Watch: Paraphrase to Avoid Patch-Writing

Why Watch These Videos?

How To Paraphrase video:

The video provides a detailed guide on how to paraphrase effectively, emphasizing the importance of putting someone else’s ideas into your own words while retaining the original meaning and citing the source. The video outlines three approaches to paraphrasing: a wrong method, an acceptable method, and the best method.

The Wrong Method: Simply swapping words with synonyms using a thesaurus without significantly altering the structure or meaning, resulting in a paraphrase too similar to the original text.

The Acceptable Method: Changing the sentence structure and some words, making the paraphrase distinct enough to be used but still not very sophisticated.

The Best Method: Using your own words to explain the information, ensuring clarity and flow consistent with your writing style. This method involves a deeper understanding of the original text’s meaning, often utilizing techniques like mind mapping.

Paraphrasing Process Demonstration video:

Paraphrasing can be challenging for novice academic writers or those new to a field. A recommended strategy involves several steps:

Understand the Passage: Read the original text until its meaning is clear.
Determine Purpose: Decide how the evidence will be used.
Summarize Main Points: Write the main points from memory.
Explain Simply: Imagine explaining the main points to someone else and write that explanation.
Verify and Cite: Compare your paraphrase with the original to ensure it's in your own words and cite the source.

Click to Expand Video Transcript ▾

[upbeat music]

How to paraphrase, or in other words, taking someone else's words and ideas and putting them in your own words, while keeping the meaning and citing the source. In this presentation, I'm going to show you three ways of paraphrasing: the wrong way to do it, a way that's acceptable, and the best way to paraphrase.

To paraphrase, we start with a source of information. You may have found an awesome article for your assignment. For example, I might be writing an assignment on sustainability in the fashion industry in Australia, and I found this great article by Alice Payne. Within it, I located the perfect quote about how designers have an impact on the industry.

My quote is: “...there are opportunities for Australian designers to have a positive effect through selecting textiles and finishes with a low environmental and social impact” (Payne 2011, 241). Well, I could just use the direct quote. I want to paraphrase this so I keep the direct quotes in my assignment to a minimum, but still have excellent sources for my argument.

Firstly, I will show you how not to paraphrase and let you know why this is a bad way of doing it. Some people can get the impression that paraphrasing is simply modifying the words. You might be tempted to use a thesaurus to find a synonym. Let's see what happens when I do this to my quote.

Original quote: “... there are opportunities for Australian designers to have a positive effect through selecting textiles and finishes with a low environmental and social impact” (Payne 2011, 241).

Paraphrase: There are many ways for Australian designers to have a good effect on the industry through selecting fabric and finishes with less harm on the environment and society (Payne 2011, 241).

The words that are underlined in the first paragraph (opportunities, positive, textiles, lower environmental, social impact) have been modified and shown as underlined in the second paragraph (many ways, good … on the industry, fabric, less harm on the environment, society), but with new words.

This isn't paraphrasing, as my new version is too similar to the old quote. You can compare the words and see that there's not much change. In fact, here you can see that at least half of the words are still the same as the original quote. These small phrases are still Payne’s original words, so I can't use this as a legitimate paraphrase. I would have been better off keeping the original quote.

One of the main problems with using a thesaurus is that you need to be careful with how the meaning can change when a new word is used. Often a really can tell that you have just right clicked and selected a synonym because it just doesn't sound right in your assignment. Secondly, I'll show you a way that is acceptable to use. Remember, it's an OK way of paraphrasing but it isn't sophisticated. A good tip for trying to paraphrase a quote is to change the sentence structure. When doing this, you'll need to modify some of the words and phrases. So little combinations of words don't match the original quote. This is what happens when I apply this method to my quote.

Paraphrase: Through choosing finishes and materials that are less harmful for society and the environment, Australian designers have the opportunity to positively affect the fashion industry (Payne 2011, 241).

It's okay, I could use it in my assignment. To compare between the two versions you can see that I have changed “selecting textiles and finishes” to “choosing finishes and materials”. You can see that this bit of information is now at the start of my paraphrase, whereas it was previously near the end of the quote.

I have modified “lower environmental and social impact” to “less harmful for society and the environment”. And again, this information has moved in my paraphrase from where it was positioned in the original quote.

I've modified “there are opportunities for Australian designers to have a positive effect” to “Australian designers have the opportunity to positively affect “and I've put this information near the end of my paraphrase

Lastly, I will show you a great way to paraphrase. It builds on the techniques for OK paraphrasing. The biggest tip is to use your own words. Try and explain the information in the quote to someone else and how it relates to your assignment. This will help keep the style of your writing consistent so that it reads clearly and flows well.

Next, take some time to really think about what the author meant. That quote probably sounds great because the information is clear and concise. A great strategy is to map out the information. Here I've taken Payne’s quote and made a mind map of concepts so I can reflect on the information rather than worrying about moving words around in the code. Let's take a look at what happens when I paraphrase using this method.

Paraphrase: There are positive flow-on effects for the environment, industry and textile consumption practices when Australian designers incorporate sustainable materials and processes into their work (Payne 2011, 241).

It's much more sophisticated than the previous way of paraphrasing because I've really considered the meaning of Payne’s information. I've combined different bits of information in Payne’s quote into the first part of my paraphrase sentence. The last part of my paraphrased sentence elaborates on the simple phrase “selecting textiles and finishes” from Payne’s original quote. What's great about my paraphrase is it opens up the topic for my writing and it is clear for the reader that I'm going to discuss what these positive flow-on effects are.

There are two options for citing the author within my paraphrase. I can make the author an active part of the sentence and start with “Payne suggests…” or maybe “Payne argues…” or potentially “Furthermore, research by Payne indicates that…”

Alternatively, I can leave the author in brackets with the year and page number at the end of the sentence. Both of these methods are acceptable as I'm attributing information with a citation. You may like to make use of both of these methods in your writing to vary the way your sentences begin.

Remember, it's okay to use technical terms, job titles or roles, and common vocabulary without quotation marks in your paraphrase. However, unique phrases and special terms must be quoted.

Great paraphrasing takes time, and you'll need to have a few goes to get it right. Make sure you leave enough time when drafting your assignment to incorporate sophisticated paraphrasing. Lastly, if you need help, just ask citewrite to check how to cite and reference using different methods or just come and see us at the library either in-person at the help desk or online.

Click to Expand Video Transcript ▾

The process of paraphrasing can be difficult for many writers new to academic writing, or learning in a new field. When writers find it difficult to paraphrase, one strategy is to use the following process.

First, read the passage until you understand its meaning. Second, consider your purpose. What will you do with this evidence? Third, look away from the passage to write main points of what you read. Fourth, imagine explaining that main point to a classmate or co-worker and write that explanation on the page. Fifth, double-check your wording against the original and cite your source.

However, you might be wondering, how do I use this process in practice? To help you use this process, let's watch one writer as they use this strategy and paraphrase a source.

The writer is paraphrasing this highlighted sentence: Critical and operationally relevant information is now commonly exchanged via social media and other digital platforms that are well-suited to delivering data directly to citizens and emergency management organizations and to encouraging exchanges between them.

The writer reads the quote multiple times to ensure they fully understand the main idea. The writer wants to include this information in their paragraph about how modern communication is more democratized.

They consider the main points of the quote, summarizing as such: Social media helps communication for disasters. We can also use social media to talk to these organizations.

The writer thinks about how they would express this main point to a co-worker. They write the following: Social media and other online platforms are well suited to facilitate direct communication between citizens and emergency management organizations.

The writer compares their paraphrase with the quote, they realize they use too much of the same phrasing so the voice isn't really their own. They try again this time, writing the following: Emergency management organizations and citizens can easily communicate with one another through social media and other online platforms.

This second paraphrase is in the writer’s own voice clearly representing the original source’s main idea, but in their own way. The writer finishes their paraphrase by adding a citation: (Mehta, et al. 2017).