A paraphrase is...

• your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
• close to the original document, following point by point, but you must use your own words and sentence structure.
• one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
• a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...

• it is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage.
• it helps you control the temptation to quote too much.
• the mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.

General advice

·         When reading a passage, try first to understand it as a whole, rather than pausing to write down specific ideas or phrases.

·         Never distort the source’s meaning as you reword and change the text.

·         Be selective. Unless your assignment is to do a formal or "literal" paraphrase, you usually don’t need to paraphrase an entire passage; instead, choose the material that helps you make a point in your paper.

·         Think of what "your own words" would be if you were telling someone who's unfamiliar with your subject (your mother, your brother, a friend) what the original source said.

·         Remember that you can use direct quotations of phrases from the original within your paraphrase, and that you don't need to change or put quotation marks around shared language (Conventional designations, preferred bias-free language, technical terms and phrases of a discipline or genre)

·         Integrate your paraphrases smoothly into your writing.

6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing

1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Examples for comparison:

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.

A legitimate paraphrase:

In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

An acceptable summary:

Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

A plagiarized version:

Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes. [Note that this has no acknowledgement of the source either within the document or as a citation.]

Material compiled from the following sources:

OWL at Purdue University Online, “Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words“

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/619/01/

 The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/QPA_paraphrase2.html

Troyka, Lynn Q., and Douglas Hesse.  QA Compact.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2007.

Other examples of paraphrasing:

• Row, row, row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream.

• Propel, propel, propel your craft

Placidly down the liquid solution.

Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically,

Existence is but an illusion.

            (Second version attributed to Fred Rogers)

Is this legitimate paraphrasing?

• Sabrina was the brainy Angel.  Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other.  Pretty or smart.  Guess which one I got.  You’ll see where it’s gotten me.

• Moneypenny was the brainy female character.  Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to Harvard, I was happy.  Except it hadn’t gotten me into Harvard.  Clearly it was time to switch to category two.

What about this?

• There isn’t an inch of me that hasn’t been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized . . . . Because I don’t look a thing like M.   M never had fingernails, M never had blond highlights, M never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is my size.  I don’t even know who I am anymore.  It certainly isn’t M.  She’s turning me into someone else.

• Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized.  I didn’t look a thing like OM.  OM didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat.  She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or Le Perla bras.  She never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of the Kazakhstani mountain goat population.  I was turning into someone else.

From page 6 of Megan McCafferty’s 2001 novel, Sloppy Firsts:

• Sabrina was the brainy Angel.  Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other.  Pretty or smart.  Guess which one I got.  You’ll see where it’s gotten me.

From page 39 of Kaavya Viswanathan’s novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life

• Moneypenny was the brainy female character.  Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to Harvard, I was happy.  Except it hadn’t gotten me into Harvard.  Clearly it was time to switch to category two.

And

From page 12 of Meg Cabot’s 2000 novel, The Princess Diaries

• There isn’t an inch of me that hasn’t been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized . . . . Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails, Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights,  Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is my size.  I don’t even know who I am anymore.  It certainly isn’t Mia Thermopolis.  She’s turning me into someone else.

From page 59 of Kaavya Viswanathan’s novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life

• Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized.  I didn’t look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat.  She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or Le Perla bras.  She never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of the Kazakhstani mountain goat population.  I was turning into someone else.

 Zhou, David, and Paras D. Bhayani. “Opal Similar to More Books.”  Harvard Crimson, 2 May 2006.

            28 Feb. 2009 <http://www.thecrimson.com/aspx?ref=513213>.