How much paraphrasing versus quoting?

A great question from a student recently, about how much paraphrasing we need to do versus quoting when we are developing definitions to scope a project.

As a rough rule, in academic writing we paraphrase 90% of the time, and use direct quotes 10% of the time. In reality, it probably works out to be more like a ratio of 98% to 2%.

So we both paraphrase AND quote in academic writing... and we cite all the materials which we use.

However, when we are working up a common set of definitions and understandings, at the beginning of our literature review, we will probably need to use more quotes. We do probably end up more at the 90%:10% ratio.

You can view a couple of pages from my Masters thesis here to give you an idea of what this looks like.

Sam