only purpose is to extract the main points from the long text. It is mainly used to provide a quick glimpse of the lengthy document. So, it is primarily best when you need to present a brief version of a file to anyone.
On the other hand, rewriting is utilized for different objectives. For instance, some people use it to clarify complex information, while others use this technique to avoid plagiarism. Even that it can also be helpful in situations when you want to refresh old content.
Text Length
When you summarize text, the length of the summarized content is always less than the original one. It depends on your needs to what extent you want to shorten the length of your summary. For instance, in some cases, the summary could be half the length of the source file.
However, the length doesn’t need to be changed in case of rewriting. Instead, you have to restate content in nearly the same amount of words as the source text. This is because you are not supposed to miss any details while rephrasing content, especially the longer ones.
Level Of Detail
Summarizing focuses on retaining the most important details only. You can’t add any unnecessary information that has nothing to do with the main theme. Instead, when you summarize a paragraph, essay, or article, you provide a broader view with key points.
In contrast, every detail is kept as it is when you rewrite content. Even that you can’t miss a single idea. However, you may use your own voice to clarify things further. But you have to preserve all of the points mentioned in the original text while using unique wording.
Structure
While rewriting, you usually write the information in the same flow as the source file. The headings and subheadings remain the same; only the wording and sentence pattern of the body content change.
In contrast, every detail is kept as it is when you rewrite content. Even that, you can’t miss a single idea. However, you may inject your own voice to further clarify things. But you have to preserve all of the points mentioned in the original text while using unique wording.
Turnaround Time
The turnaround time depends on how long the text you need to write is. So, it clearly indicates that summarizing requires less time. However, it may vary depending on to what extent you want to shorten the text. For instance, longer summaries take more time than shorter ones.
In the case of rewriting a document, you have to spend a sufficient amount of time. The longer the text to be rewritten, the more time is required to complete the task. However, for instant rewrites, you can capitalize on an online paragraph rewriter. It will help you restate the text within seconds without compromising on quality.
Effective Tips For Summarizing And Rewriting
Learning the difference is not enough; you should also know how to rewrite or summarize text effectively. That’s why we have listed below some effective tips for both purposes. Let’s look at them.
Best Summarizing Practices
- Go through the entire content carefully so that you can summarize it correctly.
- Highlight the main points while reading the text to be summarized for convenience.
- State the text in as few words as possible to keep the length of the summary short.
- Get assistance from an online summary generator if you struggle to find key points.
- Ensure coherence between sentences and paragraphs to bring clarity to the summary.
Best Rewriting Practices
- Understand the source content first to create a base to rewrite it while staying unique.
- Incorporate easy vocabulary when rewriting text to make it easily understandable.
- Vary sentence structures to bring an apparent difference in the rewritten version.
- Don’t try to mimic the source text; rather, use different wording to be unique.
- Compare the rewritten and original content to ensure there are no similarities.
To Sum Up
To put it in a nutshell, summarizing and rewriting vary in objective, length of text, level of detail, turnaround time, and structure. We have talked about all these factors in detail. Now, we hope that the difference between these concepts is clear to you. So, from now on, it will be easy for you to apply each of these techniques for the right purpose.
Important Note: Don’t forget to cite all the original sources while summarizing & rewriting them.