How to paraphrase?
Every semester one of our teachers gives us an assignment, carrying 20% of wieghtage. In that assignment we are given a topic(each student with a different topic) and we are supposed to do a research on it, then write down our understanding of it. Our teacher checks plagiarism of our assignment. Now we what we do avoid to plagiarism, oh yes, we paraphrase it and this is how we are taught to paraphrase!
Paraphasing?
Paraphasing is actually rewriting authors ideas in your own words. You put forward your understanding of it, without making it contradictory to the original one or even altering meaning of it. Here in paraphasing you're not supposed to quote exactly what the author said,but there are some exceptions, which I will mention later.
Now we will move towards the main steps which answers our question of "how we can paraphrase?".
1. Reading:
Reading is very essential part of paraphasing. And grasping the main idea or the understanding of the information is even important. If you don't get the understanding yourself, how you're gonna explain it in your words. So, it's important to fully grasp the concept.
2. Notes Making:
One should know what is important in the text, which thing is to prioritize. Noting key concepts makes you more comfortable with text. If you are dealing with a just paragraph, you can just underline or highlight them. But if you have to paraphrase a larger text based on several pages, you can make separate notes.
3. Writing:
Now, when you have fully understood the concept and made notes of it, you have to write your version of the text without looking at the original one. Then compare your text from the original one and make minor adjustments in areas where you were too similar to the original one and look for your mistakes and check out that you are not contradicting with the original text.
4. Cite your source:
Once you complete paraphasing, you have to cite your source. Citing makes your reader feel that you have done a proper research and as a responsible student, you're giving credit to the author of the original text. There are many citation styles, but you always paraphrase the same way.
Paraphasing Tips:
These steps of paraphasing may seem straight forward, but writing your version of text, which should be having the same idea or concept but written in a different way may be a difficult thing to apply. Here are some tips which you can use to make paraphasing easy:
Start with a sentence which is at a different position in the text.
Use synonyms; using different words for same meaning makes your text more original. But using synonyms for each and every word is not possible. There are some words which define a thing better than the other words. So you can use some words from original text.
Change the sentence structure; If originally text was in active voice you can change it to passive voice and vice versa.
In paraphasing, mostly the number of words are same as in the original text. You can break a sentence into two or merge two sentences into one.
Paraphasing Vs Quoting:
Quoting is the opposite of paraphasing. In quoting you write exact words of the Author. When you paraphrase it's just you justifying your point, when you quote, it is someone's else voice. You can use quoting in certain cases, but one should avoid as possible.
Quotes are appropriate when:
Giving a precise definition
Saying something about writers style or language
Providing evidence in support of an argument
Critiquing or analyzing a specific claim.
End words:
There are many paraphasing tools available on internet. You can easily paraphrase from them but there would no originality in your text. Our purpose should not be getting marks or just to cheat plagiarism rather we should be passionate about learning. When you use such unfair shortcuts you can never be confident on what you have delivered. If you will do it by your own you would be more confident and satisfied. Making mistakes is a normal thing, one should not cheat to avoid mistakes. Mistakes make you original, perfection is always considered suspicious.
I hope you enjoyed reading my article. I'm new writer here, do support.!
Wish you good luck!!👍