Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing textual material

What is a paraphrase?

A paraphrase is a restatement of an original piece of written or oral text into your own words. Just like translating, when you paraphrase, you do not change the meaning or the ideas being put forth, nor do you leave any information out (as you would in a summary); you change the language.

Why should you paraphrase?

You need to know when it is appropriate to quote and when it is not. If you write a paper that is half or even a fourth quoted material, your audience will question the extent to which the ideas you have presented are your own. Paraphrasing is a skill – a very valuable skill. Paraphrasing enables you to prove your understanding of what an author has written using your own unique language and your knowledge of when to quote and when not to. Additionally, as you will be using your own language when paraphrasing, it will be your voice and your writing style that are highlighted and your essay will flow more smoothly.

Remember that the ideas you quote still belong to the author whose work you are using to support your own ideas. Therefore, you still need to provide parenthetical citations (see pp. 99-100 in APSM).

How do you paraphrase?

The following are a few techniques used in paraphrasing source material. You will do well to learn and practice using all of the different techniques in your writing. Please be aware that employing only a single technique is not sufficient – that is, simply changing the voice from active to passive or vice versa is not an adequate paraphrase. You need to practice combining techniques to see which work best for the particular quotation you are dealing with. For example, some sentences lend themselves more readily to changes in parts of speech and or using appropriate synonyms – it will be up to you to experiment with what you can do with the quoted sentences you need to paraphrase.

Using appropriate synonyms

This is probably the most common paraphrasing technique. You should all be familiar with using a thesaurus. If you are not, or if you do not have an English language thesaurus, you should get one and begin using it. One thing you will want to be aware of – which you probably are already – is the extent to which words carry specific connotations. That is, many words are more commonly used to describe or refer to specific things, and when you attempt to use them in place of another word, it simply does not sound right. For example, small, little, petite, tiny, miniature, peewee all mean basically the same thing. However, in the sentence, The woman was very petite in stature, replacing petite with peewee or even miniature would be inappropriate as peewee has connotations related to children and miniature to inanimate objects, not people.

This is all to say, use synonyms, but BE CAREFUL. Use words you are familiar with and avoid those you are not. Check the exact definitions of the synonyms you choose in a dictionary. Also, do not attempt to overuse synonyms by changing every word in the quote.

Original Quote:

Sociology is a "branch of the science of human behaviour that seeks to discover the causes and effects that arise in social relations among persons and in the intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups"

First set of changes:

Sociology is a "part of the science of human behaviour that attempts to find the causes and effects that are a part of social relations among persons and in the intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups"

Changing the sentence type

You can also alter the type of sentence in the original quote by using a different transition word. The different transition words and sentence types are in the table below.

COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS	SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS	TRANSITIONS	PREPOSITIONS
but yet	although though even though while whereas in spite of the fact that	however nevertheless	despite in spite of in contrast unlike
so for	because due to the fact that since as now that	as a result consequently therefore thus	because of due to
and		moreover in addition furthermore also	in addition to
or		otherwise if not

First set of changes:

Second set of changes:

Sociology is a "part of the science of human behaviour that attempts to find the causes and effects that are a part of social relations among persons. In addition, sociology studies the causes and effects of intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups"

Reducing the clause to a phrase

You can change a clause (which is a string of words having both a subject and a verb) to a phrase (which does not contain both). This is not a technique that can be used alone. You usually have to change the part of speech of a word or use another paraphrasing technique. Below you will notice how the "that"-clauses have been changed and sentence order altered.

Second set of changes:

1) Sociology is a "part of the science of human behaviour 2) that attempts to find the causes and effects 3) that are a part of social relations among persons. In addition, sociology studies the causes and effects of intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups"

Third set of changes:

2) Attempting to find the causes and effects 3) of social relations among people, 1) sociology, a part of the science of human behavior, studies the intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups.

Changing the part of speech

You can also change a word from a noun to a verb, from an adjective to a noun, from a verb to a noun, from a adverb to an adjective and so on. Additionally, you can change the form the part of speech takes. All of these changes may involve changing the word order of the sentence.

Third set of changes:

Attempting (verb) to find the causes and effects of social relations among people, sociology (noun), a part of the science (noun) of human behavior, studies (verb) the intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups.

Fourth set of changes:

In an attempt (noun) to find the causes and effects of social relations among people, a sociologist (new noun), who is a scientist (new noun) of human behavior, undertakes studies (noun) of the intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups.

Other changes

What changes do you note being made here?

Fourth set of changes:

In an attempt to find the causes and effects of social relations among people, a sociologist, who is a scientist of human behavior, undertakes studies of the intercommunication and interaction among persons and groups.

Fifth and final version:

In an attempt to find the causes and effects of people’s social relations, a sociologist, who is a scientist of human behavior, undertakes studies of people and group intercommunication and interaction.

NOTE how this fifth and final version compares to the original. You should be able to paraphrase in a similar manner. Such a skill does not happen overnight. You must practice in order to become competent.

Original version:

University of Arizona
Last update of this page: 11/04/99
http://www.gened.arizona.edu/eslweb