How to Paraphrase: Easy Steps to Refine

How to paraphrase to avoid plagiarism and maintain good academic writing.

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is the expression of someone else’s thoughts or ideas in your own words. You demonstrate that you have understood the original while maintaining your own voice.

When paraphrasing it is important not to change the original meaning of the text, and you must reference the source of the original text.

Steps to paraphrasing

Here’s how you much approach paraphrasing.

1. Read extract you want to paraphrase
2. What are the main idea(s)/ subject/ focus words?
3. Write short notes in own words – bullet points
4. Change most vocabulary in your notes for relevant synonyms
5. Can sentence order be re-arranged?

Paraphrasing Techniques

Use synonyms

Use synonyms but you must also think carefully about synonyms.

A synonym is a word or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word or phrase. You must think carefully about which synonym to use in an academic context.

For example: Many | Numerous | Umpteen | Countless | Multitudinous

Some technical terms should not be changed.

Climate change | Macroclimate revolution

Paraphrasing statistics

Change a percentage into a fraction, or visa versa:
50% becomes half | Three-fourths becomes 75%

Change a number into words, or visa versa:
500,000 people becomes half a million

Reverse a percentage to describe the opposite fact:
65% want the president to resign becomes 35% hope the president stays

Convert to a different currency or measurement system:
5 miles becomes 8 kilometres | £10,000 becomes $14,000

Examples

Examples

Original: Regular exercise and eating healthy helps improve mental health.

Paraphrase 1: Consistent exercise and consuming healthy food helps to improve mental health.
(The paraphrased text is too close to the original text and only a few words have been changed).

Paraphrase 2: Staying active and eating nutritious food can boost your mood and support mental well-being.
(This is a better version as it looks different, makes good use of synonyms, and keeps the same meaning).

Things to keep in mind

Things to keep in mind to avoid plagiarism and maintain good academic writing:

• Avoid changing ony a few words. Paraphrased text should not be too close to the original text.
• Make good use of synonyms.
• Use your voice.
• Keep all references.
• Do not alter the meaning meaning.
• Make it easy to understand. Stick to good academic writing practices.