When summarizing or paraphrasing material from a source, remember that you must credit the source of the idea with an accurate citation, naming the author either in the sentence or in the citation. A correct citation is not sufficient to protect against charges of plagiarism, however: you must use your own words, sentence structure, and phrasing. Simply substituting synonyms for words in a source's original sentence is plagiarism, even if you credit the source accurately.

It is best to write your summary or paraphrase without the original source in front of you, and it is also wise to check your paraphrase against the original to make sure you have not inadvertently made your words too similar to those in your source.