Dos and Don'ts of Paraphrasing

DO Understand When to Quote and When to Paraphrase

Direct quotation is best for well-worded material that you cannot express any more
clearly or succinctly in your own style. (It's actually the preferred way of reporting
sources in the arts, particularly in literary studies.) Shortening a long quote is a great
way of retaining the original phrasing while ensuring that the quote reads well in your
paper. However, direct quotations are often discouraged in the sciences and social
sciences.

Paraphrasing is best used for long portions of text that you can synthesize in your
own words. Think of paraphrasing as a form of translation; you are translating an
idea in another "language" into your own language. The idea should be the same, but
the words and sentence structure should be totally different.

DO Understand the Purpose of Paraphrasing

If you think that paraphrasing is about rewriting ideas from someone else's work so
that you can avoid thinking for yourself, you are mistaken. As a student or
researcher, your job is to demonstrate that you understand the material you've read
by expressing ideas from other sources in your own unique style, adding citations to
the paraphrased material as appropriate. The purpose of paraphrasing is to draw
together ideas from multiple sources to convey the information to your reader clearly
and succinctly.

DO Understand the Text You Are Paraphrasing

When you paraphrase, be sure that you understand the text clearly; otherwise, you
could run the risk of relying on the original source text too closely. The whole point of
paraphrasing is that you are interpreting the information you researched for your
reader, explaining it as though you were speaking to a colleague or teacher. That is,
paraphrasing is a skill that demonstrates one’s understanding of a text.

DON'T Start Paraphrasing by Picking up a Thesaurus

This might shock you, but thesauruses are NOT the answer when learning how to
paraphrase. Why? Because using a thesaurus to swap out a few words here and
there from an original source is a form of patchwriting, which is a type of plagiarism.

You shouldn't have to resort to a thesaurus unless you are completely unsure about
what a word means, although, in that case, a dictionary might be a better tool.
Ideally, you should be able to use clear, simple language that is familiar to you when
reporting findings (or other information) from a study.

The problem with using a thesaurus is that you aren't really using your own words to
paraphrase a text; you're using words from a book. Plus, if you're unfamiliar with a
concept or if you have difficulty with English, you might choose the wrong synonym,
resulting in a paraphrase like this: "You may perhaps usage the erroneous other
word."

This is a common mistake among writers who are writing about a field with which
they are unfamiliar and among writers who do not have a thorough grasp of the
English language.

DON'T Copy without Quotation Marks

If you choose to keep a few phrases from the original source but paraphrase the rest
(i.e., combining quoting and paraphrasing), that's okay, but keep in mind that
phrasing from the source text must be "reproduced in an exact manner within
quotation marks." Direct quotations are more than three consecutive words copied
from another source, and they should always be enclosed in quotation marks or
offset as a block quotation.

Did you know that copying portions of a quote without quotation marks (i.e.,
patchwriting) is a form of plagiarism—even if you provide an in-text citation? If you've
reworded sections of a quote in your own style, simply enclose any direct quotations
(three words or more) in quotation marks to indicate that that the phrase is not your
own.

DON'T Paraphrase Too Closely

When learning how to paraphrase, you need to distinguish between appropriate and
inappropriate forms of paraphrasing. The Office of Research and Integrity, a branch
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, puts it this way:

Taking portions of text from one or more sources, crediting the author/s, but only
making 'cosmetic' changes to the borrowed material, such as changing one or two
words, simply rearranging the order, voice (i.e., active vs. passive) and/or tense of
the sentences is NOT paraphrasing.

True paraphrasing involves changing the words and syntactical structure of the

original source. Keep reading for strategies for paraphrasing properly.

Paraphrasing Strategies
Write down Paraphrases of a Source on Note Cards
In an article on how to paraphrase, the Purdue University Online Writing Lab
suggests that you read the source text carefully and "write your paraphrase on a note
card." You can then compare your version with the original, ensuring that you've
covered all the key information and noting any words or phrases that are too closely
paraphrased. Obviously, your note cards should be labeled with the author(s) and
citation information of the source text so that you don't lose track of which source you
used, and you should note on the card how you plan to use the paraphrase in your
essay.

If you are a visual learner, the benefit of this strategy is that you can visualize the
content you intend to paraphrase. Because a note card is a tangible object, you can
physically arrange it in an essay outline, moving the right information to the right
paragraph so that your essay flows well. (If you're not sure how to write an outline,
check out our article.) Plus, having a physical copy of paraphrased information
makes it harder for you to accidentally plagiarize by copying and pasting text from an
original source and forgetting to paraphrase or quote it properly. Writing out your
paraphrase allows you to distance yourself from the source text and express the idea
in your own unique style.

Paraphrase from Your Own Point-Form Notes on a Source

Jerry Plotnick from the University College Writing Centre at the University of Toronto
provides a similar strategy for how to paraphrase. Plotnick advises that you take
point-form notes of text that you want to use in your paper. Don't use full sentences,
but "capture the original idea" in a few words, writing down the name of the source.

This strategy sounds similar to the note card idea, but it adds another step. Instead of
just reading the source carefully and writing your complete paraphrase on a note
card, Plotnick recommends using point-form notes while researching your sources
and then using those notes to paraphrase the text later when you are writing your
paper. Like hand-writing your paraphrases on a note card, taking notes and then
coming back to them later will help distance you from the original source, allowing
you to forget the original wording and use your own style.

Here's how to paraphrase using Plotnick's methods:

1. Convert the ideas from your notes into full sentences.

2. Provide a reference.
3. Go back to the original source to ensure that (a) your paraphrase is accurate
and (b) you have truly said things in your own words.

Practice Two-Step Paraphrasing: Sentence Structure and Word

Choice
In an article on how to paraphrase by the Writing Center at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, the first two strategies are acknowledged—taking notes and
looking away from the source before you write your paraphrase. The authors suggest
a two-step strategy for paraphrasing: change the structure first and then change the
words. Let's break down this process a bit further.

Strategy Breakdown: Paraphrasing Sentence Structure and Word Choice

Understand Basic Sentence Structures

Sentences in English have two main components: a subject and a predicate. The
subject is who or what is performing an action (i.e., a noun or pronoun), and the
predicate is what the subject is doing (i.e., a verb). Sentences can be simple,
compound, complex, or compound-complex. Here are some examples:

 Simple: It was difficult.

 Compound: It was difficult, but she knew there was no going back.
 Complex: Although it was difficult, she knew there was no going back.
 Compound-complex: Although it was difficult, she knew there was no going
back, so she kept calm and carried on.

Once you have identified the structure of the original sentence, you can reconstruct it
using one of the different types of sentences illustrated above.

Vary the Use of the Active and Passive Voice

You can also change the passive voice to the active voice, or vice versa.

 The active voice is structured like

this: Subject + Verb + Object (e.g., She learned how to paraphrase.).
 The passive voice is structured like this: Object + "To Be" Verb + Past
Participle (e.g., How to paraphrase was learned by the girl.).

See how awkward the passive sentence example is? It's best not to force a sentence
into an unnatural sentence structure. Otherwise, you'll end up with Yoda-speak:
"Forced to learn how to paraphrase the girl was." (Did you like my unintentional
"force" pun?)

Vary the Sentence Lengths

Another way to distinguish your paraphrase from the original source is to use
different sentence lengths. Often, scholarly articles are written using long, compound,
complex, or compound-complex sentences. Use short sentences instead. Break
down complex ideas into easy-to-understand material. Alternatively, you can
combine several ideas from the source text into one long sentence, synthesizing the
material. Try to stick with your own style of writing so that the paraphrased text
matches the writing style of the rest of your document.
Vary the Word Choice

Once the sentence structure of the original source is sufficiently different from the original sentence
structure, you can replace the wording of the original text with words you understand and are comfortable
with. Paraphrasing isn't meant to hide the fact that you are copying someone else's idea using clever word-
swapping techniques. Rather, it is meant to demonstrate that you are capable of explaining the text in your
own language.

One handy article on word choice by the Writing Center at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill lists some strategies for successful word choice. While this
applies to academic writing in general, the "questions to ask yourself" are also
applicable to paraphrasing.

Conclusion
In summary, paraphrasing is not simply swapping a few words; it is taking ideas and
explaining them using different words and a totally different sentence structure. It has
a greater purpose; it shows that you've understood the literature on your subject and
are able to express it clearly to your reader. In other words, proper paraphrasing not
only shows that you're literate but also that you are familiar with the ideas in your
field, and it enables you to support your own research with in-text citations.

Source : https://www.scribendi.com/academy/articles/how_to_paraphrase.en.html