importance of paraphrasing in academic writing

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Paraphrasing is a fundamental skill sitting at the crossroads of comprehension, expression, and academic integrity. In academic environment, paraphrasing holds significance due to a number of reasons. It’s an excellent mental workout that pushes the boundaries of your understanding and critical thinking. By rewording, you learn to articulate complex ideas in your own words, an invaluable skill for everyone in all fields. Moreover, paraphrasing plays a key role in maintaining academic integrity, allowing students to incorporate and acknowledge others’ ideas within their work. Continue reading to learn everything about the importance of paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing and Skill Development

When done effectively, paraphrasing has several benefits that simple rewording can’t produce. It is a comprehensive ability that greatly contributes to academic and intellectual development. Let’s look at some of the important advantages:

Don’t Believe? Try our Free Paraphraser to get an Example

Paraphrasing and its impact on academic papers.

Paraphrasing is a part of academic writing. It links current information and fresh discoveries, enabling authors to include authoritative sources into their writings as a careful integration that adds depth and uniqueness. When done well, paraphrasing indicates the author’s understanding of the original material, demonstrating that they not only can grasp complicated topics but also explain them in a new way. This helps to build a stronger, more compelling argument by anchoring theoretical ideas in proven research and avoiding the problems of plagiarism.

Moreover, effective paraphrasing improves the academic paper by introducing diversity in expression and preventing monotony, keeping readers engaged. It allows the writer to maintain a consistent voice throughout the document, creating the paper as a cohesive story rather than a patchwork of disconnected quotations. This coherence is critical for the reader’s understanding and for conveying the author’s perspective on the topic.

Equally important is the ethical aspect of paraphrasing. Properly rephrased and cited, it maintains the integrity of academic work, distinguishing it from plagiarism and unauthorized use of intellectual property. This ethical practice supports the credibility and trustworthiness of the paper itself.

To sum up, paraphrasing significantly impacts academic papers by promoting understanding, originality, and ethical standards. It demonstrates the author’s capacity to participate in and contribute to academic dialogue, making it a valuable skill in the scholarly community.

What distinguishes effective paraphrasing from simple rewording?

Effective paraphrasing involves a deep understanding of the original material, allowing the paraphraser to convey the same ideas in a completely new way that reflects their voice and style. True paraphrasing demonstrates comprehension and the ability to critically engage with the text, thereby adding value to the academic discourse. In contrast, simple rewording often results in a piece that is too close to the source, lacking originality and failing to fully grasp the underlying concepts.

Can paraphrasing tools ensure academic integrity?

While paraphrasing tools can aid in rephrasing text, they do not guarantee academic integrity on their own. These tools may provide a starting point for rewriting content, but they often lack the nuance and understanding required for true paraphrasing. Academic integrity involves correctly interpreting and crediting the source material, a process that requires human judgment and ethical consideration. Thus, while paraphrasing tools can be helpful, they should be used cautiously, with the final work carefully reviewed and adjusted to ensure it meets academic standards.

How does paraphrasing contribute to the development of academic writing style?

Paraphrasing contributes to the development of academic writing style by enhancing clarity, precision, and personal voice. It encourages deeper engagement with source material, leading to better critical thinking and analytical skills. Through paraphrasing, writers expand their vocabulary and learn to express complex ideas in their own manner, making their arguments more cohesive.

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Paraphrasing: Things you need to know...

Paraphrasing i s the process of reading a section of text and then re-writing it using your own words I t is necessary in university study as it shows that you have understood the information.

REMEMBER - the information has come from text that somebody else has written, so you must  still cite the author appropriately according to the referencing system used on your course. If you do not reference the source it will be classed as plagiarism, even if you have put into your own words.

For effective paraphrasing it is important to:

• Read first for understanding
• Summarise the key points
• Re-write the statement in your own words
• Place in quotation marks any phrases used from the original source
• Include the appropriate citation 
• Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is demonstrating your understanding of the texts you are reading by writing them in your own words.

Need to know more...

• Related pages
• External links
• Academic writing Illustrates the main features of academic writing so that you are aware of what it is and what it involves

Paraphrasing - How to Paraphrase - Step-by-Step Guide & Examples (Scribbr)  https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/paraphrasing/  [Accessed 10 February 2023]

What's the Difference? Summarizing, Paraphrasing & Quoting (Quetext Blog)  https://www.quetext.com/blog/difference-between-summarizing-paraphrasing-quoting  [Accessed 10 February 2023]

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Paraphrasing and Synthesising

Introduction

One of the essential skills in academic writing is the ability to paraphrase the work of other authors. This means to express their opinions or findings in your own words. Many lecturers prefer paraphrase to direct quotations as too many direct quotations can break up the ‘flow’ of your writing. Also, through paraphrasing, you can often express the information from your sources more concisely by picking out the essential elements of the extract you are rewording. In this Learning Object you will be given the opportunity to practise paraphrasing and synthesising, which means using more than one source to support your arguments.

Before starting the activities, you can obtain an overview of how best to use this Learning Object, using a Screencast (with audio), by following this link Overview

• To provide practice in using synonyms to write effective paraphrases
• To raise awareness of the essential elements of a good paraphrase
• To suggest useful techniques when paraphrasing from a published source
• To suggest ways that sources can be synthesised to support your arguments

Activity 1: Using academic synonyms for paraphrasing

For paraphrasing it helps to have a good awareness of common academic synonyms. To begin with, you can try the following exercises to check your knowledge of these and practise using them at sentence level.

Instruction

Follow this link to the activities : Academic Synonyms for Paraphrasing

Activity 2: The essential elements of a good paraphrase

In this activity, you will explore the essentials of a good paraphrase. You will be using extracts from textbooks and encyclopedia definitions of management. However, before going any further, we suggest you write a definition of “management”, which should include the most important roles of “managers”, in the box below.

Now imagine that a student at Queen Mary has been given the following essay title:

Compare and contrast what managers are supposed to do, according to textbook models, with what they actually do, according to empirical studies of management.

She decides that it would be a good idea to define the term “management” in her introduction and copies out the following definition from a business encyclopedia she consults in the library.

Management is a process that is used to accomplish organizational goals; that is, a process that is used to achieve what an organization wants to achieve. An organization could be a business, a school, a city, a group of volunteers, or any governmental entity. Managers are the people to whom this management task is assigned, and it is generally thought that they achieve the desired goals through the key functions of (1) planning, (2) organizing, (3) directing, and (4) controlling.

LUFT, R.L., 2000. entry on “Management” . In MALONIS, J., ed., “Encyclopedia of Business” , 2nd. ed., Detroit: Gale Group

Now that you have read the original extract, read the three paraphrases that follow it. Choose which of the sentences that follow the extracts accurately describe the different paraphrases.

Paraphrase 1

In Luft’s entry on “Management”, in the “Encyclopedia of Business” (Malonis J. (Ed.) 2000), he states that the way a group of people working together achieves its aims is through its managers. He then divides their responsibilities into four key roles: ‘planning’, ‘organising’, ‘directing’ and ‘controlling’.

Paraphrase 2

Luft in his entry on “Management” in the “Encyclopedia of Business” (Malonis J. (Ed.) 2000), states that management is the method that is used to achieve organisational aims; that is, the method that is used to achieve what an organisation wants to achieve. He makes clear that an organisation could be a business, a school, a town, a group of people working voluntarily, or any governing body. Managers are the people who this task is given to, and it is agreed that they achieve what they want through the key activities of planning, organising, directing and controlling.

Paraphrase 3

Management can best be defined as the system that is used for any organisation to succeed in meeting its objectives. This organisation can take many forms and be large or small. The key people in the accomplishment of these objectives are the managers. Their most important roles in the process are planning, organising, directing and controlling.

Now decide which of the following five sentences about the above paraphrases are true and which are false.

Show feedback Hide feedback

Sentences 3 and 5 are true , but sentences 1 , 2 and 4 are false .

Although key vocabulary has been changed in all of the paraphrases, the second paraphrase is too similar to the original. This is the case in terms of vocabulary, sentence structure and the order of information.

It is not necessary to change the four last “key functions” in the paraphrases, as to do so would risk changing the original content of the source.

Although the first paraphrase is shorter, the essential information has been included, so this is not problematic.

Even though the third paraphrase is otherwise a good example of paraphrase, it is still very important to reference your original source so as to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

Activity 3: Synthesising from multiple sources

Synthesising refers to the process by which you refer to not one but multiple sources to support your argument when writing an essay or research paper. The best examples of synthesis lead into the author’s own original work, which has been informed by the paraphrasing of multiple sources.

Now read these other definitions of management.

management (noun) 1 [uncountable] the activity of controlling and organizing the work that a company or organization does

“management”. In Longman English Dictionary Online . Retrieved June 8 2009 from http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/management management (noun) 1 : the art or act of managing: the conducting or supervising of something (as a business) 2 : judicious use of means to accomplish an end “management”. In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary . Retrieved June 8 2009 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/management

We define management as the process of designing and maintaining an environment in which individuals, working together in groups, accomplish efficiently selected aims.

Koontz, H., and Weirich, H. 1988 Management 9th international edition, Singapore: McGraw-Hill. p.4

Management is tasks. Management is a discipline. But management is also people. Every achievement of management is the achievement of a manager. Every failure is a failure of a manager. People manage rather than “forces” or “facts”. The vision, dedication and integrity of managers determine whether there is management or mismanagement.

Drucker, P.F. 2007 Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices London: Transaction Publishers.p.xiii Management is a process that is used to accomplish organizational goals; that is, a process that is used to achieve what an organization wants to achieve. An organization could be a business, a school, a city, a group of volunteers, or any governmental entity. Managers are the people to whom this management task is assigned, and it is generally thought that they achieve the desired goals through the key functions of (1) planning, (2) organizing, (3) directing, and (4) controlling.

Luft, R.L., 2000. entry on “Management” . In Malonis, J.,ed., “Encyclopedia of Business” , 2nd. ed. Detroit: Gale Group

Now, in the text box below, write a synthesis of the definitions given above. You may use direct quotation for isolated words or phrases, but these should be sparing and appropriate. Be careful to cite the sources in the paragraph.

If you need further guidance or help with this task, please use the Help option below.

Show help Hide help

The following synthesis is quite a demanding activity, especially if English is not your first language.

Remember linking words help you to show transitions between sentences: ‘ whereas ‘ for contrast, ‘ therefore ‘ and ‘ consequently ‘ state the result of the first clause, and ‘ finally ‘ can be used for the last in a list of different definitions.

Useful language for citing sources includes: ‘ make(s) reference to ‘, ‘ maintain(s) ‘, and ‘ to define sth. (something) as ‘.

Useful synonyms can be found at sites like Synonym.com (opens in new tab)

Finally, you might like to begin with: ‘ Both the Longman and Merriam-Webster online dictionaries define management as… ‘

Two suggested syntheses of these various sources are given below:

William’s Synthesis: Both the Longman and Merriam-Webster online dictionaries define management as the act (or art) of ‘controlling’, ‘supervising’ and ‘organising’ the work undertaken by a company or organisation. However, Koontz and Weirich (1988: 4) make reference to the environment in which those working together achieve their ‘efficiently selected’ aims and emphasise the maintenance and design of this environment. Luft (2000), having noted that the way a group achieves their aims is through management, divides managers’ responsibilities into four key roles: ‘planning’, ‘organising’, ‘directing’ and ‘controlling’. Finally, Drucker (2007: xiii) maintains that the human element of management is paramount. Therefore, the human qualities of ‘vision’, ‘dedication’ and ‘integrity’ are more crucial for success or failure of allotted tasks than other factors.

Jessica’s Synthesis: The concept of “management” is complex, and is defined as “controlling and organizing” (Longman English Dictionary Online) or, “conducting or supervising” (The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). Koontz and Weirich (1988:4) define management as the act of creating and controlling the place where individuals, who effectively combine their efforts and skills, achieve objectively chosen goals. However, in contrast, Drucker (2007:xiii) writes that management can be defined as activities, a school of learning and furthermore, as human beings themselves. He asserts that each accomplishment of ‘management’ is, in actual fact, the accomplishment of the person who has done the managing. Each inability to reach a goal is, in reality, the inability of the person in charge to reach that goal. Drucker concludes by stating that the clarity of sight, commitment and honesty that people in positions of responsibility possess, determines whether or not there is good or bad management. The final proposed definition of management is proffered by Luft (2000). He claims that management is the act of achieving institutional targets; more specifically, the act of attaining company defined goals. Managers attain their clearly defined targets through the primary factors of preparation, organisation, direction and control (Luft, 2000).

Activity 4: Your own definition

Now conclude with your own preferred definition. How has it changed after synthesising your sources? Write your new, improved, definition of management in the box below. You might like to begin, “The definition of management that I will use is…”

One possible definition…

The definition of management that I will use is the planning, organisation and control of allotted tasks to further an organisation’s goals, to be achieved through the design of an environment best suited to this aim. The manager’s vision, sincerity and industry are consequently critical to the successful accomplishment of the company’s targets.

Activity 5: References

Finally, list your references as you would do at the end of your essay in the text entry box.

Check your references against those in the “Review” section at the bottom of this page, which have been compiled according to the Harvard system of referencing.

Would you like to review the main points?

Show review Hide review

When paraphrasing, a wide vocabulary (and especially a good knowledge of academic synonyms) is extremely helpful. A good thesaurus can prove invaluable in this context. However, it is not sufficient to just change a few words. Alteration of sentence structure and order of information also assist in the rewording of the original. Care must be taken, though, to ensure that you do not misrepresent your source and remember that after paraphrasing, it is still essential to cite the authors of your sources within your paragraph and to reference them correctly at the end of your assignment.

For further online advice about paraphrasing, using quotations and synthesising from different sources, you might like to try the following websites: Paraphrasing: advice and activities from RMIT university --> Paraphrasing source material: advice from Colorado State University Quoting and paraphrasing sources: advice from University of Wisconsin-Madison Quoting, paraphrasing and summarising: advice from Purdue University

There follows one possible version of the references you would need to include after synthesising the definitions of management in Activity 5 above.

Drucker, P.F. (2007) Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. London: Transaction Publishers. Koontz, H., and Weirich, H. (1988) Management 9th international edition, Singapore: McGraw-Hill. Longman English Dictionary Online . Entry on “Management”. Retrieved June 8 2009 from [http://ldoceonline.com/dictionary/management] Luft, R.L., (2000). Entry on “Management”. In Malonis, J., ed., Encyclopedia of Business , 2nd. ed. Detroit: Gale Group, Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary , entry on “Management”. Retrieved June 8 2009 from [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/management]

© William Tweddle, Queen Mary, University of London, 2010, photo used under the terms of an attributive CC license: courtesy of Nenyaki

Academic Integrity at MIT

A handbook for students, search form, avoiding plagiarism - paraphrasing.

In writing papers, you will paraphrase more than you will quote. For a report or research paper, you may need to gather background information that is important to the paper but not worthy of direct quotation. Indeed, in technical writing direct quotation is rarely used.

Exactly what does "paraphrase" mean?

It means taking the words of another source and restating them, using your own vocabulary. In this way, you keep the meaning of the original text, but do not copy its exact wording.

What strategies can I use to paraphrase?

Use synonyms for all words that are not generic. Words like world, food, or science are so basic to our vocabulary that is difficult to find a synonym.

Change the structure of the sentence.

Change the voice from active to passive and vice versa.    

Change clauses to phrases and vice versa.

Change parts of speech.

A good paraphrase combines a number of strategies: the goal is to rephrase the information so that it appears in your words, not those of the author.

Example 4: Using Multiple Strategies to Paraphrase

Example 5: Unacceptable Paraphrase

9 Paraphrasing and Quoting Skills

Paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing is an everyday skill we all use to relay information from one source to another. We may retell a simple story we heard at work, relay information from one person to another in our household or recap a news story we heard on the television or radio. In doing so we are using paraphrasing techniques.

At university paraphrasing is a fundamental skill that is often expected to be demonstrated from the very first semester. It is a helpful skill because at university you are operating within a community of academic thinkers. You need to be able to address the ideas of others with integrity while also contributing your own original thoughts to the learning environment.

This chapter will enable you to identify and formalise the paraphrasing techniques you may already be familiar with, plus teach you some new skills.

In academic writing paraphrasing is a set of techniques used to express another person’s ideas in your own words. Therefore, each time material is paraphrased it must include an in-text citation and end of text reference (more about this in the referencing Chapter 10). To use someone else’s ideas without giving appropriate credit is call plagiarism and may incur academic penalties.

Watch a Youtube video by Scribbr “How to Paraphrase in 5 Easy Steps” . [1]

Paraphrasing Techniques

Start by reading the passage several times to gain understanding.

Note down key concepts as you read.

Write your own version of the passage, without looking at the original. This will test if the key concepts have been remembered yet you are capable of putting the ideas into your own words.

Compare the two texts (the original with your own) and edit any sections that may be too close to the original wording.

Cite the source of the original text to avoid plagiarism [see Chapter 10: Referencing].

Paraphrasing Tips

a.  Start at a different point in the original passage (re-order the material).

b.  Use synonyms .

c.  Change the sentence structure, e.g., active / passive voice (see Chapter 7: Sentence Basics).

d.  Break up long sentences or combine shorter ones.

• Review the example of a paraphrased paragraph on the video above. [2]

Paraphrasing Example

Original text.

Just seven kilometres from Brisbane’s city centre, UQ College is located in the beautiful grounds of The University of Queensland St Lucia Campus.

Considered one of the most beautiful campuses in the world, UQ campus is a vibrant mix of old sandstone buildings, modern architecture, parklands and lakes. It’s a city within a city, with everything you need to study, live and relax [3] .

Paraphrasing Notes

Key information: UQ College is located at The University of Queensland St Lucia Campus; it is close to the city centre of Brisbane; the campus is well-equipped.

Paraphrased Text

UQ College is only seven kilometres from Brisbane’s central district  at The University of Queensland St Lucia Campus and is well equipped with everything a student needs. It is both architecturally pleasing and has beautiful natural spaces in which to study and relax.

Techniques Used in the Above Paraphrase:

• It began at a different point – rearranged the information
• It used synonyms . For example, “Brisbane’s city centre” = Brisbane’s central district.
• Instead of listing categories, it grouped things together. For example, “a vibrant mix of old sandstone buildings, modern architecture” = architecturally pleasing; “parklands and lakes” = natural spaces.
• It kept key facts. For example, “UQ College”, “seven kilometres from Brisbane” and “The University of Queensland St Lucia Campus”.
• It alters the sentence structure and now there are two sentences instead of three.
• It maintains the original meaning.

Practise paraphrasing the following text. Follow the steps above and identify which techniques you are using. Maintain the original meaning of the text.

In your chosen courses you will engage in practical tasks that relate to real-world uses of your academic skills and knowledge. Your teachers will encourage you to develop your own learning style and help you to achieve your study goals.

Classrooms and laboratories are equipped with the latest technologies and equipment and our courses cover a variety of topics and use a mix of course materials, including textbooks, video, audio and digital content [4] .

In short, a quote in Academic Writing means to repeat words that someone else has said or written. It is represented within a body of text using double quotation marks. A quote is verbatim . As soon as you deviate from the original words, it is no longer a direct quote and can be misinterpreted as poor paraphrasing.

Use quotes sparingly in Academic Writing. The following is a useful guide to when it may be appropriate to quote material rather than paraphrase, though paraphrasing is considered better academic practice.

• If you are analysing an author’s position/claim/argument and want to state it clearly before addressing it.
• The language of the passage is instrumental to its meaning, for example, poetry, creative writing, technical or medical language.
• You are completing an in-depth analysis of a text, for example, studying literature and analysing Shakespeare’s plays.
• You wish to add weight or credibility to your own argument by enlisting the words of an expert for support. Use this very sparingly.

The following information, plus more, is available through the UQ Library Style Guide for APA 7th style referencing [5] . There are many different referencing styles, so always confirm with your lecturer/tutor which style is being used for your course. It can vary from course to course across programs.

A direct quotation reproduces word-for-word material taken directly from another author’s work, or from your own previously published work. You cannot resubmit work from a previous assessment submitted via Turnitin. This will raise a red flag as plagiarism and may lead to an academic misconduct enquiry.

If the quotation is  fewer than 40 words , incorporate it into your paragraph and enclose it in double quotation marks. Place the in-text reference before the full stop.

David Copperfield starts with “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show” (Dickens, 1869, p. 1).

If the quotation  comprises 40 or more words , include it in an indented, freestanding block of text, without quotation marks. At the end of a block quotation, cite the quoted source and the page number in parentheses, after the final punctuation mark.

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously. (Dickens, 1896, p. 1)

In the following Chapter 10 you will learn about referencing paraphrases and quotes in your own academic writing.

• Scribbr. (2019, October 31). How to paraphrase in 5 easy steps [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiM0x0ApVL8&t=235s ↵
• All Paraphrasing techniques and tips are taken from the cited Sribbr Youtube video, for continuity of content. ↵
• https://www.uqcollege.edu.au/about-campus ↵
• https://www.uqcollege.edu.au/programs-tpp ↵
• https://guides.library.uq.edu.au/referencing/apa7/direct-quotes ↵

the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own

a word that has the same or nearly the same meaning as another in the same language, e.g. happy, joyful

in exactly the same words as were used originally

Academic Writing Skills Copyright © 2021 by Patricia Williamson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Paraphrasing in Academic Writing: Answering Top Author Queries

One of the most important skills for scholars to master is paraphrasing in academic writing. This is because research is built on previously published articles, which means you will often need to incorporate existing knowledge into your own work. That being said, scientific writing demands originality, which means that academics must be capable of expressing thoughts and ideas in their own words. This highlights the importance of paraphrasing in research, which allows authors to avoid plagiarism while leveraging available evidence and insights to support their research arguments.

While effective paraphrasing in research is an important skill for students and researchers, especially those who have English as a second language, this can often be a challenging task. Many academics are unsure of what needs to be reworded, while others are uncertain about how to start paraphrasing in academic writing or how to do this without changing meaning. In this article, we explain paraphrasing in research and answer the most common author queries to empower academics achieve academic writing excellence.

Table of Contents

What is paraphrasing in academic writing, how is paraphrasing different from summarizing and quoting, when should i use paraphrasing in research papers, how do i properly paraphrase a source in my research paper, how do i know when to cite a paraphrased source in my research paper, how much of my research paper should be paraphrased, what are some common mistakes to avoid when paraphrasing in a research paper, how paperpal simplifies paraphrasing in academic writing.

Paraphrasing in academic writing is when you rewrite someone else’s ideas or information in your own words while retaining the intended meaning. It is a fundamental skill for academics as it emphasizes their understanding of the material, allows them to integrate important information effectively, and also allows them to maintain academic integrity. By presenting information from existing sources differently, without using the same words or sentence structure, it also allows authors to avoid plagiarism and ensure clarity and flow in their writing.

Authors should know that while concepts are common in academic writing, the three concepts are quite different . When quoting a passage, the exact words from the original source are used within inverted comma to indicate that the information is a direct quote. On the other hand, paraphrasing involves restating existing information in your own words. Summarizing involves condensing the main points of a source into a brief overview. While all three techniques are useful, when using external sources, paraphrasing is considered the best option when if you want to retain the original meaning and avoid plagiarism.

Paraphrasing in research is best used when you want to incorporate relevant evidence or information from an external source to support your arguments or provide context for your own research. It can be used to explain a complex concept or idea in a way that your audience will clearly understand. This includes writing in an appropriate academic tone, condensing lengthy text to ensure clarity, and capturing key points from earlier sources into your work. The importance of paraphrasing in research cannot be ignored when it comes to creating a cohesive, well-supported argument while avoiding plagiarism and showcasing your mastery of the subject matter.

Remember that paraphrasing in academic writing is not just about changing a few words; it’s about expressing the original content in your unique way while respecting the source’s meaning. To properly paraphrase a source in your research paper, you should take time to read and understand the source thoroughly, make notes on the top points, and then rewrite this in your own words. It is important to be careful not to copy any phrases or sentences directly from the original source, check to ensure that the paraphrased text accurately reflects the original meaning and provide citations where needed. Take time to refine and review your research paper to ensure clarity, flow, and cohesiveness with your own work and writing style.

Authors must always cite paraphrased sources accurately in your research paper to avoid being accused of plagiarism. This is important because even if you rewrite text in your own words, you still need to give credit to the original author to lend credibility to your work and maintain research integrity. Whether it’s research papers, theses or dissertations, or even academic essays, don’t forget to check your work and ensure that you have provided all in-text citations required, with the full links in the references or bibliography section.

The amount of paraphrasing in academic writing depends on the purpose of your paper and the specific assignment or guidelines from your instructor. As a general rule, a significant portion of your paper should reflect your original ideas and contributions, including your own analysis, interpretation, and synthesis of the research, with paraphrasing of research content only used to support your arguments. It’s essential to strike a balance between your original work and the use of paraphrased sources to maintain the integrity and authenticity of your research.

While paraphrasing in academic writing, authors need to be vigilant and avoid copying phrases or sentences directly from the source. Take care not to change the original meaning of the source text, and also check that you are correctly citing the original source when paraphrasing in research. Focus on showcasing your own original ideas and contributions in your research paper instead of just relying on paraphrasing earlier research. Finally, it’s critical to ensure you are integrating the paraphrased text smoothly into your own writing; be sure to refine and retain your own voice and style to avoid unintended plagiarism.

Academics have been increasingly relying on AI tools to help them with paraphrasing in academic writing, but these generic AI tools may not be secure and often provide outputs that could be misleading. It’s also important to remember that academic writing requires specialized support, which is exactly what Paperpal offers. Trained on millions of published scholarly articles and built on 20+ years of academic expertise, Paperpal is a complete AI writing toolkit that helps students and researchers paraphrase, enhance language and grammar, and ready their work for submission.

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Revisioning Paraphrasing Instruction

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• First Online: 03 March 2022

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• Silvia Luisa Rossi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3422-7417 4  

Part of the book series: Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts ((EIEC,volume 1))

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Academic misconduct frequently occurs because developing academic writers lack both knowledge about the conventions for writing from sources and procedural skills for applying this knowledge. Paraphrasing is a particularly underdeveloped skill among students in higher education. This chapter illustrates how findings from existing quality assurance processes are supporting a revised approach to paraphrasing instruction by the writing strategist team at a Canadian undergraduate university. The new approach underlines the interpretive nature of paraphrasing and the agency of the student writer. By focusing less on the technical aspects of paraphrasing and more on its rhetorical purposes, we aim to foster among students a deeper level of engagement with texts, a more nuanced awareness of intertextuality, and recognition of the role disciplinary conventions play in writing from sources. Our vantage point as professionals working with students in a wide range of disciplines affords us unique opportunities to be campus changemakers. If we can encourage recognition that paraphrasing instruction must extend past first year composition courses and one-off workshops, and if we can help instructors seize opportunities to provide students with feedback on their paraphrasing, students will move beyond patchwriting and towards writing from sources with more confidence and integrity.

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‘I Have to Hold Myself Back from Getting into All That’: Investigating Ethical Issues Associated with the Proofreading of Student Writing

Student Perspectives on Plagiarism

• Paraphrasing
• Patchwriting
• Academic integrity

The ability to effectively incorporate source information into one's work is a complex and essential skill for every academic writer. Although student writers quote, paraphrase, and summarise the work of others in their writing assignments long before they enter higher education, expectations around source use become more rigorous in post-secondary settings, and a common concern for university and college instructors is that their students' ability to use sources appropriately and in line with academic integrity standards is underdeveloped. One specific type of source use in which students tend to lack confidence is paraphrasing, but since explicit instruction in and consistent feedback on paraphrasing are rare over the course of a student's undergraduate program, undergraduate writers have few opportunities to be guided in developing their paraphrasing skills. When these rare opportunities do occur, they tend to emphasise plagiarism avoidance, which can have the unintended effect of making students fear and even avoid paraphrasing. This chapter describes how writing specialists in the learning centre at one Canadian undergraduate university are using findings from existing quality assurance (QA) processes to support a new approach to teaching paraphrasing.

At Mount Royal University (MRU), a teaching and learning focused undergraduate institution with approximately 15,000 students (Mount Royal University [MRU], 2021 ), I am employed in the learning centre as one of five full-time professional writing strategists. Writing strategists mainly facilitate open workshops (i.e., workshops which students from any program, in any year, may attend) and in-class workshops (i.e., workshops tailored to an assignment in a particular course and facilitated during regular class time), consult with individual students and small groups of students, and develop learning resources in collaboration with faculty members. MRU is situated within the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot), Îyârhe Nakoda, Tsuut'ina and Métis Nations, and just over 6% of students self-identify as Indigenous (MRU, 2021 ). Over 75% of MRU students are from Calgary, and international students make up less than 2% of the population (MRU, 2021 ).

In 2020, our writing strategist team revised its approach to teaching paraphrasing to prioritise contextualisation and writer agency. We shifted our attention away from plagiarism and towards the affordances of paraphrasing. Rather than leading students through mechanistic, decontextualised paraphrasing exercises, we found ways to emphasise not only the purpose of paraphrasing, but the broader purpose of source use, what research is and is not, and the responsibilities student writers have to their scholarly discourse communities. Importantly, we engaged with our faculty partners to generate opportunities for the integration of principled paraphrasing instruction into content classes. There are simple ways to bring nuanced paraphrasing instruction and feedback into disciplinary classes, and a collaborative approach between content instructors and writing specialists has the potential to make a positive impact on students' ability to write from sources with integrity.

Why Are Undergraduate Students' Paraphrasing Abilities Underdeveloped?

Lack of explicit instruction on paraphrasing.

Students rarely receive explicit instruction on how to paraphrase. In Shi et al.'s ( 2018 ) study of graduate students, 10 out of 18 participants had “never received any formal instruction but learnt how to paraphrase through reading published works” (p. 34). Anecdotally, in the paraphrasing workshops I have facilitated since 2016, I have periodically asked undergraduate students how they learned to paraphrase, and no student has ever reported that they received explicit instruction on paraphrasing beyond the dictum “say it in your own words.” Students report the dictum being followed by a caution: if they did not paraphrase well, they would risk committing plagiarism. This strong association between paraphrasing and plagiarism can lead students to avoid paraphrasing altogether—out of fear. In some cases, students even come to believe that the primary purpose of paraphrasing is to avoid plagiarism (Hirvela & Du, 2013 ). A participant in Shi et al.'s ( 2018 ) study reported that in high school, teachers did not provide instruction on paraphrasing; “they just [said] ‘don't plagiarize’. And in university, they give you a paper about the policy about plagiarism” (p. 42). It seems that the focus is so strongly on avoiding plagiarism that students completely miss the point of paraphrasing and the benefits it confers on the writer. Rather than teaching students what paraphrasing can help them accomplish, the emphasis is too often on how paraphrasing can hurt them. When students are fearful of manipulating sources in any other way than safe quotation, getting excited about joining the academic conversation becomes difficult. As Jamieson and Howard ( 2019 ) noted, “the criminalization of missteps makes [writing from sources] a terrifying rather than satisfying learning experience for students” (p. 83).

Lack of Emphasis on the Purpose of Paraphrasing

The root of the problem may lie precisely in the “say it in your own words” conception of paraphrasing. Resources on post-secondary institutions' writing centre and library resource web pages typically describe paraphrasing as rendering an author's idea in one's own words. These descriptions of paraphrasing are consistent with knowledge telling as opposed to knowledge transforming (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1987 ), or knowledge display as opposed to knowledge making (Abasi & Akbari, 2008 ). They imply an objective process of “linguistic reformulation” (Mori, 2018 , p. 46). In scholarly writing, however, paraphrasing does more than recast the original author's idea. Writers paraphrase “to reconceptualize the source text coherently with [their] own authorial intentions” (Shi et al., 2018 , p. 32). Interestingly, despite many university/college websites' definitions of paraphrasing corresponding to knowledge telling, the paraphrases they provide as models for students reveal processes of inferential thinking (Yamada, 2003 ). If paraphrasing involves inferential thinking, then it does more than simply recast an idea; it falls into the category of knowledge making. As Mori ( 2018 ) put it, “a paraphrase in its most basic sense is re-creation,” (p. 51) not simple retelling. This function of paraphrasing is powerful, but students are rarely made aware of it, so they do not view paraphrasing as an empowering academic writing tool.

When student writers believe that the function of paraphrasing is only to recast what has been said by someone else, it is no wonder they have a difficult time finding the value in paraphrasing and feel resistance towards it. This undervaluing may even come directly from their instructors. One of the university professors interviewed by Pecorari and Shaw ( 2012 ) reported telling a student that “you have to somehow really write this and put it in your own words. I know that it isn't always so easy and sometimes it's silly but that's how it is” (p. 154). If the inherent value of paraphrasing is not made clear to students, then they are justified in asking themselves why their professors insist they go through the challenging, time-consuming and risky activity of paraphrasing when a quotation would serve to report the original author's idea more directly, quickly and safely. When students ask why they have to paraphrase, they are sometimes told that paraphrasing helps the instructor know whether the student has understood the source. Mori ( 2018 ) found that students were encouraged to paraphrase rather than quote because paraphrasing constitutes “proof of critical thinking and intellectual work” (p. 48). Although this may be one benefit of having students paraphrase information, it is not the reason paraphrasing exists in scholarly writing. Emphasising this purpose limits paraphrasing to a school-writing context, ultimately working against the goal of initiating students into the discourse community of their discipline (Abasi & Akbari, 2008 ). If the intention is that students begin to see themselves as members of and contributors to disciplinary communities, then it is vital that the tasks they complete, (academic writing-related or otherwise), be connected authentically to the real-world activities of those disciplinary communities.

Single-Sentence and/or Decontextualised Practice Activities

Where explicit instruction on paraphrasing does exist, instructional activities are too often based on single, decontextualised sentences that students are asked to transform into their own words (Pecorari & Petrić, 2014 ). Decontextualised activities deprive students of the opportunity to consider what they are using the information for . If paraphrasing involves recontextualisation, but neither the original context of the information nor the target context is provided, then the writer is faced with a simplistic, mechanistic and inauthentic task. In addition, single-sentence practice may lead student writers to believe that when they use sources, they should be on the lookout for individual sentences to extract and incorporate into their own writing. Although it could be argued that transforming single sentences is a suitable controlled practice activity—one that fits well within a scaffolded approach to paraphrasing instruction—the reality is that paraphrasing practice activities rarely go beyond this stage.

Lack of Feedback on Paraphrasing

Continuous feedback is essential to the development of complex skills, but post-secondary students rarely receive feedback on their paraphrasing. There are practical reasons for this. An instructor can easily miss a poor paraphrase if it does not contain red flags such as an abrupt change in style (Pecorari, 2013 ). More intentional approaches can be time-intensive. To provide feedback on a single paraphrase, an instructor would need to obtain the original source text, locate the exact passage in the text and compare it to the student's paraphrase. Since many research assignments require that students select sources themselves, each student will have used different sources, making this work of locating original passages prohibitively time-consuming. Even if students are required to provide the original passages, evaluating paraphrases takes time. Since the line between acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing is difficult to draw (Roig 2001 ), a quick written comment may not be sufficient feedback; a conversation may be necessary.

In the absence of feedback, students are left to their own devices, and a sensible strategy some employ is imitating what they see in scholarly writing. The problem is that students draw incorrect conclusions from what they see (Pecorari, 2013 ), and when instructors do not alert them to textual missteps in their writing, they understandably conclude that their source use is appropriate, going on to potentially misuse sources unchecked for years (Pecorari, 2013 ). At my university, instructors regularly refer senior students to our team of writing strategists because of poor paraphrasing, and the instructors express surprise at the lack of understanding of paraphrasing basics. The conversation between the student and the instructor has usually revolved around plagiarism, so emotions run high on both sides. Students often feel angry that no one “called them on it” at an earlier stage of their undergraduate program.

Outsourcing Paraphrasing Instruction

The question of who is responsible for teaching students to paraphrase is part of the broader issue of responsibility for academic writing instruction. Instructors tend to believe that students should already have acquired academic writing skills such as paraphrasing by the time they enter higher education (Jamieson, 2013 ; Peters & Cadieux, 2019 ). As a result, “faculty often assign rather than teach research-based writing” (Serviss, 2016 , p. 553). The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) movements evolved in response to this problem, and WAC and WID proponents have advocated for a whole-institution approach to student writing development for decades. Still, a persistent belief on the part of many instructors is that it is not their responsibility to teach writing.

Perhaps if faculty conceived of writing not as a generic skill students should possess before entering higher education, but rather, as a discipline-specific mechanism for constructing knowledge, they would be more inclined to see writing instruction as integral to initiating students into their disciplinary community. As we work to decolonise the curriculum, educators have a responsibility to challenge the privileged position writing holds as a scholarly mode of communication, but for as long as writing retains such a vital role in the academy, we also have a responsibility to our students—to help them uncover the conventions of academic writing for their discipline. Writing is a manifestation of thinking, so if we accept that a central role of the university teacher is to guide students' “cognitive apprenticeship” (Brown et al., 1989 )—that is, to help them learn how biologists think or how historians think—then it follows that we need to facilitate their learning to write in ways that are common in the discipline, too.

Even when instructors acknowledge the need to teach writing, real barriers exist. The first is time:

Most instructors at Canadian universities would probably agree that the time and resources they have to effectively deliver their courses are either stretched to the limit or insufficient, so their reluctance to assume additional responsibility for instructing students in appropriate source use is understandable. (Evans-Tokaryk, 2014 , p. 20)

Another barrier is that content instructors who are not writing specialists may feel ill-equipped to teach source use skills like paraphrasing. Because of these barriers, when student writing fails to meet expectations, many instructors refer students to first-year composition classes or writing centres.

Although writing experts on campus have an important role to play in supporting students' academic writing development, the discipline-specific aspects of writing need to be addressed by disciplinary experts. Paraphrasing conventions differ from discipline to discipline. In the hard sciences, it may be acceptable (indeed, necessary) to copy longer word strings from the original source than is acceptable in the humanities (Shi et al., 2018 ). Differences in citation practices also exist, and these differences have implications for the syntactic structure of paraphrases. In the social sciences and humanities, narrative (or integral) citations are more common than they are in the hard sciences and engineering (Hyland, 2004 ), and the reporting verbs necessary for the narrative citation structure are frequently the locus of the recontextualisation inherent in paraphrasing. Evans-Tokaryk ( 2014 ) concluded that “we need to make individual disciplines more accountable for the way they teach citation practices, source-use, and rhetorical strategies for engaging in the scholarly conversation” (pp. 20–21). A complicating factor, however, is that members of the same disciplinary community do not necessarily agree on the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing (Roig, 2001 ). This reality makes it crucial for individual instructors to specify and illustrate expectations. As Susan Bens ( 2022 ) shows in her chapter in this volume, it is unfair to expect students to navigate the ambiguity of expectations related to academic integrity across courses on their own. Faculty members must address what they deem to be acceptable and unacceptable source use in their courses.

A Way Forward

Increased content instructor-writing specialist collaboration.

It is understandable that instructors who are not writing specialists may feel uncomfortable taking on the full responsibility for teaching source use skills such as paraphrasing. They, like our students, may never have experienced explicit paraphrasing instruction, and most disciplinary experts have not needed to think about how paraphrasing is used in their discipline as compared with other disciplines. In contrast, professional writing consultants meet with students from a variety of disciplines every day, giving us regular exposure to scholarly texts from many fields and a constant reminder that conventions differ by discipline. Writing centre professionals cannot deeply understand the conventions of every discipline, but the question is central to our day-to-day work. Collaboration allows both professionals to benefit: the instructor gains access to writing specialist knowledge, and the writing specialist gains access to disciplinary knowledge. A writing specialist could even be a partner in a Decoding the Disciplines style interview (Middendorf & Pace, 2004 ), where the writing consultant's role would be to ask questions to make explicit the paraphrasing conventions the faculty expert knows only implicitly. Serviss ( 2016 ) argued that instructors “need robust support as they design [writing] assignments for students, strategize ways to provide productive feedback, and ultimately evaluate and assess student work for both its course-specific content and its adherence to broader academic conventions such as academic integrity” (p. 553), and the specialists who work in writing centres are equipped to provide this very support.

At my institution, learning strategists developed and use an Intentional Model of Service Delivery (MRU, 2018 ) which prioritises embedding writing and learning strategies within content courses. The service model identifies four types of collaboration with our faculty partners: general (e.g., faculty partners offering students incentives for attending our open workshops), complementary (e.g., learning resources customised to specific assignments), integrated (e.g., co-created teaching materials) and embedded (e.g., consulting on curricular design).

Writing centre specialists across the country offer a similar range of collaborative support types (although they may not use the same labels), but it is not uncommon for writing centre professionals to feel that the potential for robust and sustained collaborations with faculty goes somewhat untapped. A perennial theme appearing in the conference programs of the Learning Specialists Association of Canada (LSAC) and the Canadian Writing Centres Association (CWCA) is generating and maintaining collaborations with content instructors. On these associations' 2019 conference programs were session titles such as “Now I Know You're Our Partners: Creating Embedded Learning Centre Services with Faculty” (LSAC), “Out of the Learning Centre and into the Classroom: Strategies for Embedding Writing Support” (CWCA) and “Supporting Sustainable Collaboration Between Writing Centres and Writing Instructors” (CWCA). Writing centre professionals are seeking opportunities to meaningfully and sustainably facilitate learning in partnership with faculty.

Projects at MRU, ranging from general workshops to integrated course-specific learning materials, have provided opportunities for our writing strategist team to approach teaching paraphrasing in new ways. Feedback from students and our faculty partners has been encouraging, and each of the sections below describes an aspect of this new approach.

Acknowledging Conflicting Notions of Authorship

When students enter college or university, they enter new discourse communities, and these scholarly communities conceive of authorship in ways that may conflict with students' notions of authorship. Many young adults entering our institutions are steeped in what Lawrence Lessig ( 2008 ) termed remix culture . They create memes and videos from multiple sources and share them freely without attribution. They quote from TV shows, films and songs, and not identifying the source is part of the appeal; the shared experience of watching or listening to the original makes explicit attribution unnecessary, and this implicit understanding is what sparks connection (Blum, 2009 ). When discussing source use, educators must be careful not to assume that students understand or agree with scholarly practices surrounding source use. Evans-Tokaryk ( 2014 ) advocated that when discussing source use, educators should “take remix culture as a point of (counter) reference” (p. 8). Using remix culture as a starting point allows us to build upon students' current experience and common practices and can make the contrast between what they know and the expectations of their new academic discourse communities clearer. Pecorari ( 2013 ) emphasised the importance of helping students understand their responsibility for transparent source use, and approaching this conversation by contrasting it with the way in which students engage in remix in their non-academic lives makes sense.

Contrasting remix culture with academic writing culture can be quick and easy. In a co-created asynchronous resource on academic integrity (including sections on paraphrasing and referencing), a nursing faculty partner and I included the slide reproduced in Fig.  21.1 .

Slide from asynchronous learning resource for nursing students

Note. This figure shows a slide whose purpose is to acknowledge that citation is expected within the cultural context of academic writing, but not within all contexts.

The inclusion of a slide like this one creates a quick opportunity to underline that citation is a cultural practice and to remind students that they are members of multiple cultures, each with unique norms.

Introducing Students to Paraphrasing As a Powerful Tool

Presenting paraphrasing as a tool which puts the writer in the powerful position of interpreting, evaluating and recontextualising information can help students view paraphrasing as valuable. In Mori's ( 2018 ) words, “a paraphrase in its rhetorical realisation may always involve some sort of evaluation or opinion, seeing that any writer has a reason for using a source, whether to support or refute a claim” (p. 46). When students recognise that they have the agency to shape information for a reason, and that reason is theirs to determine, they can begin to see paraphrasing as a useful tool rather than a burden.

The key may lie in orienting students to how scholarly discourse actually works and crucially, in helping them see themselves as active contributors to this discourse. As Hendricks and Quinn ( 2000 ) noted, many students enter higher education believing that knowledge is “something out there” (p. 451) rather than something that is constructed, that it is fixed rather than dynamic. Many approach writing from sources as a kind of reporting rather than the more creative and generative work of integrating ideas from sources with their own ideas. Faculty members could do more to unveil the rhetorical processes inherent in academic discourse and to guide students towards recognising the opportunities they have to participate in knowledge construction (Hendricks & Quinn, 2000 ), and the same goes for writing specialists.

For many years, the writing strategist team at MRU has offered a paraphrasing workshop as part of our Academic Success series. We commonly refer to workshops in this series as “open workshops” since they are open to students from any program, in any year of study. When I joined the team in 2015, the “Paraphrasing, Not Plagiarizing” workshop included no discussion of the reasons academic writers paraphrase or the benefits of paraphrasing. A later version included notes for the facilitator on the reasons paraphrasing is valuable, but the information did not appear on a slide or on the student handout. When I took over facilitation of the workshop, I moved the benefits of paraphrasing onto a slide: (1) [Paraphrasing] helps you to truly understand the original, (2) shows your instructor you understand, and (3) allows you to make complex ideas simple for your reader. Over time, I became dissatisfied with this list of benefits; if the point was to generate buy-in from students and break down their resistance to paraphrasing, the list felt flat and unconvincing.

I began to skip that benefits slide in favour of an approach that highlighted disciplinary conventions. I would ask students to generate an example of a discipline in which quoting is a common way to incorporate source information and a discipline where source incorporation occurs more commonly through paraphrasing (i.e., where quotation is uncommon). Students found this task challenging, leading me to conclude that most had never encountered the idea that the ratio of quoting to paraphrasing might vary by discipline. In the workshop, I would contrast Comparative Literature with Biology, exploring the reasons why, in general, the former would use more quotation than the latter. Although students generally reacted with interest, becoming curious about whether quoting was common or uncommon in their particular discipline, the explanation still seemed superficial. It fell short of a complete explanation of why paraphrasing is useful and sometimes preferable. Students came away with the idea that they should paraphrase, and that conventions differ by discipline, but they did not have a clear sense of why paraphrasing might serve them better as writers.

The 2021 version of the workshop retains the discussion of disciplinary conventions but also highlights that writers paraphrase because paraphrasing allows them greater flexibility for reformulating information to fit the point they are making in their own text. Our focus has shifted away from what students need to prove to their instructor, away from what the rules and conventions are, and towards the affordances paraphrasing provides the student writer, who is ultimately in charge. The idea that paraphrasing actually empowers the writer led one workshop participant to suggest that we refer to paraphrasing as “power-phrasing” (K. Toseland, personal communication, September 16, 2020). Not only did we immediately include the newly coined term in the workshop slide deck, but we incorporated it into the revised workshop title in January 2021: “From Paraphrasing to ‘Power-Phrasing’.”

Students who attend the paraphrasing workshop may choose to fill out a Reflection & Participation Form: an online form designed to take approximately 10–15 min to complete. (Each of the 15 workshops in our Academic Success series has a separate Reflection & Participation Form.) This assessment tool helps us determine whether learning outcomes are being met in the workshop and is a key quality assurance mechanism. The form for the paraphrasing workshop includes this question: “What's one strategy or concept you learned in this webinar that you'll apply in your future course work?” Responses from the Fall 2020 semester included:

I learned a major benefit of paraphrasing. In some cases paraphrasing is better than quoting as it gives you more flexibility to shape your work. I learned the benefit of paraphrasing which is greater flexibility, incorporating the information more smoothly, shaping the information for specific purpose, and power phrasing.

The comments suggest that before the workshop, these students did not understand that paraphrasing grants the writer flexibility; they did not see that paraphrasing actually serves the writer.

Once students realise that paraphrasing serves them as writers, they are in a much better position to understand why they should avoid patchwriting, where the text “restates a phrase, clause, or one or more sentences while staying close to the language or syntax of the source” (Jamieson, 2018 , p. 110). Students cannot truly understand why patchwriting is undesirable unless they first understand the purpose and benefits of paraphrasing. When they recognise that paraphrasing allows more flexibility in interpreting and re-shaping information, they can grasp why the mechanical “synonym substitution strategy” they may have thought of as paraphrasing misses the point. As a colleague explained to students, “when you patchwrite, you've essentially done a direct quote but made more work for yourself” (C. Willard, personal communication, September 28, 2020). Rebecca Moore Howard and others have argued that patchwriting represents a developmental phase in learning to write from sources and that the remedy is pedagogy, not punishment (Howard, 1993 ; Jamieson, 2016 ; Jamieson & Howard, 2019 ; Pecorari & Petrić, 2014 ). I wholeheartedly agree and believe that an emphasis on the purpose of paraphrasing is precisely the pedagogical starting point.

Evidence from an asynchronous learning module incorporated into a Fall 2020 first-year Health and Physical Education course revealed that for many learners, the idea that patchwriting is undesirable is new. After students completed the paraphrasing section of the module, they were asked to name one new thing they had learned about paraphrasing. Although only a fifth of the section focused specifically on patchwriting, 68/168 (40%) of students identified patchwriting (what it is, why they should avoid it, how to avoid it) as new to them.

A single workshop or learning module can only be a starting point on the road to competent paraphrasing, but as a starting point, it is gaining traction at our institution. Faculty members increasingly provide incentives (e.g., a small percentage of the final course grade) to their students to encourage them to participate in open workshops, and 69% of the students who registered for the paraphrasing workshop in Fall 2020 indicated either that an instructor was giving them some sort of incentive for participation and/or an instructor had recommended the webinar.

Avoiding Single-Sentence, Decontextualised Paraphrasing Activities

When modelling paraphrasing or creating practice activities, using a short passage from a source rather than a single sentence makes it possible to focus on the selection process so important to authentic paraphrasing. The educator can discuss with students which information to include in the paraphrase and which information to exclude so that the paraphrase best supports the writer's point. For the selection process to be remotely authentic, students must first have some context around the source (e.g., the author's main thesis) and some context around the text they are producing themselves (e.g., the topic sentence of the paragraph into which they are inserting their paraphrase). This target context helps students see that paraphrasing always has a rhetorical purpose. Another benefit of choosing a passage over a single sentence is that this practice aligns with the message that students should read sources thoroughly instead of mining sources for single sentences. Although any simulation is artificial to some degree, the more authentic the task, the more easily students will be able to transfer the knowledge and skills to a real situation.

In earlier versions of the open paraphrasing workshop, we used a single (albeit relatively complex) sentence from a scholarly journal article to walk students through our suggested steps in paraphrasing. We provided minimal context for the article itself, but no context for what students would be using the information for . We led students through the mostly decontextualised, mechanistic exercise of breaking the original sentence into lexical chunks, re-organising those chunks into a new sentence pattern, and finding new phrasing for each chunk. The workshop heavily emphasised a tool we called the “BIG-4 Checklist” for evaluating paraphrases: a plagiarism-free paraphrase must (1) have new words, (2) have new sentence structure, (3) have the same meaning as the original, and (4) be cited. Students evaluated a series of paraphrases as acceptable or unacceptable based on the BIG-4 criteria, and in our suggested set of steps to follow for successful paraphrasing, the final step was to “cross-check your paraphrase with the BIG-4.” The learning assessment form students filled out at the end of the workshop asked them to identify one concrete idea/strategy they took away from the workshop, and the most frequent answers were the BIG-4 Checklist and, more specifically, a new awareness that changing sentence structure is a requirement for plagiarism-free paraphrases. What students were taking away from our workshop were techniques for avoiding plagiarism, but what we wanted them to come away with was something deeper, more positive, and more exciting: an understanding of how paraphrasing can make their writing stronger and how it is connected to writer agency.

The revised workshop uses a different source text (an article from Canadian Business magazine), and instead of providing students with a single sentence to work from, we use a passage:

The company has been working to rapidly expand Tim Hortons beyond its Canadian roots. It signed a master franchise joint venture agreement with a private equity firm last year to open more than 1,500 of the coffee-and-doughnut shops in China—home to a burgeoning coffee culture and a hotbed of international coffee chain expansions. It also recently expanded into the Philippines, the United Kingdom and Spain. (Sagan, 2019 , para. 10).

Using a three-sentence passage rather than a single sentence allows students the opportunity to consider which parts of the passage they would select to support a particular claim. And this step—selecting information according to the writer's purpose—is now central to the workshop.

We present two different scenarios to illustrate the importance of information selection in paraphrasing. In the first, students imagine they are taking a Sociology course and are writing a paper about coffee culture around the world. The topic sentence of the paragraph is, “China is another country where coffee culture has taken hold over the past decade.” The students' task is to paraphrase the original passage to best support this topic sentence. In other words, they need to select only the parts of the original that are relevant to the point of the paragraph. Students need to ask themselves whether details such as “signed a master franchise joint venture agreement with a private equity firm” are useful for their purpose.

In the second scenario, students imagine they are taking a Management course and are writing a paper on international expansion. This time, the topic sentence is, “Canadian food and beverage companies have been expanding into Asian markets through joint venture agreements of various types.” In this scenario, students should realise that for this context, the specific type of joint venture agreement is significant and should probably be included in the paraphrase.

Logistically, the changes we have made to the paraphrasing practice activity are simple: (1) use a passage instead of a single sentence, and (2) provide context around what the writer is using the information for . Despite the simplicity of the adjustments, comments on learning assessment forms indicate that students are taking away deeper insights from the workshop.

In my future work in paraphrasing, I will be focusing more on the context of my topic and taking the time to thoroughly decide which ideas are important. As shown in the webinar, I will highlight the sentences that pertain to my subject matter and focus on how I can include that information into my writing. I liked the idea of looking at what isn't important in the source so that you are able to focus on paraphrasing what is relevant. Compared to paraphrasing the entire quote or source. Looking at what parts of the source are relevant to my specific topic and how those important aspects might change depending on the topic. Especially taking a look at how that important information might change depending on if you are looking at it from a business perspective or a sociological perspective.

Although the above changes apply to the open paraphrasing workshop, we are making similar changes to paraphrasing-focused segments of our in-class workshops and asynchronous learning modules (i.e., more complementary and integrated types of support), and our faculty partners are expressing enthusiasm for the new direction. Faculty partners frequently report that our student learning materials are adding to their own understanding of paraphrasing. In reference to an asynchronous learning resource on paraphrasing for nursing students, one faculty partner commented, “I guess, I know how to do [paraphrasing], I have just never seen it so clearly delineated” (J. Harris, personal communication, October 14, 2020).

De-emphasising Plagiarism, But Teaching Paraphrasing in the Context of Academic Integrity

In paraphrasing instruction, plagiarism should cease to have such a central place. Students need a safe space in which to practice source use, one in which the fear of plagiarism is not a deterrent to exploration and experimentation. At the same time, Jamieson and Howard's ( 2019 ) assertion that “textual missteps commonly classified as ‘plagiarism’ do not belong in the category of academic integrity” (p. 74) is problematic. Academic writers have a responsibility to represent their sources fairly, accurately and transparently, and student writers are no exception. Jamieson and Howard ( 2019 ) argue that “like grammar, spelling, and punctuation, whose rules students may not know or may sometimes knowingly or carelessly neglect, careless source attribution and incorporation produces bad writing and should be addressed as such” (p. 72). Careless source incorporation results in more than bad writing, however. It represents a lack of respect for other members of the academic community, which makes it distinct from and more egregious than careless grammar, spelling or punctuation. Careless paraphrasing can result in a misrepresentation of the original author's position, and when this outcome is not connected to the values of academic integrity, specifically fairness, responsibility and respect (International Center for Academic Integrity, 2021 ), students miss out on the opportunity to see themselves as active members of disciplinary communities—members who have a responsibility to one another. Although I agree that single instances of patchwriting should not lead to punishment for the student writer, tying source use instruction to the values of fairness, responsibility and respect is essential.

An experience with senior students at my institution has strengthened my conviction that paraphrasing instruction must be tied to academic integrity. After the instructor identified source misuse in the work of a surprising number of their students' written assignments, I facilitated several small group sessions on referencing and paraphrasing. These sessions, along with reports of conversations the instructor had had with students, revealed that in some cases, the origin of source misuse was a lack of understanding of the purpose of paraphrasing and how to approach it. In other cases, however, the students admitted to “getting away with” sloppy paraphrasing and referencing for years. They were fully aware that they were taking shortcuts, but since no instructor had ever addressed the issue, the students had never felt the need to adjust their practice. These students did not recognise themselves as active, responsible members of their disciplinary community.

Expecting an undergraduate student to recognise a personal responsibility to their disciplinary discourse community is not unrealistic. At MRU, senior undergraduate students make public presentations, engage in primary research activities, and present their results at academic conferences. These students do contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their disciplines and need to understand how the misuse of sources can undermine scholarly discourse.

A collaboration with second-year clinical nursing instructors is providing an opportunity for students to receive feedback on their paraphrasing in a way that helps them make authentic connections between source use and their responsibilities to the communities they serve. Students in this community nursing course work in groups to complete a project in close partnership with a community agency, and one of the students' final tasks is to provide a written report to the agency. Agencies sometimes refer to these reports in funding proposals and/or their own stakeholder communications. Approximately one week before the due date, students can book a one-hour group consultation with a writing strategist, who reviews the report and prepares feedback. Although the feedback can range from matters of organisation to writing style to APA formatting, a key objective is to provide feedback on paraphrasing. Strategists consult the sources students have paraphrased and identify places where they have misunderstood the source, failed to delineate the source authors' conclusions from their own, misrepresented source authors' positions and/or patchwritten. Because all the students in the group and their instructor attend the appointment, the opportunities for discussion about what constitutes acceptable paraphrasing are rich and often nuanced. Over the course of our two-year collaboration, we have worked with approximately 10 different instructors who have consistently told us that (1) they come away from the appointments with new insights on paraphrasing, and (2) they would not have had time to compare students' paraphrases with the original sources and would not have caught many of the paraphrasing missteps we identify. Students are grateful for the feedback on their paraphrasing, especially because they know they will be presenting their report to their agency partner; the fact that their writing will go beyond the school-writing context enhances their sense of accountability.

The changes to our open paraphrasing workshop are also generating evidence that undergraduate students readily make the link between paraphrasing and academic integrity insofar as they recognise the importance of fairly representing the original source author's position. Whereas previous versions of the workshop dedicated little time to misrepresentation, the new version prominently lists misrepresentation as one of four paraphrasing pitfalls and uses a specific example to illustrate the link between the common practice of mining a source for a single useful sentence and unintentional misrepresentation. When asked (in the learning assessment form) to identify their main takeaway from the workshop, students are mentioning strategies for avoiding misrepresenting the original source:

In order to avoid misrepresenting the original author, I will thoroughly read through sources in order to gain knowledge of the authors position accurately. Much of the time I find myself skimming through sources and sometimes this has resulted in me not fully understanding the main idea of the text and ultimately paraphrasing their position inaccurately. to make sure I read the source thoroughly so that I do not misinterpret what the author is saying. I need to make sure I know all the facts before paraphrasing a source, because I could potentially give the wrong interpretation, making it seem like I did not read the source, I just looked for what I wanted to find but did not go into depth with it. Before this workshop I wasn't really aware that it's very common to misinterpret an authors work by just reading small parts of their article. I just always assumed that all the parts of the article would specifically present their idea.

Students seem to be recognising the need for a deeper engagement with source texts—indeed, their responsibility to engage more deeply with source texts.

Future Directions

One-off workshops and learning modules are insufficient if our goal is to help students develop their ability to paraphrase competently and with integrity. Students need multiple opportunities, contextualised within their discipline, and spiralled throughout their program, to focus on source use, and crucially, to receive feedback on their paraphrasing. As writing strategists, we find ourselves working hard to dispel the notion that if all students participate in a paraphrasing and referencing workshop in the first year of their program, then they “should know it” and can be held accountable for source misuse in every course thereafter. We wholeheartedly support bringing key writing strategies like paraphrasing into first-year content classes, but we advocate for and can support next-level opportunities at subsequent stages of students' programs.

An approach analogous to Lang's ( 2016 ) “small teaching” may help make the integration of multiple learning opportunities more feasible. Small teaching activities “require minimal preparation and grading” (p. 8), and should take up only a small amount of class time. Instructors, in collaboration with writing specialists, could design and facilitate short paraphrasing activities so that students revisit key concepts and have chances to practice. A 15 minute block of time would be sufficient for educators to lead students through a side-by-side comparison of a paraphrase and the original passage from which it was derived, for example. Choosing a passage from a text students have already read for class would instantly provide authentic context, and if students evaluate the corresponding paraphrase in the context of a full paragraph rather than in isolation, the activity is more realistic and potentially illuminating. Even a simple comparison activity like this one can engender rich conversations about the line between interpretation and misinterpretation of an author's words/intent or the line between paraphrasing and patchwriting. Other quick classroom activities could include having students notice the balance between quotation and paraphrasing in a disciplinary text (Pecorari, 2013 ), comparing student-generated paraphrases of a passage from a text the whole class has read, or identifying the specific problem in each of several variations on a paraphrase. In all cases, writing specialists could be partners in co-creating the teaching materials and/or co-facilitating the activity.

To progress in their ability to use sources with integrity, students benefit from explicit instruction on the complex skill of paraphrasing and, importantly, feedback on their paraphrasing. When instruction and feedback focus more on what paraphrasing allows the writer to do and less on instilling fear of plagiarism, more on students' responsibilities as members of discourse communities and less on technicalities, students' confidence and abilities will grow. Sustained collaboration between content instructors and writing centre professionals may make it more feasible to weave paraphrasing instruction and feedback throughout a student's program.

Recommendations

∙ Leverage opportunities for instructor-writing specialist collaboration

∙ Acknowledge conflicting notions of authorship

∙ Help students see paraphrasing as a powerful tool

∙ Avoid single-sentence and/or decontextualised practice activities

∙ De-emphasise plagiarism, but link paraphrasing to the values of academic integrity

∙ Provide feedback to students on their paraphrasing

∙ Integrate short activities and feedback opportunities beyond the first year

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Rossi, S.L. (2022). Revisioning Paraphrasing Instruction. In: Eaton, S.E., Christensen Hughes, J. (eds) Academic Integrity in Canada. Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83255-1_21

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Summarizing and Paraphrasing in Academic Writing

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.” – Ernest Hemingway

Plato considers art (and therefore writing) as being mimetic in nature. Writing in all forms and for all kinds of audience involves thorough research. Often, there is a grim possibility that an idea you considered novel has already been adequately explored; however, this also means there are multiple perspectives to explore now and thereby to learn from.

Being inspired by another’s idea opens up a world of possibilities and thus several ways to incorporate and assimilate them in writing, namely, paraphrasing , summarizing, and quoting . However, mere incorporation does not bring writing alive and make it appealing to readers . The incorporation of various ideas must reflect the writer’s understanding and interpretation of them as well.

What is Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing in Academic Writing?

Purdue OWL defines these devices of representation quite succinctly:

Therefore, paraphrasing and summarizing consider broader segments of the main text, while quotations are brief segments of a source. Further, paraphrasing involves expressing the ideas presented from a particular part of a source (mostly a passage) in a condensed manner, while summarizing involves selecting a broader part of a source (for example, a chapter in a book or an entire play) and stating the key points. In spite of subtle variations in representation, all three devices when employed must be attributed to the source to avoid plagiarism .

Related: Finished drafting your manuscript? Check these resources to avoid plagiarism now!

Why is it Important to Quote, Paraphrase, and Summarize?

Quotations, paraphrases, and summaries serve the purpose of providing evidence to sources of your manuscript. It is important to quote, paraphrase, and summarize for the following reasons:

• It adds credibility to your writing
• It helps in tracking the original source of your research
• Delivers several perspectives on your research subject

Quotations/Quoting

Quotations are exact representations of a source, which can either be a written one or spoken words. Quotes imbue writing with an authoritative tone and can provide reliable and strong evidence. However, quoting should be employed sparingly to support and not replace one’s writing.

How Do You Quote?

• Ensure that direct quotes are provided within quotation marks and properly cited
• A Long quote of three or more lines can be set-off as a blockquote (this often has more impact)
• Short quotes usually flow better when integrated within a sentence

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is the manner of presenting a text by altering certain words and phrases of a source while ensuring that the paraphrase reflects proper understanding of the source. It can be useful for personal understanding of complex concepts and explaining information present in charts, figures , and tables .

How Do You Paraphrase?

• While aligning the representation with your own style (that is, using synonyms of certain words and phrases), ensure that the author’s intention is not changed as this may express an incorrect interpretation of the source ideas
• Use quotation marks if you intend to retain key concepts or phrases to effectively paraphrase
• Use paraphrasing as an alternative to the abundant usage of direct quotes in your writing

Summarizing

Summarizing involves presenting an overview of a source by omitting superfluous details and retaining only the key essence of the ideas conveyed.

How Do You Summarize?

• Note key points while going through a source text
• Provide a consolidated view without digressions for a concrete and comprehensive summary of a source
• Provide relevant examples from a source to substantiate the argument being presented

“Nature creates similarities. One need only think of mimicry. The highest capacity for producing similarities, however, is man’s. His gift of seeing resemblances is nothing other than a rudiment of the powerful compulsion in former times to become and behave like something else.” –Walter Benjamin

Quoting vs Paraphrasing vs Summarizing

Research thrives as a result of inspiration from and assimilation of novel concepts. However, do ensure that when developing and enriching your own research, proper credit is provided to the origin . This can be achieved by using plagiarism checker tool and giving due credit in case you have missed it earlier.

Source: https://student.unsw.edu.au/paraphrasing-summarising-and-quoting

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Academic Writing: Summarising, paraphrasing and quoting

• Academic Writing
• Planning your writing
• Structuring your assignment
• Critical Thinking & Writing
• Building an argument
• Reflective Writing
• Summarising, paraphrasing and quoting

Summarising, Paraphrasing and Quotations

Academic writing requires that you use literature sources in your work to demonstrate the extent of your reading (breadth and depth), your knowledge, understanding and critical thinking. Literature can be used to provide evidence to support arguments and can demonstrate your awareness of the research-base that underpins your subject specialism.

There are three ways to introduce the work of others into your assignments: summarising, paraphrasing and quotations.

When, Why & How to Use

• Summarising
• Paraphrasing

Definition: Using your own words to provide a statement (‘summary’) of the main themes, key points, or overarching ideas of a complete text, such as a book, chapter from a book, or academic article.

When to use:

• Useful for providing an overview or background to a topic
• Useful for describing your knowledge and understanding from a single source
• Useful for expressing your combined knowledge and understanding from several sources (synthesis of sources)

Why to use:

• Demonstrates your understanding of your reading
• Demonstrates your ability to identify the main points from a larger body of text or to draw together the main points from several sources

How to use:

• Should offer a balanced representation of the main points
• Should be expressed in your own words (except for technical terminology or conventional terms that appear in the original)
• Should not include detailed discussion or examples
• Should not include information that is not in the original text
• Should avoid using the same sentence structures as the original text
• Read the original text (more than once if necessary) to make sure you fully understand it
• Note the main points in your own words
• Recheck the original text to ensure you have covered the key content and meaning
• Rewrite using formal, grammatically correct academic writing
• Requires in-text citation and referencing
• No page numbers in in-text citation

Example (using Harvard referencing style, from CiteThemRight online, Cite Them Right - Summarising (Harvard) (citethemrightonline.com) :

'Nevertheless, one important study (Harrison, 2007) looks closely at the historical and linguistic links between European races and cultures over the past five hundred years.'

Definition: Using your own words to express an author’s specific point from a short section of text (one or two sentences, or a paragraph), retaining the original meaning.

• Used where the meaning of the text is more important than the exact words
• Useful for expressing the author’s specific point more concisely and in a way that clarifies its relationship to your work
• Useful for stating factual information such as data and statistics from a source
• Demonstrates that you have understood the content and can express it independently, rather than relying on the author’s words
• Allows you to use your own style of writing and your own ‘voice’ in your work
• Allows you to integrate the ideas to fit more readily with your own work and to improve the flow of the writing
• Must not change the original meaning
• Must go further than just changing a few words or changing the word order as this could amount to plagiarism (you would not be fully expressing the idea in your own words)
• Use different sentence structures from the original source
• Use different vocabulary from the original source to convey the meaning
• Read the original text several times, and identify the key content which is important and relevant to your work to distinguish this from content which is less important
• Identify any specialist terminology or key words which are essential
• Think about your reason for paraphrasing and how it relates to your own work
• Roughly note down your understanding of the relevant content in your own words (don’t copy) without looking at the original text
• Reread the original text and refine your notes to ensure that you are not misrepresenting the author, to determine whether you have captured the important aspects of the piece and to make sure your paraphrasing is not too similar to the original
• Rewrite this in formal, grammatically correct academic writing
• Requires page number/s in the in-text citation to precisely locate the original content on which the paraphrasing is based within the source

Example (using Harvard referencing style, from CiteThemRight online, Cite Them Right - Paraphrasing (Harvard) (citethemrightonline.com) :

'Harrison (2007, p. 48) clearly distinguishes between the historical growth of the larger European nation states and the roots of their languages and linguistic development, particularly during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At this time, imperial goals and outward expansion were paramount for many of the countries, and the effects of spending on these activities often led to internal conflict.'

Definition: Using the author’s exact words to retain the author’s specific form of expression, clearly identifying the quotation as distinct from your own words (for example using quotation marks or indentation).

• Used where the author’s own exact words are important, rather than just the meaning
• Useful where the author’s original choice of words conveys subjective experience, uses persuasive language, or carries emotional force
• Useful where the precise wording is significant, for example in legal texts
• Useful for definitions
• Useful if the author’s own words carry the weight of power and authority that supports your argument
• Useful if you want to critique an author’s point, to ensure you do not misrepresent their meaning
• Useful if you want to disagree with the author as their own words may express their opposition to your argument enabling you to engage with and resist their point of view
• Useful if the author has expressed themselves so concisely, distinctively, and eloquently that paraphrasing would diminish the quality of the statement
• Demonstrates your ability to identify relevant and significant content from a larger body of work
• Demonstrates that you have read and understood the wider context of the quotation and can integrate it into your own work appropriately
• Should be used selectively (over-use of quotations does not demonstrate your own understanding)
• Should not be used just to avoid expressing the meaning in your own words or because you are not confident you have understood the content
• Make sure that the quotation is reproduced accurately, including spelling and punctuation
• Comment on the quotation and its relationship to your point, for example explain its interest and relevance, show how it applies to a particular situation, or discuss its limitations
• Short quotations of no more than three lines should be contained within quotation marks (you can use double or single quotations marks, but be consistent and note that Turnitin only recognises double quotation marks)
• Longer quotations (used sparingly) should be included as a separate paragraph indented from the main text, without quotation marks
• Don’t use quotation marks for technical terminology which is accepted within your specialism, and which is part of the common language of your academic discipline
• Requires page number/s in the in-text citation to precisely locate the quote within the source

Examples (from CiteThemRight online, Cite Them Right - Setting out quotations (Harvard) (citethemrightonline.com) ):

Short quotation (using Harvard referencing style):

'If you need to illustrate the idea of nineteenth-century America as a land of opportunity, you could hardly improve on the life of Albert Michelson’ (Bryson, 2004, p. 156).

Long quotation (using Harvard referencing style):

King describes the intertwining of the fate and memory in many evocative passages, such as:

So the three of them rode towards their end of the Great Road, while summer lay all about them, breathless as a gasp. Roland looked up and saw something that made him forget all about the Wizard’s Rainbow. It was his mother, leaning out of her apartment’s bedroom window: the oval of her face surrounded by the timeless gray stone of the castle’s west wing! (King, 1997, pp. 553-554)

Altering quotations:

You can omit part of a quotation by using three dots (ellipses). Only do this to omit unnecessary words which do not alter the meaning.

Example (from CiteThemRight online, Cite Them Right - Making changes to quotations (citethemrightonline.com) ).

'Drug prevention ... efforts backed this up' (Gardner, 2007, p. 49).

You can insert your own or different words into a quotation by placing them in square brackets. Only do this to add clarity to the quotation where it does not alter the meaning.

Example (from CiteThemRight online, Cite Them Right - Making changes to quotations (citethemrightonline.com) ):

'In this field [crime prevention], community support officers ...' (Higgins, 2008, p. 17).

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Using Evidence: Effective Paraphrasing Strategies

Effective paraphrasing strategies.

If you are having trouble paraphrasing a text effectively, try following these steps:

• Reread the original passage you wish to paraphrase, looking up any words you do not recognize, until you think you understand the full meaning of and intention behind the author's words.
• Next, cover or hide the passage. Once the passage is hidden from view, write out the author's idea, in your own words, as if you were explaining it to your instructor or classmates.

Have I accurately addressed the author's ideas in a new way that is unique to my writing style and scholarly voice? Have I tried to replicate the author's idea or have I simply changed words around in his/her original sentence(s)?

• Last, include a citation, which should contain the author's name, the year, and the page or paragraph number (if available), directly following your paraphrase.

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Guidelines for paraphrasing content in academic papers

• Post author By Admin
• Post date June 26, 2021

The best paraphrases are your interpretations or explanations of the ideas of another person. Academic paraphrasing can serve as an excellent means of restating, condensing, or clarifying another author’s argument or analysis while also adding credibility to your own.

So to increase high credibility in your research paper can be done easily by paraphrasing content in academic papers.

In addition to successful paraphrasing contributing to academic writing, it is possible to commit plagiarism through poor paraphrasing accidentally. For more information about what constitutes an adequate paraphrase, read the paraphrasing strategies below.

Before moving to the guidelines for paraphrasing content, you must have an idea about the importance of rephrasing and paraphrasing content in academic writing.

Importance of paraphrasing in academic writing

The purpose of paraphrasing is to demonstrate that you understand your source well enough to express yourself effectively. Additionally, you can also use it as an alternative to direct quotes, which you should use sparingly.

• Using this method for your research paper/essay is a good idea as long as it is properly cited. Adding the references to a source, copying and pasting the source, etc., are not acceptable in academic essays.
• Use direct quotes (references), indirect quotes or paraphrases (references), and information in your own words.
• You should write in your own words because it shows your reader (your lecturer) that you understand the source.
• This method gives you a powerful alternative to direct quotations.

Guidelines for paraphrasing content in Academic Papers

You can follow a few tips and guidelines to make sure you don’t plagiarize by paraphrasing content . So, you can rephrase words or entire content from the source.

Researchers are motivated to pursue new research and write about their discoveries in books and papers when they have brilliant ideas. However, you may find that this is not always easy; there are often people who try to steal the research and opinions of others to use them anonymously for the gain of their own. f you need help writing papers you can find more info here .

And plagiarism is the act of using someone’s collected ideas, information, and work without acknowledgment, words, or attribution. So, to avoid all types of plagiarism, you can try many strategies, and paraphrasing is one of them.

Paraphrasing in Academic Writing:

In paraphrasing, your words are rewritten in the same manner as the original text, but without changing its meaning. To paraphrase is not to omit words and replace them with new ones, but instead to summarize what you understand from the original text.

When rewriting ISI papers, this is of utmost importance, and any disregard for it could lead many authors to commit plagiarism.

You must still cite your paraphrase using the appropriate format – APA, AMA, MLA, etc. You can use your own words when paraphrasing, but still ensure that you follow any format requirements. Following are some tips and techniques for effective paraphrasing:

Paraphrasing Tips

There are five essential steps to paraphrasing any text. Authors should follow them when making such paraphrases:

Read the passage again and again carefully: When you want to rephrase or paraphrase content, you have to read the course again and again with total concentration. Because when you read the passage very carefully, the benefit of this tip is that your concept about the passage will be clear, and after that, you have a clear sketch of the original passage.

Keep a list of key terms: The next step for paraphrasing is to list keywords from the original text or passage.

Rephrase: Rephrase or paraphrase the passage without looking at the original passage, using your own words and terms until you understand the whole passage and get its main points.

Compare your paraphrased passage with the original passage: When you rephrase your content in your words, the next process is to compare your paraphrased passage with the original passage. So, be sure your paraphrase text covers the central theme, all essential points, and the primary meaning of the original passage.

Use in-text citations: The last step is to cite the sources in your manuscript that you used to develop the idea in the references section.

To successfully paraphrase your writing manuscript, you should consider the following three more guidelines and techniques for effective paraphrasing:

1. Make use of synonyms and related terms

When paraphrasing text , you should use synonyms and related terms that demonstrate a comprehensive knowledge of the subject. You can use Thesaurus for finding synonyms. It will help you a lot while finding synonyms, but don’t use too many.

This doesn’t mean you have to remove all words in the original text; sometimes, it’s necessary to use some of the words that were in the original text, so you just use synonyms for some words to make the text unique.

Check the particular synonyms when changing a word to see if they are perfectly similar to the original.

2.  Reverse the order of the words

It is possible to rearrange the words in a sentence without changing the meaning and central concept of the text. It’s almost easier to change the word order in a sentence than to search for synonyms. Adding a few words to complete the sentence may be necessary when changing the order.

The following suggestions will change the order of words so that the sentence makes sense

• It is best to reorder clauses if the main sentence has two or more clauses.
• Whenever there is an adjective and a noun in the main sentence, you should use the adjective in the relative clause.

3. Modify the structure of a sentence

You can change the general structure of a sentence by changing the voice of the sentence (active voice to passive and passive voice to active). You may miss changing a few words in an original text using synonyms and related terms when paraphrasing, as you heavily depend on the source’s structure and vocabulary.

So, it will be patchwriting, and Patchwriting is a type of paraphrasing that fails when the paraphrased text is very similar to the original text. This is a form of plagiarism. Changing the sentence structure is necessary for a proper paraphrase.

It is possible to alter the structure of a sentence by modifying its voice, breaking up long sentences, combining short ones, expanding or reducing phrases for clarity.

So, when you change the structure of the whole sentence, the idea will be the same, but it is in your own words showing complete uniqueness in text and removing all types of plagiarism.

Quoting vs. paraphrasing

The majority of the important information you find after performing thorough research and taking careful notes will naturally be paraphrased rather than directly quoted. You should not use too many direct quotations in your paper for the following reasons:

• By paraphrasing a text, you demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the content
• Throughout your essay, you will be able to hear your voice
• The use of quotes reduces the readability of your text

It is appropriate to use quotes in the following situations:

• Precise definitions
• Referring to an author’s style or language
• Supporting an argument with evidence
• Analysing or critiquing a claim

Summarizing vs. paraphrasing

Paraphrases are rewritten versions of passages from other sources, so they are roughly the same length as the original quotes. Summarizing is what you do when describing an essential part of a research project, whether entirely or partly. A paraphrase differs from a summary in several ways.

Both are often described as paraphrasing.

Use a Paraphrasing tool

Generally, paraphrasing tools are software programs that rewrite ideas and information in a non-plagiarized manner; they enable writers to express their opinions differently than the original content, primarily by substituting synonyms while still conveying their ideas.

Students use such tools to ensure their academic papers do not appear as duplicates of others but along with this students should also use other content optimization tools which are very useful for content quality analysis.

Online rephrase tool are available for free and can convert a sentence, paragraph, entire journal, or chapter into a unique content by using NLP.

Paraphrasing tool: why do they use it?

If you are writing a literature review, a background report, or other research for academic writing, you will need to do a thorough examination of the topic and examine what others have said and put it in your own words.

Therefore, you should explain the same idea or concept from the literature you have studied in your own words. In this case, students will want to use a paraphrasing tool. The use of paraphrasing tools is primarily motivated by:

• It took them a short time to rewrite the secondary research materials that they used.
• Students who do not know other languages well are not as proficient as their mother tongue. Thus, they utilize these tools to write.
• Others are merely lazy and do not bother to write themselves.

Conclusion:

When you paraphrase, you are demonstrating that you understand your source well enough to express yourself effectively. You can develop Paraphrasing skills through helpful strategies or guidelines. To effectively paraphrase a text, you should take the time to ensure that you understand it completely.

First, you read the passage very carefully before you try to rephrase it. If you do not understand any of the words, consult your dictionary. Read it on your own quickly. You may want to skim it if you feel comfortable doing so.

The first sentence in each paragraph (often the topic sentence) and keywords are among the most important, so you have to pay full attention to the first sentence. Summarize the text in your own words.

Use your own words instead of complex academic language. Compare the paraphrased text with the original text. For future reference, record all author and source information. In this way, you quickly rephrase or paraphrase your content for academic writing. If you have a lot of assignments to complete and deadlines are approaching lightning fast visit studycrumb and get the most effective solutions. This is an academic writing platform created by former students to help current students with writing assignments.

3 Benefits of Paraphrasing: The Skill for Learning, Writing and Communicating

Paraphrasing is the underrated skill of reinstating, clarifying or condensing the ideas of another in your own words. By paraphrasing, you can curate credible and well-developed documents, and arguments. But there’s more to paraphrasing than the final result, the process of paraphrasing engages your ability to learn actively, write well, and communicate creatively.

Paraphrasing allows you to share another’s ideas in your own words. This powerful technique is useful in both written and verbal communication, and acts as a tool for conveying information effectively. Paraphrasing is an underrated skill that is beneficial to a variety of individuals from students and writers to employees and business owners. In any setting, sharing information well is the key to good quality work and results. The process of paraphrasing itself also has a number of benefits, making you a better learner, writer and communicator. 

Paraphrasing: The Active Learning Strategy 

Paraphrasing requires you to think about the information you want to convey. You need to understand the meaning in order to reword and restructure the idea, and share it effectively. The process of paraphrasing encourages you to get to the core message, and improves your understanding of the material. In this way, you are actively engaging with the material . Instead of passively reading, you are breaking down the ideas and concepts. Rather than slotting information into your writing, you’re reworking and tailoring it to your needs and your audience. 

Paraphrasing can improve your memory by encouraging you to engage with the information. The 5-step approach to paraphrasing suggests writing your first paraphrase without looking at the original material. This engages your ability to actively recall information from memory, and think of new ways to write it out, rather than simply trying to memorise what you read word for word. After your first draft, you’ll revisit the original material to check if your work conveys the same meaning, this part of the process can further strengthen memory. You’re again revisiting the material in a way that is active and assessing your understanding. Likewise, the practice of paraphrasing improves your ability to convey information, ensuring that it is well-written and tailored to your audience.

This learning method is particularly useful for exams. You’ll learn the material well, developing a deep understanding and continue to refine this as you paraphrase the information. You’ll also be practising your ability to share this information in a way that is well-written, avoids plagiarism and engages your audience. This means, you’ll be able to easily add these ideas into your assignments or exams, having already taken the time to understand the ideas deeply and even practised sharing this information. You’ll be able to show the depth of your learning through paraphrasing, proving you understand the bigger picture and the finer details. 

Paraphrasing: The Technique for Improving Writing Ability

Once you’ve understood the concept well, the process of paraphrasing can improve your writing ability in a variety of ways. You’ll improve your vocabulary by making use of synonyms and identifying key words. You might also switch between word categories, using a noun instead of a verb or changing  adjectives into adverbs. Overtime, this will make you a better writer. Paraphrasing is more than changing a few words and can involve switching between the active or passive voice, this can improve your ability to distinguish between the two. Effective paraphrasing also involves playing around with sentence structure, you might utilise shorter or longer sentences to convey the idea at hand. 

These benefits can still be found even when using paraphrasing tools . You’ll still have to test your understanding by assessing the paraphrase the tool produced. Likewise, you’ll be exposed to new ways of writing things, new words, sentence structures, and organisation. You’ll learn how to pick out the paraphrasing styles that do or don’t work for your writing. Beyond the more technical aspects of writing, paraphrasing can also teach you how to communicate more clearly. You might rearrange the information to emphasise a particular point, or simplify the language to make it accessible to your audience. This improves your ability to clarify the ideas of the original material, and make ideas that might be overly complex, easier to digest. 

Paraphrasing: The Skill for Better Communication 

Finally, paraphrasing can make you a better and more creative communicator. By engaging in the process of paraphrasing, you’re developing your ability to share one idea in a variety of ways. For this to be engaging, you have to get creative. You might play around with the tone, switching between formal, informal, casual, or persuasive. Imagine a business launching a new product, communicating the idea to various internal teams, and customers, each would require a different approach and yet the meaning behind the information would remain the same. 

You might ask questions such as, how can I tailor this information to my audience? How can I bring this aspect of the idea to life? This highlights how paraphrasing can really exercise your ability to communicate creatively. Similarly, paraphrasing can teach you how to share ideas in your own personal way. Whether you’re sharing an idea with a friend, or on social media, you’ll find you can share information in your own personal style while still retaining the original meaning. This can make ideas more accessible and relatable to those in your circle. Additionally, this can prove to be a useful skill in your career, studies or creative endeavours.

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2.4: Acknowledging and Citing Generative AI in Academic Work

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You’ve already learned the importance of citing your sources in academic work. But how do you acknowledge and cite generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT?

Before we get started, it’s important to remember that not all instructors allow students to use generative AI in their assignments. You should check with your individual instructor for their policies. When in doubt, ask!

Before You Use (and Cite), Reflect: Why and How Am I Using Generative AI?

As an instructor and a writer, I have found that generative artificial intelligence tools can be helpful to explore ideas, refine research questions, outline arguments, and break down difficult concepts for students. When my students use ChatGPT, I ask them to include a citation to the tool they used and also to provide a brief reflection about how they used ChatGPT and how they checked the information for accuracy. Here is an example of a reflection from Luka Denney’s essay in Beginnings and Endings , a student-created open education resource.

For this essay, I used Chat GPT as a resource to give me a summary of the feminist and queer theory analysis lens, “Feminist queer theory is a critical analysis lens that combines feminist theory and queer theory to examine how gender and sexuality intersect and shape social power dynamics. This approach challenges the dominant cultural norms that promote heteronormativity, gender binary, and patriarchy, which result in marginalizing individuals who do not conform to these norms.” With this, it helped me better understand the material so I could write better essays. This information was accessed on, May 6th, 2023.

Reflecting on how and why you are using generative AI can help you to ensure that you are not plagiarizing from this tool.

Luka’s reflection is an example of an acknowledgement statement , which is separate from a citation. Increasingly, students should become familiar with AI acknowledgement statements and clarify with their instructors when these statements are needed.

Suggestions for Acknowledging Use of AI

Monash University provides helpful recommendations for how to acknowledge when and how you’ve used generated material as part of an assignment or project. If you decide to use generative artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT for an assignment, it’s a best practice to include a statement that does the following:

• Provides a written acknowledgment of the use of generative artificial intelligence.
• Specifies which technology was used.
• Includes explicit descriptions of how the information was generated.
• Identifies the prompts used.
• Explains how the output was used in your work.

The format Monash University provides is also helpful. Students may include this information either in a cover letter or in an appendix to the submitted work.

Definition: Term

I acknowledge the use of [insert AI system(s) and link] to [specific use of generative artificial intelligence]. The prompts used include [list of prompts]. The output from these prompts was used to [explain use].

Academic style guides such as APA already include guidelines for including appendices after essays and reports. Review Purdue Owl’s entry on Footnotes and Appendices for help.

Citing AI Chatbots

In some situations, students may want to cite information from a chatbot conversation, such as a definition or discussion of a concept they want to use in an essay. The American Psychological Association (APA) and the Modern Language Association (MLA), two of the most frequently used style guides for college writing, have both provided guidelines for how to do this.

ChatGPT includes the ability to share links to specific chats. It’s a best practice to include those links in your reference. For other tools like Google Doc’s Writing Assistant, links are not yet available, so it’s important to be transparent with your reader about how and when you are using AI in your writing.

Here’s an example of a shared chat link in ChatGPT 3.5. When you click on the link, you’ll be able to see both the author’s prompts and the chatbot’s responses. Including links provides transparency for your writing process.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), ChatGPT should be cited like this:

When prompted with “Is the left brain right brain divide real or a metaphor?” the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that although the two brain hemispheres are somewhat specialized, “the notation that people can be characterized as ‘left-brained’ or ‘right-brained’ is considered to be an oversimplification and a popular myth” (OpenAI, 2023).

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

The Modern Language Association (MLA) uses a template of core elements to create citations for a Works Cited page. MLA asks students to apply this approach when citing any type of generative AI in their work. They provide the following guidelines:

• Cite a generative AI tool whenever you paraphrase, quote, or incorporate into your own work any content (whether text, image, data, or other) that was created by it.
• Acknowledge all functional uses of the tool (like editing your prose or translating words) in a note, your text, or another suitable location.
• Take care to vet the secondary sources it cites. (MLA)

Here are some examples of how to use and cite generative AI with MLA style:

Example One: Paraphrasing Text

Let’s say that I am trying to generate ideas for a paper on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” I ask ChatGPT to provide me with a summary and identify the story’s main themes. Here’s a link to the chat . I decide that I will explore the problem of identity and self-expression in my paper.

My Paraphrase of ChatGPT with In-Text Citation

The problem of identity and self expression, especially for nineteenth-century women, is a major theme in “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (“Summarize the short story”).

Works Cited Entry

“Summarize the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Include a breakdown of the main themes” prompt. ChatGPT. 24 May Version, OpenAI, 20 Jul. 2023, https://chat.openai.com/share/d1526b95-920c-48fc-a9be-83cd7dfa4be5

Example Two: Quoting Text

In the same chat, I continue to ask ChatGPT about the theme of identity and self expression. Here’s an example of how I could quote the response in the body of my paper:

When I asked ChatGPT to describe the theme of identity and self expression, it noted that the eponymous yellow wallpaper acts as a symbol of the narrator’s self-repression. However, when prompted to share the scholarly sources that formed the basis of this observation, ChatGPT responded, “As an AI language model, I don’t have access to my training data, but I was trained on a mixture of licensed data, data created by human trainers, and publicly available data. OpenAI, the organization behind my development, has not publicly disclosed the specifics of the individual datasets used, including whether scholarly sources were specifically used” (“Summarize the short story”).

It’s worth noting here that ChatGPT can “ hallucinate ” fake sources. As a Microsoft training manual notes, these chatbots are “built to be persuasive, not truthful” (Weiss &Metz, 2023). The May 24, 2023 version will no longer respond to direct requests for references; however, I was able to get around this restriction fairly easily by asking for “resources” instead.

When I ask for resources to learn more about “The Yellow Wallpaper,” here is one source it recommends:

“Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper: A Symptomatic Reading” by Elaine R. Hedges: This scholarly article delves into the psychological and feminist themes of the story, analyzing the narrator’s experience and the implications of the yellow wallpaper on her mental state. It’s available in the journal “Studies in Short Fiction.” (“Summarize the short story”).

Using Google Scholar, I look up this source to see if it’s real. Unsurprisingly, this source is not a real one, but it does lead me to another (real) source: Kasmer, Lisa. “Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s’ The Yellow Wallpaper’: A Symptomatic Reading.” Literature and Psychology 36.3 (1990): 1.

Note: ALWAYS check any sources that ChatGPT or other generative AI tools recommend.

A Checklist for Acknowledging and Citing Generative A.I. Tools

In conclusion, it’s important to follow these five steps if you are considering whether or not to use and cite generative artificial intelligence in your academic work:

• Check with your instructor to make sure you have permission to use these tools.
• Reflect on how and why you want to use generative artificial intelligence in your work. If the answer is “to save time” or “so I don’t have to do the work myself,” think about why you are in college in the first place. What skills are you supposed to practice through this assignment? Will using generative artificial intelligence really save you time in the long run if you don’t have the opportunity to learn and practice these skills?
• If you decide to use generative artificial intelligence, acknowledge your use, either in an appendix or a cover letter.
• Cite your use of generative artificial intelligence both in text and on a References/Works Cited page.
• Always check the information provided by a generative artificial intelligence tool against a trusted source. Be especially careful of any sources that generative artificial intelligence provides.

These tools are rapidly evolving and have the potential to transform the way that we think and write. But just as you should not use a calculator to solve a math equation unless you understand the necessary steps to perform the calculation, you should also be careful about “outsourcing” your thinking and writing to ChatGPT.

Denney, L. (2023). Your body, your choice: At least, that’s how it should be. Beginnings and Endings: A Critical Edition. https://cwi.pressbooks.pub/beginnings-and-endings-a-critical-edition/chapter/feminist-5/

McAdoo, T. (2023, April 7). How to cite ChatGPT. APA Style Blog. https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt

Modern Language Association. (2023, March 17). How do I cite generative AI in MLA style? https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai/

Monash University. (n.d.). Acknowledging the use of generative artificial intelligence. https://www.monash.edu/learnhq/build-digital-capabilities/create-online/acknowledging-the-use-of-generative-artificial-intelligence

OpenAI (2023). Yellow Wallpaper themes. ChatGPT (24 May version) [Large Language Model]. https://chat.openai.com/share/70e86a32-6f04-47b4-8ea7-a5aac93c2c77

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