Which practice best preserves accuracy when summarizing across multiple articles?

• A. Including many direct quotes
• B. Maintaining identical wording to each source
• C. Focusing on the main idea and key details in your own words
• D. Adding personal opinions

Answer: (C)

Summarizing across multiple articles with accuracy means distilling the central ideas and key details from each source and expressing them in your own words. This approach shows you understand how the pieces fit together and helps you present a clear, cohesive picture of what the sources collectively say. Paraphrasing keeps the summary concise and lets you emphasize relationships, contrasts, and overarching themes rather than getting lost in exact phrasing. Direct quotes can preserve exact language, but overusing them in a synthesis can disrupt flow and make it harder to see how ideas connect. Relying on identical wording from each source makes it difficult to blend information clearly and can risk misrepresenting meaning, plus it risks plagiarism. Adding personal opinions would distort the summary, since accuracy means accurately reflecting what the sources claim, not injecting your own stance. So focusing on the main idea and key details and restating them in your own words is the best way to produce a precise, integrated overview.