Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Reflecting

Video Transcription

Hi, I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to Conflict Resolution-- Putting the Pieces Together. Today, we're going to talk about how we can summarize, paraphrase, and reflect when we are being an active listener.

So I'm going to bring you to this scenario. Have you ever felt like you were repeating yourself over and over and over and over to somebody? You were a broken record.

And the people just were not getting it. They weren't getting what you wanted to say to them. They weren't giving you what you needed from them. And we needed something more.

When a speaker is repeating themselves over and over or being more forceful in their message, that typically means that they feel that they haven't been heard. And so when we are active listening, we need to recognize this as a cue for us to do one of three things-- summarize, paraphrase, or reflect.

So let's use a scenario so we can really understand about summarizing, paraphrasing, and reflecting. So let's say you're talking to your friend. And they told you this scenario.

I have so much to do today. I did all of my laundry, went to the grocery store, cooked lunch, and then picked up the kids from their friend's house. We then played games all afternoon and ordered pizza for dinner. After the kids went to bed, I started studying.

So what are you going to do when you have or heard your friend say this scenario? Well, you may choose to summarize. And we when we summarize, we are making a checklist of the key points.

So I may see something like this. You cooked and did laundry, picked up your kids and played. You ordered pizza for dinner. And you studied after the kids went to bed.

So when we're summarizing, we are making a list of the key points of the speaker's message. I could paraphrase. You accomplished a lot today. You got some chores and cooking done before you picked up your kids. You had fun playing with your kids. After they went to bed, you studied.

So when we paraphrase, we are restating what the speaker tells us in our own words. And when we do this, we are trying to demonstrate or show understanding that we heard what the speaker wanted to say.

We also may choose to reflect. And a reflection could look something like this. Sounds like you had a very full day. You must be tired out from all of that work and fun.

Well, in active listening when we reflect, we are letting the speaker know that again, we heard their message, but usually when we do reflection, it deals with recognizing a speaker's emotions. So here, we recognize that it was a full day and your friend must be tired out.

The last thing that we're going to talk about is, how do we know when to summarize, paraphrase, or reflect. Well, there's a couple of different ways in which we can do this. But I want you to keep in mind that really all three of these are effective ways to demonstrate we are listening and understanding.

And we may choose to summarize when somebody is giving us tasks or directions and we can list back the specific points on those. Or when a speaker is really repeating themselves or making a long statement, that's what I like to paraphrase what they're saying. Or we can reflect when we are seeing that emotions are charged and displayed.

So really we need to focus on body language and tone of voice to really determine which of these will be appropriate. But if for some reason you get it wrong, which I don't think you can ever really get it wrong-- let's say you choose to summarize and maybe that's not exactly what the person is looking for-- you may then choose to reflect. And that's what they're looking for.

So you really just got to practice with this. I say there's no wrong answers. Keep an eye on body language and tone of voice, and you'll get it.

So now that we've talked about the active part of listening and summarizing, paraphrasing, and reflecting, let's look at our key points. What a speaker is on repeat, that should be an indication to us as a listener that they need a specific response. And those responses are paraphrasing, summarizing, and reflecting, and so going back to our speaker example with our friend, looking at those three examples on how we could paraphrase, summarize, and reflect.

And when we choose to paraphrase, summarize, and reflect, we really determine which one to use rather loosely. And so we want to focus on people's tone of voice and their body language and our own instincts and knowledge of the person on which one to use. But if we somehow get it wrong, which really you can't get it wrong, in my opinion, you just choose a different one and go with that, and you will be fine.

And finally, just because you are paraphrasing, summarizing, or reflecting with somebody, doesn't mean that you have to agree with them. It just means that you are being an awesome active listener and you are showing understanding. But you don't have to agree with what they have to say.

Well, that's all that we have for you today. Here are your key terms. Feel free to pause and look them over.

Thank you so much for taking the time out to view this tutorial. I really hope that you've gained something. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.