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I am writing a master's thesis in the area of computer sciences. A lot of developer tools and software technologies/languages are involved. Each of these tools and software technologies has its own website and few sentences, that describe the "product" and provide a short overview. I could not write it better. It is concise and precise.

just a short example

Dart is an open-source, scalable programming language, 
with robust libraries and runtimes, for building web, server, and mobile apps. 
Dart is class based and object oriented, without being dogmatic.

How do I use that kind of text/description in my master's thesis? It is obvious that I want to avoid plagiarism but it seems to me such a waste of time if I want to have the same information/facts in the paragraph, but I would have to restructure the sentence or paragraph.

Do I quote it? Do I say something like: According to the website of XY, XY is...

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    You need to rewrite the same sentence. I suggest my student to avoid 5 consecutive similar words.
    – Mojtaba
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 14:57
  • hmmm rephrasing an idea might sound ok, but the promotiontext of the product is just a bunch of facts and adjectives.
    – Gero
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 21:44

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If you wish to quote the text verbatim, then you could write -- as you suggest -- "According to the developer's website, 'Dart is an open-source...' [citation]"

Bear in mind however, that you are writing a research thesis. You should be demonstrating your ability to discriminate, evaluate and criticise. In your short example, there are some statements which are open to debate. Are the libraries indeed robust? Is the development paradigm indeed non-dogmatic? Do you, as a learned academic user of the software, fully agree with these statements or can you offer some additional insight?

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    Good point. To insulate yourself from making unwarranted statements, quote (and cite the webpage).
    – vonbrand
    Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 21:11

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