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How to Paraphrase in 5 Simple Steps (Without Plagiarizing)

Krystal N. Craiker

Paraphrasing is a tricky balance between using your own words and still getting the original message across.

Understanding what paraphrasing is, and how to do it well, takes the challenge out of paraphrasing and makes it a more user-friendly skill.

What Is Paraphrasing?

How to paraphrase in 5 easy steps, paraphrasing different types of content, paraphrasing examples, want to improve your essay writing skills.

The word paraphrase can be used as a noun or a verb .

A paraphrase (noun) is a restatement of someone else’s words into other words . If you’re reading a paraphrase, you’re reading someone else’s rephrasing of the original.

To paraphrase (verb) is the act of rephrasing a statement into your own words . When you paraphrase, you are essentially borrowing someone else’s ideas and putting them into your own words. Since you’re borrowing and not creating those ideas, be certain to give credit to the original source.

Paraphrasing vs. Plagiarism

Plagiarism is when you steal someone’s words or ideas. Some people think that it’s only plagiarizing when you use the exact words.

Paraphrasing isn’t a way to steal someone’s ideas by putting it in your own words. If you’re paraphrasing someone else’s ideas, you must give them credit.

If you don’t acknowledge that source, you’ve plagiarized, which has serious ethical, and even legal, implications.

ProWritingAid can help you keep your work plagiarism-free with its plagiarism checker , and will never store or resell your work as some other plagiarism checking services sometimes do.

How to Paraphrase Properly

Why paraphrase when you could just use direct quotations? Direct quotes in academic writing and research papers do not demonstrate that you understand the original material.

Proper paraphrasing doesn’t mean rewriting the original passage word for word. It’s more than just pulling out a thesaurus. You are rewriting the ideas in your own words.

Just as you would provide the source of a direct quote, provide the source of paraphrased information according to whatever style guide you’re following (e.g. APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.) or by including the source within the paraphrase itself.

Typically, you’ll use an in-text citation alongside your paraphrased text, but sometimes you may use footnotes or endnotes.

When you use a direct quotation, it’s important to put the original passage or statement in quotation marks. But paraphrased text does not require quotation marks.

Paraphrasing is translating someone else’s words into your words. If you were to translate a sentence from one language into another going word-by-word, you’d end up with nonsense.

The same thing happens when you paraphrase. You’re performing a translation of sorts.

If you try to translate each word, you’ll end up with a paraphrase that reads more like a “word salad” than an intelligent rephrasing.

Why? When you isolate words, you take them out of their context.

The meaning of a word can change based on its context, so respect that context. Keep ideas whole to keep the original meanings intact.

Here’s what it looks like when you translate word for word.

Original Text: “Life expectancy isn’t set in stone: Both public policy and personal responsibility can tip the scales, experts said.” (Craig Schneider, Newsday)

If I paraphrase that text word-by-word, I could end up with something like this:

Word-by-Word Paraphrase: Human existences are not put in rocks. The pair of non-private systems and individual duty can point the measures, professionals uttered.

That makes no sense. Here’s a more effective paraphrase:

Proper Paraphrase: According to experts, public policy and individual choices can affect life expectancy.

This makes much more sense. Keep the entire context in mind when you paraphrase.

There are some practical steps you can follow to ensure skillful paraphrasing. It might take some practice at first.

As you become more experienced with paraphrasing, you’ll notice that you follow these steps naturally.

Step 1: Read, Reread, Then Read It Again

You can’t properly paraphrase if you don’t fully understand the original passage. For effective paraphrasing, reread the original text multiple times.

Pay attention to word choice and tone, as those contribute to the overarching message. Be sure that you know exactly what the original author was trying to get across before you move on.

Step 2: Determine the Big Idea

There’s a difference between paraphrasing and summarizing, but a quick summary is a great starting point for a paraphrase.

A summary is the main idea. What is the big idea of the original passage?

Try to sum up the big idea in one sentence using your own words.

If you’re only paraphrasing a short chunk of text, this might be the extent of your work and you can skip to step five. For longer quotes, start with the gist.

Step 3: Break It Down

Once you have the big idea, you can start looking at the individual ideas. A good paraphrase includes all the essential information. This is the step where you determine which pieces are essential.

You can start breaking it down sentence by sentence, but keep in mind that you’re really trying to understand it idea by idea.

There might be one idea in two or three sentences or two ideas in one long sentence!

Step 4: Rewrite, Idea by Idea

Once you know all the essential information, it’s time to rewrite. Use your own words and phrasing as much as possible.

Of course, sometimes you will have to use some of the same words. For example, if you’re paraphrasing a quote about the economy, you don’t need to find a new word for “economy.”

Plagiarism isn’t just the words you use, but also the order those words are in.

If you do use more than two of the same words as the original in a row, place them in quotation marks . Avoid this as much as possible for a good paraphrase.

Once you’ve rewritten each idea with the important information, it’s time to make sure your paraphrased version accurately expresses the intent of the original passage.

That leads us to the final step.

Step 5: Check and Cite

Have you ever heard the phrase “lost in translation?” It’s true for paraphrasing, too. Sometimes, when we rewrite something in our own words, we lose the intent and meaning of the original.

Reread what you’ve written and ask yourself the following questions:

• Does this portray the same big idea?
• Have I included all relevant information and ideas?
• Does my paraphrase maintain the integrity of the original’s intent?
• Are all sentences written in my own voice and my own words?

If you can answer yes to all four questions, you’ve successfully paraphrased! If not, return to the quoted material and go through each step again.

Finally, add your citation. Always credit the original source so you don’t plagiarize.

While the same basic steps apply no matter what you’re paraphrasing, it will look a little different depending on the type of text and why you’re paraphrasing.

Let’s take a look at three common situations that require paraphrasing.

How to Paraphrase in an Essay

Essays require paraphrases of many different quotes and sources.

While the occasional quote is fine, frequent direct quotes suggest that you don’t fully understand the material.

Your professor wants to know that you comprehend the subject and have thoughts of your own about it.

To paraphrase in an essay, start with a reasonable sized quote.

If the entire quotation is too long, your essay will become one giant paraphrase. You can always paraphrase another piece of the original text later in your paper.

Make sure the quote you are paraphrasing fits your thesis statement and is in the correct section of your essay.

Then, follow the five steps above to write a paraphrase. Don’t forget to cite your source material!

After you’ve paraphrased and cited the original text, offer your own commentary or thoughts.

How does that paraphrase answer the prompt of your research paper or support your argument? Original thoughts are crucial so your whole essay isn’t a paraphrase. That would be a form of plagiarism!

How to Paraphrase a Quote

Paraphrasing a quote requires you to pay special attention to the tone. Quoted material for academic writing often has a dry, informative tone. Spoken quotes usually don’t.

When you’re determining the big idea (step two), also determine the tone. You can note the tone in your paraphrase by saying the speaker was impassioned, angry, nostalgic, optimistic, etc.

When you move to step three and break down the ideas, pay attention to where the speaker placed emphasis. That’s a clue that you’ve found essential information to include in your paraphrase.

How to Paraphrase Complex Text

Complex and highly technical text can be difficult to paraphrase. All the same steps apply, but pay special attention to your words and sentence structure when you rewrite.

Whenever possible, simplify the complex text in your paraphrase.

Paraphrases are useful because they can make something easier to understand. Imagine that you are explaining the complex text to a middle school student.

Use simplified terms and explain any jargon in layman’s terms. Avoid clichés or idioms and focus only on the most essential pieces of information.

You can also use ProWritingAid’s editing tool to run a Jargon Report and a Cliché Report, as well as readability.

We use the Flesch-Kincaid Scale for readability , which is based on U.S. grade levels. You can see how old someone needs to be to understand your paraphrasing.

Your level of readability might change depending on the purpose of the paraphrase.

If you are paraphrasing complex text for a college-level essay, your readability score can be higher. If you are paraphrasing for a technical audience, some jargon is appropriate.

Let’s take a look at a couple of examples of properly paraphrased material.

Original Text : “Life expectancy isn’t set in stone: Both public policy and personal responsibility can tip the scales, experts said. Everyone can make choices that increase the odds of a longer life, said Cantor, of the Center for Socio-Economic Policy. Eating well, exercising, not smoking, getting enough sleep and staying in school are decisions made by each and every one of us, he said.” (Craig Schneider, Newsday )

Paraphrase: People do have some control over their life expectancy. While public policies matter, experts say personal choices can also affect how long you live and that making healthy lifestyle choices about food, sleep, education, and smoking is up to each individual.

Here’s another example from a speech.

Original Text: “We’ve got to accelerate the transition away from dirty energy. Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future—especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet.” (President Barack Obama, State of the Union Address, January 12, 2016)

Paraphrase: President Obama emphasized the importance of investing in clean energy. He supports a shift in the way the country manages non-renewable resources to match the impact they have on both American citizens and the planet.

Remember, when you paraphrase, focus on the ideas, not rewriting word for word. Always cite your original source material even though you are using your own words.

(This article is an update to a previous version by Allison Bressmer.)

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Krystal N. Craiker is the Writing Pirate, an indie romance author and blog manager at ProWritingAid. She sails the seven internet seas, breaking tropes and bending genres. She has a background in anthropology and education, which brings fresh perspectives to her romance novels. When she’s not daydreaming about her next book or article, you can find her cooking gourmet gluten-free cuisine, laughing at memes, and playing board games. Krystal lives in Dallas, Texas with her husband, child, and basset hound.

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How to Paraphrase: Dos, Don'ts, and Strategies for Success

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Written by  Scribendi

Is It Considered Plagiarism If You Paraphrase?

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How to Paraphrase and Tips for Paraphrasing Correctly

Write Down Paraphrases of a Source on Notecards

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As if the research process isn't hard enough already—finding relevant and reliable sources, reading and interpreting material, and selecting key quotations/information to support your findings/arguments are all essential when writing a research essay.

Academic writers and students face the additional stress of ensuring that they have properly documented their sources. Failure to do so, whether intentionally or unintentionally, could result in plagiarism, which is a serious academic offense.

That's why we've written this article: to provide tips for proper paraphrasing. We'll start with an overview of the difference between paraphrasing and quoting, and then we'll provide a list of paraphrasing dos and don'ts, followed by strategies for proper paraphrasing. 

We will include paraphrasing examples throughout to illustrate best practices for paraphrasing and citing paraphrased material .

As mentioned in our previous article on plagiarism , "simply taking another writer's ideas and rephrasing them as one's own can be considered plagiarism as well." 

Paraphrasing words is acceptable if you interpret and synthesize the information from your sources, rephrase the ideas in your own words, and add citations at the sentence level. It is NOT acceptable if you simply copy and paste large chunks of an original source and modify them slightly, hoping that your teacher, editor, or reviewer won't notice. 

Passing off another's work as one's own is a form of intellectual theft, so researchers and students must learn how to paraphrase quotes and be scrupulous when reporting others' work.

You might be familiar with all this. Still, you might be concerned and find yourself asking, "How do I paraphrase a source correctly without running the risk of unintentional plagiarism?" 

For many writers, especially those who are unfamiliar with the concepts of a particular field, learning how to paraphrase a source or sentence is daunting.

To avoid charges of plagiarism, you must not only document your sources correctly using an appropriate style guide (e.g., APA, Harvard, or Vancouver) for your reference list or bibliography but also handle direct quotations and paraphrasing correctly.

Quoting uses the exact words and punctuation from your source, whereas paraphrasing involves synthesizing material from the source and putting things in your own words. Citing paraphrases is just as necessary as citing quotations.

Even if you understand quoting versus paraphrasing, you might still need some additional paraphrasing help or guidance on how to paraphrase a quote. 

Summarizing is when you're discussing the main point or overview of a piece, while paraphrasing is when you're translating a direct quote into language that will be easy for your readers to understand .

It's easy to see how the two are similar, given that the steps to paraphrasing and summarizing both include putting ideas into your own words. 

But summarizing and paraphrasing are distinctly different. Paraphrasing highlights a certain perspective from a source, and summarizing offers more of an overview of an entire subject, theme, or book.

You can usually tell the difference between paraphrasing and summarizing by the length of what you're writing abore writing about. If you’re writing about a quote, that would be a smaller theme inside a larger work, so you'd paraphrase. 

If you're writing about the themes or plot of an entire book, you'd summarize. Summaries are usually shorter than the original work.

Learn How to Format Quotation Marks here.

When learning how to paraphrase a quote, you first need to consider whether you should be paraphrasing a text or quoting it directly.

If you find the perfect quote from a reliable source that fits your main topic, supports your argument, and lends authority to your paper but is too long (40+ words) or complex, it should be paraphrased. Long/complex quotes can also be shortened with omissions and editorial changes (as discussed below).

Introduce the quote with a signal phrase (e.g., "According to Ahmad [2017] . . .") and insert the entire quotation, indicating the text with quotation marks or indentation (i.e., a block quote).

If you only need to use parts of a long quotation, you can insert an ellipsis (. . .) to indicate omissions. You can also make editorial changes in square brackets [like this]. 

Keep in mind that you need to reflect the author's intent accurately when using this strategy. Don't change important words in a quotation so that it better fits your argument, as this is a form of intellectual fraud.

Changes in square brackets should only be used to clarify the text without altering meaning in the context of the paper (e.g., clarifying antecedents and matching verb tense). They signal to the reader that these changes were made by the author of the essay and not by the author of the original text.

Paraphrasing

Demonstrate that you clearly understand the text by expressing the main ideas in your own unique style and language. Now, you might be asking yourself, "Do paraphrases need to be cited like quotes?" The answer is a resounding "yes."

When deciding whether to paraphrase or use a direct quote, it is essential to ask what is more important: the exact words of the source or the ideas.

If the former is important, consider quoting directly. If the latter is important, consider paraphrasing or summarizing.

Direct quotation is best for well-worded material that you cannot express any more clearly or succinctly in your own style. It's actually the preferred way of reporting sources in the arts, particularly in literary studies.

Shortening a long quote is a great way to retain the original phrasing while ensuring that the quote reads well in your paper. However, direct quotations are often discouraged in the sciences and social sciences, so keep that in mind when deciding whether to paraphrase or quote.

Paraphrasing is best used for long portions of text that you can synthesize into your own words. Think of paraphrasing as a form of translation; you are translating an idea in another "language" into your own language. The idea should be the same, but the words and sentence structure should be totally different.

The purpose of paraphrasing is to draw together ideas from multiple sources to convey information to your reader clearly and succinctly. 

As a student or researcher, your job is to demonstrate that you understand the material you've read by expressing ideas from other sources in your own style, adding citations to the paraphrased material as appropriate. 

If you think the purpose of paraphrasing is to help you avoid thinking for yourself, you are mistaken.

When you paraphrase, be sure that you understand the text clearly . The purpose of paraphrasing is to interpret the information you researched for your reader, explaining it as though you were speaking to a colleague or teacher. In short, paraphrasing is a skill that demonstrates one's comprehension of a text.

Yes, paraphrases always need to be cited. Citing paraphrased material helps you avoid plagiarism by giving explicit credit to the authors of the material you are discussing. 

Citing your paraphrases ensures academic integrity. When you sit down to write your paper, however, you might find yourself asking these questions: "Do paraphrases need to be cited? How do I paraphrase?"

Here is a quick paraphrase example that demonstrates how to cite paraphrased ideas. The opening lines to one of Juliet's most famous speeches are "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name; / Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I'll no longer be a Capulet" (Romeo and Juliet, 2.2.880–884). 

If you needed to paraphrase these lines in an essay, you could do so as follows:

Juliet muses about why Romeo's family name is Montague and concludes that if either gave up their name (and thereby their family affiliations) for the other, they could be together (Romeo and Juliet, 2.2.880–884).

Generally speaking, you must include an in-text citation at the end of a paraphrased sentence. 

However, if your paraphrased material is several sentences long, then you should check with your preferred style guide. Some style guides (such as APA) call for a paraphrase citation after the first paraphrased sentence. Other style guides (such as MLA) call for a paraphrase citation after the last paraphrased sentence. 

Remember, no matter what style guide you use, it is not necessary to cite every single sentence of paraphrased material in a multi-sentence paraphrase.

Don't Start Paraphrasing by Picking Up a Thesaurus

This might shock you, but a thesaurus is NOT the answer to the problem of paraphrasing. Why? Using a thesaurus to swap out a few words here and there from an original source is a form of patchwriting, which is a type of plagiarism.

You shouldn't have to resort to a thesaurus unless you are completely unsure about what a word means—although, in that case, a dictionary might be a better tool. Ideally, you should be able to use clear, simple language that is familiar to you when reporting findings (or other information) from a study.

The problem with using a thesaurus is that you aren't really using your own words to paraphrase a text; you're using words from a book. Plus, if you're unfamiliar with a concept or if you have difficulty with English, you might choose the wrong synonym and end up with a paraphrase like this: "You may perhaps usage an erroneous word."

This is a common mistake among writers who are writing about a field with which they are unfamiliar or who do not have a thorough grasp of the English language or the purpose of paraphrasing.

If you choose to keep a few phrases from the original source but paraphrase the rest (i.e., combining quoting and paraphrasing), that's okay, but keep in mind that phrasing from the source text must be reproduced in an exact manner within quotation marks.

Direct quotations are more than three consecutive words copied from another source, and they should always be enclosed in quotation marks or offset as a block quotation.

A sentence that combines a direct quote with paraphrased material would look like this: 

In "The Laugh of the Medusa," Cixous highlights women's writing as a specific feat and speaks "about what it will do" when it has the same formal recognition as men's writing (Cixous 875).

The paraphrased paragraph of Cixous' essay includes a direct quote and a paraphrase citation.

Did you know that copying portions of a quote without quotation marks (i.e., patchwriting) is a form of plagiarism—even if you provide an in-text citation? If you've reworded sections of a quote in your own style, simply enclose any direct quotations (three or more words) in quotation marks to indicate that the writing is not your own.

When learning how to paraphrase, you need to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate forms of paraphrasing. The Office of Research and Integrity , a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, puts it this way:

Taking portions of text from one or more sources, crediting the author/s, but only making 'cosmetic' changes to the borrowed material, such as changing one or two words, simply rearranging the order, voice (i.e., active vs. passive) and/or tense of the sentences is NOT paraphrasing.

What does paraphrasing too closely look like? Here is an overly close paraphrase example of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' description of plagiarizing:

Using sections of a source, citing it, but only making surface-level changes to the language (such as changing a few words, the verb tense, the voice, or word order) fails as a paraphrase. True paraphrasing involves changing the words and syntactical structure of the original source. Keep reading for strategies for paraphrasing properly.

Get Help with Proper Paraphrasing

Hire an expert academic editor , or get a free sample.

In an article on how to paraphrase , the Purdue University Online Writing Lab suggests that you read the source text carefully and write paraphrases on notecards. You can then compare your version with the original, ensuring that you've covered all the key information and noting any words or phrases that are too closely paraphrased.

Your notecards should be labeled with the author(s) and citation information of the source text so that you don't lose track of which source you used. You should also note how you plan to use the paraphrase in your essay.

If you are a visual learner, the benefit of this strategy is that you can visualize the content you intend to paraphrase. 

Because a notecard is a tangible object, you can physically arrange it in an essay outline, moving the right information to the appropriate paragraph so that your essay flows well. (If you're not sure how to write an outline , check out our article.)

Plus, having a physical copy of paraphrased information makes it harder for you to accidentally plagiarize by copying and pasting text from an original source and forgetting to paraphrase or quote it properly. Writing out your paraphrase allows you to distance yourself from the source text and express the idea in your own unique style.

For more paraphrasing help, Jerry Plotnick from the University College Writing Centre at the University of Toronto provides a similar strategy for paraphrasing.

Plotnick advises that you take point-form notes of text that you want to use in your paper. Don't use full sentences, but instead "capture the original idea" in a few words and record the name of the source.

This strategy is similar to the notecard idea, but it adds another step. Instead of just reading the source carefully and writing your complete paraphrase on a notecard, Plotnick recommends using point-form notes while researching your sources. These notes can then be used to paraphrase the source text when you are writing your paper.

Like handwriting your paraphrases on notecards, taking notes and coming back to them later will help you distance yourself from the source, allowing you to forget the original wording and use your own style.

The Plotnick method above describes how to use point-form notes while researching a paper to keep your paraphrasing original. To paraphrase in your paper using Plotnick's method above, look at your sources and try the following:

Write down the basic point(s) you want to discuss on a notecard (in your own words).

Take your notecard points and turn them into sentences when you write your essay.

Add the reference for the source.

Compare your paraphrase to the original source to make sure your words are your own.

Practice Two-Step Paraphrasing: Sentence Structure and Word Choice

In an article on how to paraphrase by the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the first two strategies are acknowledged—taking notes and looking away from the source before you write your paraphrase. 

The authors then suggest another two-step strategy for paraphrasing: change the structure first and then change the words. Let's break down this process a bit further.

Sentences in English have two main components: a subject and a predicate . The subject is who or what is performing an action (i.e., a noun or pronoun), and the predicate is what the subject is doing (i.e., a verb). Sentences can be simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex. 

Here are some paraphrase examples using different sentence structures:

Simple: It was difficult.

Compound: It was difficult, but she knew there was no going back.

Complex: Although it was difficult, she knew there was no going back.

Compound-complex: Although it was difficult, she knew there was no going back, so she kept calm and carried on.

Once you have identified the structure of the original sentence, you can reconstruct it using one of the different types of sentences illustrated above.

You can also change passive voice to active voice, or vice versa.

The active voice is structured like this: Subject + Verb + Object (e.g., She learned how to paraphrase.)

The passive voice is structured like this: Object + "To Be" Verb + Past Participle (e.g., How to paraphrase was learned by the girl.)

See how awkward the passive sentence example is? It's best not to force a sentence into an unnatural sentence structure. 

Otherwise, you'll end up with Yoda-speak: "Forced to learn how to paraphrase a sentence, the girl was." (Did you like the unintentional "force" pun?)

Another way to distinguish your paraphrase from the original source is to use different sentence lengths. Often, scholarly articles are written using long, compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences. Use short sentences instead. 

Break down complex ideas into easy-to-understand material. Alternatively, you can combine several ideas from the source text into one long sentence, synthesizing the material. Try to stick with your own style of writing so that the paraphrased text matches that of the rest of your document.

Once the paraphrased sentence structure is sufficiently different from the original sentence structure, you can replace the wording of the original text with words you understand and are comfortable with.

Paraphrasing isn't meant to hide the fact that you are copying someone else's idea using clever word-swapping techniques. Rather, it is meant to demonstrate that you are capable of explaining the text in your own language.

One handy article on word choice by the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill lists some strategies for successful word choice, such as eliminating jargon and simplifying unnecessary wordiness. While this applies to academic writing in general, the "questions to ask yourself" are also useful as great paraphrasing help.

Once you have completed a sentence-long paraphrase, you include an in-text citation at the end of that sentence. However, if your paraphrased material is several sentences long, then you should check with your preferred style guide. 

Some style guides (such as APA) call for a paraphrase citation after the first paraphrased sentence. Other style guides (such as MLA) call for a paraphrase citation after the last paraphrased sentence. 

To paraphrase properly, you need to explain a text in your own words without using a direct quote . Keep in mind, however, that different styles require different formats when it comes to documenting paraphrased sources. Some styles require a citation after the first paraphrased sentence, while others require a citation after the last.

For this reason, we've outlined examples of how to paraphrase in the APA, MLA, and Chicago styles below. Be sure to check with your professor to see which style your essay requires.

APA guidelines for paraphrasing include citing your source on the first mention in either the narrative or parenthetical format. Here's a refresher of both formats:

Narrative format: Koehler (2016) noted the dangers of false news.

Parenthetical format: The news can distort our perception of an issue (Koehler, 2016).

Here's an example of how to paraphrase from a primary source in APA:

Dudley (1999) states that "direct quote" or paraphrase (Page #).

Note: It's not always necessary to include the page number, but it's recommended if it'll help readers quickly find a passage in a book.

Below are a couple of examples of how to paraphrase in APA. Keep in mind that for longer paraphrases, you don't have to add the citation again if it's clear that the same work is being paraphrased.

Short paraphrase:

Stephenson (1992) outlined a case study of a young man who showed increasing signs of insecurity without his father (pp. 23–27).

Long paraphrase:

Johnson et al. (2013) discovered that for small-breed dogs of a certain age, possession aggression was associated with unstable living environments in earlier years, including fenced-in yards with multiple dogs all together for long periods of time. However, these effects were mediated over time. Additionally, with careful training, the dogs showed less possession aggression over time. These findings illustrate the importance of positive reinforcement over the length of a dog's life.

When paraphrasing in MLA, include an in-text citation at the end of the last paraphrased sentence. 

Your in-text citation can be done either parenthetically or in prose, and it requires the last name of the cited author and the page number of the source you're paraphrasing from. Here are MLA citation examples :

Parenthetical:

Paraphrase (Author's Last Name Page #)

Author's Last Name states that paraphrase (Page #)

In addition to adding a short in-text citation to the end of your last paraphrased sentence, MLA requires that this source be included in your Works Cited page, so don't forget to add it there as well.

Here are two examples of how to paraphrase in MLA:

In an attempt to communicate his love for Elizabeth, all Mr. Darcy did was communicate the ways in which he fought to hide his true feelings (Austen 390).

Rowling explains how happy Harry was after being reunited with his friends when he thought all was lost (17).

Paraphrasing correctly in Chicago style depends on whether you're using the notes and bibliography system or the author-date system.

The notes and bibliography system includes footnotes or endnotes, whereas the author-date system includes in-text citations.

Below, you'll find the correct way to format citations when paraphrasing in both the notes and bibliography and author-date systems.

Notes and Bibliography

For the notes and bibliography system, add a superscript at the end of your paraphrase that corresponds to your footnote or endnote.

Johnson explains that there was no proof in the pudding. 1

Author-Date

For the author-date style, include the page number of the text you're referencing at the end of your paraphrase. If you mention the author, include the year the source was published.

Johnson (1995) explains that there was no proof in the pudding (21).

In summary, the purpose of paraphrasing is not to simply swap a few words; rather, it is to take ideas and explain them using an entirely different sentence structure and choice of words. It has a greater objective; it shows that you've understood the literature on your subject and are able to express it clearly to your reader.

In other words, proper paraphrasing shows that you are familiar with the ideas in your field, and it enables you to support your own research with in-text citations. 

Knowing when to paraphrase or quote strengthens your research presentation and arguments. Asking for paraphrasing help before you accidentally plagiarize shows that you understand the value of academic integrity.

If you need help, you might consider an editing and proofreading service, such as Scribendi. While our editors cannot paraphrase your sources for you, they can check whether you've cited your sources correctly according to your target style guide via our Academic Editing service.

Even if you need more than just paraphrase citation checks, our editors can help you decide whether a direct quote is stronger as a paraphrase, and vice versa. Editors cannot paraphrase quotes for you, but they can help you learn how to paraphrase a quote correctly.

What Is the Meaning of "Paraphrase"?

Paraphrasing is when you write text from another source in your own words. It's a way of conveying to your reader or professor that you understand a specific source material well enough to describe it in your own style or language without quoting it directly. 

Paraphrasing (and citing your paraphrases) allows you to explain and share ideas you've learned from other sources without plagiarizing them.

You can write things in your own words by taking original notes on the sources you're reading and using those notes to write your paraphrase while keeping the source material out of sight. 

You can also practice putting things in your own words by changing sentences from passive to active, or vice versa, or by varying word choice and sentence length. You can also try Jeremy Plotnick's idea of paraphrasing from your own point-form notes.

When you're paraphrasing something, it means you are putting someone else's writing in your own words. You're not copying or quoting content directly. Instead, you are reading someone else's work and explaining their ideas in your own way. 

Paraphrasing demonstrates that you understand the material you're writing about and gives your reader the opportunity to understand the material in a simplified way that is different from how the original author explained it.

About the Author

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing turn into a great one after the editing process. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained nearly 20 degrees collectively. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

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• Writing Tips

Essay Tips: How to Paraphrase Effectively

5-minute read

• 25th December 2022

Writing an essay or research paper is no simple task. It’s hard enough to gather research and write your paper within a tight deadline, but you also have to ensure that you aren’t plagiarizing somebody else’s work. This means you’ll need to give credit to all sources that you used to support your claims with appropriate citations and references.

However, submitting a paper filled with citations isn’t the way to go. Many professors will reject papers with chunks of quoted sources – even if you cite them properly. Conversely, you can’t submit a paper without citations. A professor will either question your knowledge or accuse you of plagiarism.

Therefore, you need to have a healthy balance of your ideas and supporting claims (citations) in your paper. One way of doing this is by paraphrasing . However, many students don’t fully understand this concept or how to do it effectively. That’s where this post comes in!

What Is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is taking the ideas or research of other authors and putting them into your own words. It demonstrates your understanding of what you’ve read and helps you to ensure that your entire text is written in a cohesive style. Paraphrasing is a legitimate academic writing skill that can easily boost your grades when it’s done effectively. It’s better than quoting sources.

Check out the following tips for paraphrasing the right way . Once you finish reading this post, you’ll hopefully feel more confident in your paraphrasing ability and ready to tackle your next essay with ease!

1. Understand What You’ve Read

Make sure you understand the quotation or sentence you want to paraphrase. If there’s one thing we want you to remember from this post, it’s this! If you don’t fully understand it, you won’t be able to rewrite it in your own words .

Imagine having to explain the original passage to a friend. How would you tell them in your own words? We recommend reading the original sentence several times and even a few times aloud. We also recommend highlighting keywords, which are needed to ensure that the meaning remains the same. Let’s look at an example of a sentence that we want to paraphrase:

Notice that the bold words are necessary for the meaning, so in your paraphrase, you should use those exact words or synonyms of them. Try finding a few synonyms first, and then decide which one resonates with your own words.

2. Restructure the Sentence

Rewriting a sentence by changing one or two words isn’t proper paraphrasing. Many students erroneously use a “copy and paste” method to change a few words in their paraphrased version. However, you need to change the sentence structure as well.

It would also help if you did this without looking at the original text, which is why we encourage reading the original multiple times. Here is an example of paraphrasing the sentence from our first tip with bolded words as synonyms:

As you can see, the sentence has been restructured, making it significantly different from the original text. However, the meaning remains the same.

3. Compare Your Paraphrase with the Original Text

This might seem simple, but there are a few things to consider when comparing your paraphrase with the original sentence:

●  Have you used synonyms for necessary words?

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●  Is the sentence structure significantly different?

●  Is the basic meaning still the same?

The goal is to create a significantly different sentence structure while maintaining the original meaning. Of course, if you changed the meaning, you’ll need to correct the paraphrase!

4. Make Sure the Paraphrased Text Makes Sense

A common error associated with paraphrasing is an incoherent paraphrased text. This often happens because the writer hasn’t properly understood the original text or has used an online paraphrasing tool. Take this example of a paraphrase without a clear meaning:

The attempted paraphrase is entirely different from the original. The writer has likely used a thesaurus or paraphrasing tool to find a synonym for each word. Paraphrasing doesn’t mean substituting every word with a synonym!

Remember the following to ensure coherent paraphrasing:

●  Focus on the overall point of the original text.

●  Avoid using paraphrasing tools, as they often change the meaning of a text.

●  Use simple language instead of complex words.

5. Cite and Reference the Original Text

Yes, you must provide an in-text citation and reference list entry for each paraphrased sentence or passage! Just because you have paraphrased an idea doesn’t mean you don’t have to provide a citation . Otherwise, you’ll be subjected to the perils of plagiarism ! Here is an example of a properly cited paraphrase:

Omitting citations can happen accidentally. For example, you might rush to finish the paper or be worried about citing a source too frequently. However, it’s important to know that many institutions use plagiarism detection software , and therefore, a paraphrased text without an in-text citation won’t go unnoticed. So, cite for your sake (and the sake of your grade).

Are you currently working on an essay or research paper? Don’t forget to proofread it once it’s done. Our team of experts can ensure perfect spelling, punctuation, and grammar. We can also check for proper citation and referencing. Submit a 500-word document today, and we’ll proofread it for free!

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How to write a good essay: Paraphrasing the question

Test your understanding of this English lesson

406 comments.

I recently discovered the quiz in engvid, and I can assure that I enjoy a lot this section. I also think that is a good way for improving my English. Thanks!

i am with you

are you from indonesia?

The lesson and quiz also improved my thinking and ability to link contrasting ideas and complimentary ideas to gain clarity in writing and in speaking.

Yay I am the first one to comment!!!! Good morning Emma mam. Thank you for this wonderful lesson. You have made my writing skills into another advanced level. And also you made me more confident to write more essays. Whatever essay will come I will remember all you have taught me and get food marks in the university. Thank you once again for this wonderful video and also boosting up my confidence for writing essays.

I’ve already heard of paraphrasing before, however I’ve never put it into use because I didn’t know how to do it.

It is a useful technique to improve your writing skills, but as any other language skill, it takes time and practice to develop it.

Many thanks Emma for this superb video lesson.

Bye for now.

Gosh! I did not have time to revise and much less proofreed my post. . .

. . . making mistakes as usual.

“I´d already heard of paraphrasing before, however I never put it into use because. . .”

HAVE U a facebook,,,,my facebook is shaokat nazeer can u send ur plz palakshi nautiyal

PH I am sorry I wrote “food” instead of good

palakshi nautiyal can u reply me plz

Hlo Emma mam good afternoon . i m new student. please help me in my speaking skills . i shall v very thankful to you for this. and i love your way of taught

It really dispenses me some enlightenment about writing a great essay. Thanks I got 10/10, by the way. :-D

Lovely , I Got 100% :)

Thanks Emma!! I really enjoyed this video. You showed very clearly how to write an essay with your advice.

useful we need the lesson my writing is so bad thanks a lot Emma

Thanks, Emma. This is a great lesson.

Dear Emma Great video covering lot of vocabulary aand such of writing skill that’s so essentals for every english learners.

Thanks for categorizing the paraphrases.. its helpful…

This was some of great problems that I had, but after watching I do believe that something will change. I do thank you ( Emma and EngVid team) for the lesson.

Paraphrasing is so much handy when writing an essay, but it takes words, which takes improving vocabulary, which takes researching. For those who like to read, dictionaries can be pretty handy with their definitions to put these synonyms into practise, too. Bye the way, thanks teacher Emma. This lesson is very important.

Oops! I meant “by the way”. My mistake :(

Thank you for new knowledge =)

Thank you Emma, always. I got 10/10 :D

Hello,Emma.I have a question:”My teacher said that I need to write the full sentence but you said that we don’t need to copy it.Who will I follow to???

hi phạm quỳnh anh, when i just read your comment i dont look at your country so when i finish i actually you are from việt nam. because i think just việt nam our teacher usually teach them students that if you write longer is better số copy is the way that they say us maked but we are learn english this is aboard language so we should follow the way they teach for us.this is my opinion.số i very glad to see you..we are vietnamese

Big thanks Emma Please more video like this ( about writing )

Thank you very much Emma. You do a great job!

Thaks, very interesting)

Thank you for you feed!

I’ve got 9/10. Thank you Emma. Pararhrase is very essential for learning English.

Thank you Emma for the lesson.

Thank you Emma.

I got 100. So useful Emma. I admit that you are onde of my best teacher. Thank you so much.

Yessss Great lesson …thanks ?

Thank you very much for these amazing lessons, I have learned a lot with your lessons and with the others teachers too, I hope that you continue doing this for long time. Congratulations for these vital videos, I am always waiting for new lessons.

Sincerely, Eddy from Guatemala!

wOow!! I did great means I understand and got good the lecture . Although I tray wrting a good essay , I cannout make a useful one that makes my teachers would really valued . I’ve this issue and Could you do more vedios about making a good essay for university students . thank you and keep up the good work !!

Thank you Emma :)

Hi, I’m Handoko from Indonesia. I want to practice my English but I don’t Have partner. would you like to help me?

Great lesson, just one feedback please let us take notes move at the side of the board.

Thank you so much Emma. You and Adam have a good accent. I can completely understand what you are saying.

good job emma thanks for lesson.

tks for this great lesson!

It’s important to understand how we can use the paraphrases.

Thank you. It is an essential lesson.

Wow! This lesson was simply amazing! You managed to show us some clever techniques by using some relatively simple examples. Ciao Emma, see you next time.

I enjoed this lesson very muuch

Thanks so much!

Thank you Emma but I don’t like this lesson ?

Thanks Emma for this lesson..it’s very useful and very interesting..:)

thanks emma mam

Good! thank you so much,that was helpful, very good advices.

Hi Emma! This lesson is very useful, not only for students who are getting prepared for a test, but for someone that is going to a job interview as well. Some times they ask you questions like that, so the answer given is very important.

10 of 10! Very good lesson Emma! Thank you so much ))

Great explanation, Emma. Thanks a lot.

ola! Como voce esta?

Emma,Thank you so much.

Hello Emma. Thank you for your lesson.

Is there anyone to chat in english?

I really like all Engvid Teachers superb job.

Thank You for such useful lesson! I will be using paraphrasing. People who use, seems so smart))

100! You are very helpful Ms Emma. Thank you!

Thank you. Paraphrase is amazing. excellent lesson to improve writing score. I like to learn more about concession.

It was really helpful. thank you so much Emma. God bless you

well, actually l’ve learnt at my school how to write a good essay, but l have to admit that this video is much more useful. and which the teachers at school dont teach me is the concessions. it is pretty important and academic. many thanks to you Emma

Thank you for teaching us how to paraphrase. this is my first time to get all 10 question out of 10. I very enjoy this video. please post some more video.

thanks a lot it is a useful lesson for me

Thank you Emma for this invaluable lesson about paraphrasing, but my problem as well as others,I think, are finding the right word for the paraphrased one. I think we need to develop our vocabulary.

Thank you so much Emma this is first time I heard about paraphrase and concessionot aalso understood how can I write the pragrapg by the way I got 10/10 full mark

perfect score. Thank you.

Hi, Emma. Thank you for the good lesson. I have started teaching my students how to write journals nowadays. This video would be really helpful for my students to paraphrase the topic of the journals they write every time. I promote them to watch this when I get them to write one next time.

It is my first day to login into engid.com so far so good it looks promising learn more

I am really really enjoying the lessons. Great job

Thank you so much,i like the way you explain. :-)

Dr.Arian Karimi IELTS & TOELF Master Class

Skype ID : arian ielts group

http://arian-ielts.com/en

Thanks…for your lessons,It’s really helpful to me.i heard the first time paraphrase…next time i would be remembered what you taught at the moment taking essay…

I got 10/10. Hurrraaahhh…

I got 100!!!!! Yeeppeeeeeeeeeeeeee

great pari G

I got 8/10 because I read wrong two ask. Very good this lession!

Thanks Emma, I’m ready for my language assessment in a few weeks :-)

Hello Soleil r u preparing for IELTS exam?

I’m trying to find a lesson on word association. I would like to learn how to determine Which synonym to use in which situation. Any ideas?

Hi Emma! Thanks for this lesson!

I think paraphrasing is an important skill to write well evaluated introductions.

When introducing an essay, my opinion is that the ability of using paraphrase guarantees high marks in this section.

Seems to be great website.

hi emma, i seen your lesson it is so use for me, thanks emma mam/// i am learn lot of english conversation for your lesson only, please take a next lesson soon

Thank you so much dear teache Emma it is a useful lesson and you’re my favorite teacher

I always was looking for a class like this is fun the way you teach and how to use although even though , despite , how to take notes too and thank you for all the tips.

You are awesome

Thank you so much , I have learned more from you Emma.

thank you ,,,

Emma, is this sentece correct? (It’s about Facebook vs. Twitter) Although many people use twitter very often; in my opinion, facebook is more helpful than twitter.

Hi Emma and everybody:)Firstly,many thanks for this useful lesson;however,ı have some troubles in the use of would and reduction.I mean,of course,ı know how to use them grammatically;nevertheles,I sometimes cannot understand the use of would in a sentence or conversation especially in the native speakers’ conversations.Can you make a lesson about this?Because I use ‘would’ with if conditionals(type 2 and 3) or for desire,inclination,polite requests and so on.I wonder that are there other uses for would and can you share these with us?Thanks in Advance

thanks Emma i know its gonna help me.im wondering about about how to speak fluently .coul you give me an idea?

HI Emma I’m feeling happy for getting this useful lesson it’s very helpful:) hopefully my english will be better and also this web is such a great web :)

Clear and interesting as usual. Thanks Emma.

Oops!how can i watch video from Emma?????please tell me

Instead of “education”? Well, there’s diffrent words we can use.

Professor Emma, the above is from your lesson. I think, it should be “there’re diffrent words”. Please explain.

Good job Professor Emma. Thanks. BR, mkj

Good lesson

IT SEEMS LIKE IELTS VIDEOS ARE WORTHY

Great Video Thank you.

This video is very helpful. I learned a lot to improve my writing skill to get the high marks on IELTS test. Thank you so much Emma :D

thanks emma

Thank you Emma

thank you Emma

I got 10\10. Thank you so much, Emma your classes are very useful for those who wants to pass their IELTS exams successfully.

Wow! your lesson made a lot of things into place, thanks!

GREAT SORT CUT TO DO AN ESSAY…!!

“So” at the end of the sentence

Dear Emma , I love your teaching style , i am lucky person , who has a good teacher, by the way i am from india,actually i need your help, could you make a video over in a couple of days/week/month or a couple hour please mention my name which is requested by me please dear , i love you take care this is my contact no. 8750897663

Hello, I am Daryush (Darius) from Iran. Thank you for the informative lessons.

– could you please make a video about TOEFL reading section? in addition, how we can get a higher score on reading section?

Thanks Emma.

Thanks Emma. Helping me to recall it.

oh incredible 10 of 10 thanks Emma

How to get score more than 6.5 in IELTS general writing.Please advice

Thank you for your lesson. This is the best one i have ever learnt

thanks Emma, very helpful

I’m improving my english with your lessons!!! Thank you a lot! :)

Thanks Emma

greatly explained..

Thanks alot for this good lesson.

essay has been a problem to me, but i believe i will be help here

Good afternoon Emma , Thank you very much for the easy writing skills you have introduced us. I am very impressed. I have a little confusions how to start an essay with , it is , there is , and there are , please see my respond about the wild animals related question. Is possible to start rephrasing the essay with it is …….? Please let me know when you get a chance.

Emma… I am pretty gratefulfor your videos are a helpful tool in my english learning

Sabrina from Colombia¡¡

Extremely useful, thank you!

ohhh i get 100 %

Thank you my sweet heart?

thanks a lot, I´m looking forward to take the IELTS and this videos are very helpful

I need to pass the exam and acknowledging firstly my level obtained in this exercise but, I understand it´s necesary more and more practice.Thanks for everything.

thanks. it’s good. I want talk with any one in english to. if u want you can chating me on what’s app 009647703364778

Thank you Emma, You are my favourite teacher, thanks alot

Thanks,this is a great lesson!

Very clearly explained and logical as well. This was actually the first video I watched on youtube, that sparked my interest in engvid. Thanks

Thank you ..

Really you are great teacher, I appreciate your efforts. Thank you

Thanks Emma,…, It is very helpful to me because part of my duties is write reports and answer questions from my customers

Thank You Emma

Hi Emma, are you – or other teacher has a video about how to write a good essay for college admission in humanities area? has been some difficult to write my application essay to film school. thank you so much

10 of 10 thank you,keeping me here.

I have secured 10 out of 10 in the quiz yayy :D

thanks :) i got 10/10

It is really useful if I can get used to this technique

Nice to learn with you again dear Emma.It’s really great job for me by your lesson. it sounds interesting one!

TOP 10 Bang bang!! LOL

Thank you for this video.I will remember every you teach me.

Although I’m not thinking to make any king of English exam I appreciate you effort teaching us. Regards!

thanks a lot.

thanks a lot for your lecture MRS Emma I’ve learned many things, i got an acceptable but I need more practice to gain what I want and accomplish my target

thank you very much the lecture was informative and very healpful

Hi, Emma! I really liked this Quiz.

thank you Emma , I’ve learnt many things but i need more practice to improve.

Thanks emma it helps alot

A very useful lesson, Thank you Emma, It is a pleasure to watch your lessons !

hi Emma i did my ielts recently and unfortunately i wasn’t able to write 150 words in task 1 and did not complete 250 words in task also. i want to know how much it will affect my band score or any predictable band score with incomplete task achievement?

Thank you, Emma, I’ve got 90/100. Just one question that I hesitate to choose.

Thank you Emma. The video was worth watching. I learn something from it and I like it too.

Thank you so much

This is very helpful I will ace that essay yet!

thanks a lot Emma… I scored greatly.

10/10. thank you =)

Hi Emma,thanks a ton for the video. Could you please, also explain about brainstorming an essay and can you also give some info regarding looping and freewriting an essay?.

Thanks in advance.

hello Emma it s so importent your cours thank you our prof

Really thank you .very useful

Hello Ms Emma Let me take my Important Question Firstly A big Thanked Special From you . Because I exposed to near take Exam That you know some little Exam Topics . can be Taking all Exam destroyed . that to your Best Favor .Even your tutorial That giving me Some Predetermined Issue From Level this Exam . that Find . yours Super profissional From my chance And Again tanked That this Level Writing Paraphrasing the Question. so is Available this methodology From taking Ielts Exam definitely or Others Methods Can be Maybe

hello that please Notify for Test Writing 250 words From What? notify or Topics Transition Means From Voice or Page That each other or_ One Selected Definitely . Thanks Notify

Thanks for your beneficial video.

I got 100. Very helpful. Thank you

Thank you so much for the video, I gained a bunch of knowledge, according to it.

Hey , thank you for the lesson it was helpful , Can you please do a special lesson about the content and externel analysis of text /article , just example about it , thank you :) , and Good luck .

Thank you so much, Emma. Your lessons always are interesting and helpful. 9/10

I got 10 of 10 :)

thank you teacher emma with your explanation, little by little you make increase my knowledge in english.could you correct my sentence if i’m right.

Thank you madam

Amazing! How can you thanked for this great investment in me? It’s been a success. I hope to keep beeing along.

Thank you for your advices.I am going to have an exam soon..I will keep in mind your smart considerations

Thanks ! i scored 9/10

Thanks Emma!

Thanks firs, its my first time i shared with lesson . I had enjoyed with, but i have abig problem with my university in turn of essay. that means I cannot write funnel introduction well, second we cannot write a good conclution

children are cute hhhhhaha

Thank you so much for every thing that you have put it in your channel. I have learned a lot of lessons from you. God please you!

10 correct out of 10. Thank you for the lesson. :D

Thank you Emma, I got 100!

I’m your huge fan!

Thank you for your beneficial video.I really liked it. Keep up the good job….most appreciated.

best regards,

I can find it at YouTube this way is more suitable.

Thank you Emma for great lecture :)

Dear Emma, Thank you for your nice teaching and good advice.

thanx emma good explanation of the lesson. you should complicate more, the question to focus with you better. good teacher

Thank you soooooo much, Emma. It’s truly a fabulous lesson which everyone could be benefit from and improve their essay writing abilities. Very practical, handy, and easy to comprehend, especially for a non-native Eglish speaker like me. I about to taking my ILETS test couple months later, so wish me luck. I really appreciate your work from my heart. Thank you, Emma.

You got 10 correct out of 10. :D

Thanks Emma, for your good explaination.

Thanks, Emma! I got 10/10

It was a great lesson… I liked it, i also liked your communication skill very much.

it’s really perfec I love this kind of question l do thank you D.Emma

HI Emma! your teachings are great to polish one’s English skills!

Thanks, Emma, this is helpful!

I have got 10 out of 10. Thanks Emma

Hello Emma, Although i have lot of problems in my writing task,but after this lesson i am feeling much more confident. In quiz i have got 9 out of 10.

wow I got 10/10

Thanks, Emma! I got 9/10

I am so happy because i’ve got 100. I want to write good essays and I need a lot of practice. These were good advices!!!

How to write an essay. This video was very helpful and I love it.

Thanks emma, you are such a woderful woman who gave me hope to improve more my english writing.

Thank you for your help

its good for self assessment.

Thanks Emma, I have been enjoyed learning from you, Your way to teach and representing this topic was simple & easy. I sign in to engvid because of you, Once again thanks Emma

I HAVE GOT 70% MARKS.

If you want to practice speaking skill. Please feel free to contact me.

I got 10/10 Marks. It is not because I have fully understand the lecture of Ma’am Emma… Its credit goes to Her… because she taught it in an excellent way that a person like me…who is at early stage of English learning got 10/10…You are really a good teacher having really nice method of teaching…. Thank u Ma’am Emma… Thank u Engvid.com

great well done

Thank you, Emma. It’s the most exact instruction for plagiarism, i hav ever seen))))

plagiarism ???how come

Thank you, Emma, Although I got 9/10 on quiz but the most important element is written and practiced.

Thank you Emma !

that’s a good teaching!! Great lesson!!!

Mam i have a one question. I have a one elder brother can i say that i have a one sibling.

wow..i got 9 out of 10 !! thank you Emma..

wow 10 from 10 thanks Emma

Thanks for preparing video. I learn a lot from video still if you make more video which cover more examples it is good for us. I got 10/10 in quize.

Hello Emma,Your lesson very useful for me. Knowledges and strategies which I learned in this lesson will be very important in terms of my writings.

Why it is not download????

thank you. :D for give us the opportunity to study english. mamasita

I HAVE to LEARN A LOT BY TAKE THIS TEST SO I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THANK YOU I HAVE A HARD TIME IN MY CLASS WITH THIS AND NOW I CAN DO IT

Do you any standard essay for the topics like Culture, Education etc

Emma u r the best English teacher I ever had. Thanks for making English learning so fascinating.

Thank you mrs Emma. you are a good teacher.I love you so mucch. I the right structure of Q 8 Choose the best paraphrase of this question for use in your introduction. Is for ueing . please reply

I`m sorry . I made a mistake. so much . I think the right…….

Although I always got a ten of the quiz, but I’m still so nervous on the coming ielts test. God bless me! Amen

Although there are many English teachers at engvid, I only enjoy with Emma`s lessons since she is my favourite instructor. Greetings from Egyptian pharaoh.

Thanks Emma for your precious videos, I have seen a lot of them and it really helped me a lot in polishing my writing skills. After about two months from now I am gonna take my IELTS general exam for Immigration purpose. I haven’t taken any IELTS training course until now. what I have now, is just from engVid.com. I really thank engvid team and teachers for helping people around the globe.

thank you somuch Emma mam.i am looking forward to more vedios

Children are so cute ! :D :))) LOL!!!

10/10 …..! :P hello, Guys how are you?

Not bad. How are ya?

Thank you Emma, I scored 100%

Wow..! The concept of paraphrasing is the most essential element in writing any sort of essay..!

I think that taking a quiz after a lesson strengthen the concepts learned. Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much for great help. The quiz is the way to assess your learning immediately.

I love almost Every Teachers but Emma is the best. i like the way of her teaching.

Great video Emma… so useful for getting the best score on my B2 Exam….

Hi Emma. Thank you very much for teaching us. I got 100 points.

10/10 thanks

9/10 great video thank you

Very helpful. Thank you

wow…i enjoy this lesson today.. i even manage to score 100%. thank you so much… looking forward for more.

100%. Lots of Thanks Emma, see ya :D

Thank you Emma, I really love the video meanwhile, it would aid me jump the next hurdle. I mean; the academic essay.

yeahhhhh 10 out 10 :)

so interesting,madam Emma ,thank you very much for your time you have devoted to prepared such understandable lessons for students and anybody who wants to learn english perfectly

I realy love this site,. Thank you all the teachers that dedicate their time to teach proper english.

why cant i see the video is there any way to fix it ??

Thanks a lot

Thanks alot

Hi Emma, you are great. Thank you.

This is great video. I was able to learn how to paraphrase, restructure sentence still keep/retain its meaning and looking at both sides when writing argumentative an essay.

You got 8 correct out of 10

thanks for your polite lessons

Hi Emma, excellent videos you and your group produce. You mentioned in this video paraphrasing-the-question to watch a Concessions sentence video … I don’t find it, it was erased? thanks

I just joined the engvid and I think it will be beneficial for me to improve my enhlish thank you engvid team…..and sorry for my language if I make mistakes.

Hi Emma. Actually this is very good lesson but whule you decribe the lesson you said don’t copy the title of the essay. I understhood that and i know it is plagiarism. So between the topic sentance and my opinion. There is something that we call “hook up” so if i wanna do hook up and i use the topic sentance with qoutation marka. Is that broblem ? As you mentioned in the lesson try to change every word. Absolutely you right but i am weak from vocabulary

Hi Emma. Actually this is very good lesson but while you decribe the lesson. you said don’t copy the title of the essay. I understhood that and i know it is plagiarism. So between the topic sentance and my opinion. There is something that we call “hook up” so if i wanna do hook up and i use the topic sentance with qoutation marka. Is that broblem ? As you mentioned in the lesson try to change every word. Absolutely, you right but i am weak from vocabulary.

I got a hundred percent 100% after watching your video

You are just good at what you do!Emma

I got 9 correct out of 10. :) Thanks so much for this video and this site.

Great lesson.. Thank you ????

I got 10 correct

I like your videos you explain clear and very well

Thank you very much Emma.meanwhile,this video so difficult I get a 100% in the quiz.

Thanks Emma for the lesson. But the test is very simple and easy

what a attractive lesson

Thank you Emma, i love the method of ur teaching as well as Adam. You deserve appreciation…

Thank you so much, Emma! I’m preparing for IELTS and I found that your lesson is very helpful. Your teaching style is easy to follow and the content isn’t too complicated for me to understand. I’m your big fan now. :)

Thank you Emma you are such a good english teacher!

here from the Philippines:-)

Thank you so much:)

Thank you Emma for your effort and interesting videos you made for us. especially this lesson is very important for me. i’m not very rich to pay for English University but these lessons are very helpful. I use subtitles also to make sure the way I write and pronounce are the same. I’m following you and I see How my knowledge is getting better. I will keep practicing more and more to improve all the necessary skills

Emma, you are such of talented teacher thank you so much

i got 80 but it’s so interesting ! thank u emma

Wow, it was crystal clear for me, Thank you very much Emma. I am a teacher looking for better ways to teach writing to my students and you have given me a good resource.

I got 9 out of 10.

it’s a great lesson , you’ve a stunning way to teach students thanks EMMA. with my love

Thnx Teacher.. I Really Enjoyed Your Class.. Way to go.. I got 8 /10

thank you for the quiz ;)

I got 8 out of 10 :) Cool Thanks a million Prof !!!

I really enjoy studying with your videos, Emma. You are a very good teacher and a have a nice personality which makes even more enjoyable the lessons. Thanks a lot!

Thank you, makes some sense but still struggling with my assignments on this

Thank you so much!

it,s very helpful and please make some new….

i like you amma you are very good

Thank you very much,Mrs/Miss Emma. Your lesson is so good especially with the quiz section. At the first I still think how to use paraphrasing when I watched the video, but after took the test I felt “oh this is it”. Thank you very much, once again :)

Very useful Ms.Emma thank you very much ???

thank you so much

Thank you very so much ,Emma

Thank you for the valuable information Superb article. Very helpful to someone new to an office environment.

thanks a lot teacher

Hi Emma you are a best teacher you teach amazingly and I can easily understand what u are saying in English and I got 100/100 yeah!!

Thank you so much! I truly believe this will help me with my Praxis Writing essay. I appreciate it.

thank you very much about your efforts we approciate that.

Miss Emma teaching English is clear and concise made me able to get 10 out of 10 correct answer and I got 100 marks.I really like to express one thought while writing an paraphrse in the regards of synonym, own sentence structure and concession. I understand one should having sufficient vocabularies, good command in grammar to follow Emma principles.

Thanks a lot,listening to lessons from Engvid has really helped and improved my vocabulary

Thank you to teaching ma’am emma. teacher i Know to more do not have to quit the quiz

hellow Emma 9 out of 10

What is the type of this essay?

Millions of people every year move to English-speaking countries such as Australia, Britain or America, in order to study at school, college or university.

Why do so many people want to study in English?

Why is English such an important international language?

Give reasons for your answer.

yes dear English is an international language for me the main reason is the best universities are in this countries or in others but teching in English so English is very important addaitionlly to the new reserches and the big amount of books are writen in English so thats mean .. more English =more knowledge

Thanx Emma you are like an angle.

Thank you Emma I got 100%

Thank God! I have learns a lot on this topic

80/100 not bad

Thanks Emma for teaching how to write a good essay by using Paraphrasing technique.

Is this paraphrasing is right that It is opine that a nation have only one element for the progression is schooling

You are the best ms emma :)

yahh got 9 :)

thanks Emma you are great

100% it was usfull thanks Emma

I need to practice more this lesson . I got right 60 out of 100

I made a boo-boo BY CHOOSING book & magazine as synonyms -_- 90% Thank you.

Helpful…

Amazing Emma! I scored 100%. I find your teaching explicit and clear. My appreciation.

Thanks a lot. I got 10/10

I have to write an assay about the most important problem in my country. Anyway thank you for this video.

Thanks Mme EMMA.

9/10 thanks Emma ??

Love the lesson thanks Emma, I got a good score.

HI EMMA, Thanks a lot for the help, you have made the most complicated subject easy for me and now i’m in love with composition. Truly yours, Abeer Naeem, Pakistan

Thank you for making writing essay a little bet easier than before

Thanks, Emma, for useful lesson.It’s great!

I answered all correct also shown 10 ticks but I result shown 90 percent marks.

Emma, Fantastic, Marvellous, Great Lesson. Grazie!<3.

Thanks a lot, I got 10/10.

Thanks Emma a lot i got 9/10

I am very glad I came across this website. It contains so many lessons! Thank you so much for making things very easy to understand. The quizzes really help to grasp a concept better.

great lesson to learn for me

This lesson really helped. I got 10/10 many thank.

I got 100%, Thanks for this video, I am sure it help to many student many ways :)

the lessons given are really helpful and the way it is explained are simple and clear,i consider myself lucky to discover this website.

Oppsss ,, I didn’t know that is ver vital to give your positive and negative point of views in the discussion,

That’s one big mistake ?

Lessons which I’ve watched on engVid are very good, and have very great importance for every learner of English. Thank you.

10/10. Thanks Emma, I really enjoy watching your videos.

Emma really love your class!!!, the clarity with which you explain the topics

Thank you so much Ms. Emma.

10 / 10 , Thanks Emma, best video on paraphrase , I love it.

I got 10/10. Thank You Emma for sharing this valuable information with us all eager learners. And, I’d like to say Thank You, also for teaching it so brilliantly.

Thank you so much mam. Your teaching way is very good. you can text me if you want to prepare IELTS.

nice to start with the quiz thank you Emma

This is so helpful. Thank you so much, Emma!

I think my English is improving everyday. 10/10! Thanks Emma!

Definitely I´m learning a lot with your English classes. I got 10/10! Many thanks Emma!

Help! Did I fall into a rabbit hole? I have understood the meaning of the word “important”, using N.American English, to indicate something that is “significant” but not to indicate a keystone. Whereas the words “essential” and “vital” tend to imply a requirement or something which is indispensable; a must-have-or-else sort of thing. For example “Water plays an “important” role in keeping a plant alive.” or perhaps, “Water plays a “significant” role in keeping a plant alive.” Implying plants should be watered. However, if someone said, “Water plays a “vital” role in keeping a plant alive.” or “Water plays an “essential” role in keeping a plant alive.” it implies plants cannot live without water, no? Or, is it me? I welcome your input. Education is an important factor for speaking with clarity, but it isn’t vital or essential in order for one to speak well. (My English may be full of mistakes, a reason why I am using this site.) I should add, I am also asking for clarification because that was the only question I got wrong! Ha! ;-)

Yay 10/10! This is a great and simple refresher. Thanks for this.

Congrats! What are you teaching in Thai?

Thanks Mrs Emma

Hi Emma! Your lesson is so helpful. Keep up the excellent work. The only request I think would help even more is if we get the answer wrong on the quiz, it would explain why that’s the wrong answer. Thanks

Now I know :0 I’ve heard about paraphrasing before but I’d never intentionally applied it in my writings. I usually copy the question or restructuring it but still using the same words – just to make it long -_-

Thank you so much Teacher Emma ^_^ I’m so happy that I’ve found Engvid, I wish I found it much earlier. So, I could write a good essay but I think it’s also a good thing for me to learn it now especially for this year’s grade level. #feeling left out:|

Hello Emma,

I found your video to be very helpful. I took the quiz and got a perfect score. I look forward to watching more of your videos.

I got 10 out of 10! I really learned a lot on this lesson.

7th question was kinda hard for my vocabulary i got 8/10

Many thanks , Mrs Emma .

I have some doubts in second tip for sentence structure like changing verbs to adjectives or noun. Can someone please suggest me something that can help. Even a little help will be enough.

Thanks a lot Emma.

It’s gd to hv a short quiz as I can know my competency and it also helps me to recap what I hv just learned

9 out of 10. Great, thanks Emma for your support ?

I watched the video twice on April 13, 2021, and took the quiz after watching it once. I got 8 correct out of 10.

It’s a great experience to watch informative visual communication, and Amma mam video is one of them. This video help alot to me to acknowledge brand new things. Amma mam is performing a superb job.

hi there teacher emma this is video throughout the this proces that our learnning of english new languaje with I talk about with native speaker english or When I to stading in the university I answer the questions or answer the essay as we can to improve skill to change our own word that I remember those is synonyms although sometimes is very confused. thank you for your amazing videos take care.

Thankyou Emma I got 10/10 because of this wonderful class.

I’m so grateful to mrs Emma,I just started the classes today but I understood so fast and even scoring 80% of both the quiz.

I enjoyed the quiz, i learn a lot. I scored 100 thanks.

Hello,teacher I am Chinese.Glad to see you. Do you have more lessons about how to write other parts of the essay?

I enjoyed ur class miss Emma ,I got 90

Its a great lesson. Thank you teacher Emma

kindy where I can find full ielts test as a practice for real exam

Yeeayh, I got 100. :) Thank you, Engvid.

10/10 Thank you ma’am Emma My way of learnings improve..

thank you so much.

And here I am, watching this video, one day before my English b1 test… I’m really nervous because, I don’t really have much vocabulary to use, including the synonyms… I hope I get the right score because I need it urgently for my scholarship…

Good luck! I hope you do well!

Thank you for this wonderful video, is has broaden my understanding about paraphrasing a question, i will continue to follow because I believe i will make significant improvement at the end of the day.

you made my day !!

Thanks!The test was very helpful.

100 points!!!

Thanks, I have got 100%.

This was so Helpful Thanks!

It was so supportive for my supplementary.

I love the way you teach, this way of testing is beneficial and improve confidence in candidates.

lovely class 100

I just love the indepth teaching of Emma of Engvid

Excellent topic! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks a lot, Emma, for this lesson. You are amazing! (Azores Islands, 14Jan2024);

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How to Paraphrase in an Essay – Tutorial with Examples

Paraphrasing is expressing the contents of a passage in different words. It allows the student to use other people’s content without copying or plagiarizing. 

I’m Tutor Phil, and in this tutorial, I’ll show you a simple 5-step paraphrasing strategy and give you 10 examples of effective paraphrasing. 

Here are five steps to paraphrasing:

Step 1. Make sure you’re clear on your own argument or thesis

Before you use other people’s content in your essay or research paper, you need to make sure you’re crystal clear on what exactly you’re trying to express.

If you’re not perfectly clear on your own main and supporting arguments, then paraphrasing will be difficult. You’ll be struggling in every sentence because you’re not sure how another author’s passage will fit your argument.

In other words, before you lay a brick, make sure you know what the house will ultimately look like. 

To learn this skill, check out my tutorial on essay writing for beginners . 

Step 2. Pick a spot where you will use paraphrasing

Once you know exactly what you’re arguing, identify where in your essay, section, or paragraph you will use the paraphrased passage. 

The best spot for a paraphrase is usually in the Explanation and Example parts of a body paragraph.

This is where you will provide the bulk of your evidence or support. You can paraphrase a passage that will serve to explain a concept or describe a process. You can also paraphrase specific examples. 

Step 3. Read the passage you want to paraphrase

Take the time to read the original passage and make sure you understand it thoroughly. 

• Look for the main subject – what or whom is this passage about?
• Look for the main point – what is the author really trying to say?
• Look for any evidence the author is using to support his argument. 

Step 4. Rewrite the ideas of the passage in your own words

This is the trickiest part, and let me give you 4 techniques you can use now to complete this step. Keep in mind that I’ll give you 10 paraphrasing examples in a minute, and they will illustrate the use of these techniques. 

Technique 1. Begin your sentence or passage at a different point from that the author uses. 

For example, if the sentence starts with a cause and ends with an effect, start your sentence talking about the effect and then explain the cause. 

Technique 2. Use synonyms

Arm yourself with a thesaurus; this online version work just fine. A thesaurus is like a dictionary, only it provides you with alternatives for word choice. 

Technique 3. Rearrange the sentence or passage 

This is similar to technique 1, but in this one you can arrange the original sentence or even the entire passage any way you like, as long as it retains the original meaning.

For example, the original passage may contain general and specific statements located haphazardly. You can arrange the contents of the passage to flow from general to specific. 

An example of rearranging content within a sentence is to switch from active to passive voice or vice versa. 

Technique 4. Chunk up or down

What do I mean by this funny phrase? I mean that if the original sentence is very long, you can chunk it down into two or more sentences. 

If the passage contains two or more sentences that can be combined, chunk them up into one sentence. 

Step 5. Edit your paraphrased passage for flow

When you’re done paraphrasing, go back and read your whole paragraph, making sure it flows. If necessary, use one or more transitions to make it fit in nicely.

Here is my tutorial on how to use transitions in an essay . 

10 Paraphrasing Examples

Paraphrasing example 1.

“Carbs are the best way to fuel your body—but choose the right ones. Cutting back on carbs like the added sugars in soft drinks, candy and pastries will cut calories and is great for your overall health. Replacing those carbs with nutrient-rich choices like whole grains, fruits and vegetables will give you the nutrients you need for good health, along with the fuel your body craves to perform at its best.” (Thalheimer, 2015, p. 3). 

“The right carbohydrates are the best source of fuel for the human body. The best carbs for overall health come from whole foods, and added sugars are best avoided. In order to provide the body with high-quality fuel, it’s best to give preference to whole grains, fruits, and veggies over soda and sugary snacks.”  

What have we done?

In the first sentence, we used technique 1 – flipping the beginning and the ending of a sentence. The original ends with choosing the right carbs. We begin with it.

The next two sentences in the paraphrase are an example of using technique 3 – rearranging content. We took more general concepts and put them in sentence 2. And sentence 3 is more specific because it provides examples of the ideas in the previous sentence. 

To break this down, each of the original sentences 2 & 3 provides reasons to choose better foods and the foods to avoid and to choose instead. 

In the paraphrase, we listed the reasons in sentence 2 and provided examples in sentence 3. 

Paraphrasing Example 2

“For almost a full century, the mission of U.S. educational measurement has been to elicit test-takers’ scores so those scores can be compared with one another. This is a good and useful thing to do, particularly so in situations where the number of applicants exceeds the number of openings. To make a flock of important educational decisions, we need to identify our strongest and weakest performing students.” (Popham, 2014, p. 47). 

“Gathering and comparing the scores of test-takers has been the purpose of U.S. scholastic measurement for almost a hundred years. A viable strategy, it is especially useful when applicants outnumber the available openings. Students demonstrating the strongest and weakest performance should be identified in order to enable effective decision-making in education.”

In sentence 1, we used techniques 1 & 2. First, we flipped the beginning and the ending of the sentence. The paraphrased version feels as if we are reading the original from end to beginning.

Next, we used a bunch of synonyms:

• “Century” became “ hundred years ”
• “Mission” became “ purpose ”
• “Eliciting” became “ gathering ”

We also used synonymous language in sentence 2: “A good and useful thing to do” became “ A viable strategy .” “The number exceeds” became “ outnumber .”

And in sentence 3, we used technique 3 and switched the sentence from the active voice to the passive voice. You should do this only sparingly.

But feel free to switch from the passive to the active voice as often as you want. The active voice is better and more desirable. 

Paraphrasing Example 3

“Successfully confronting the topic of race is a constant struggle within the U.S. history curriculum. This shortcoming is not due to historians’ or practitioners’ inability to see the correlation between race and history, but instead is due to the innate nature in which history is told.” (Rochester & Heafner, 2020, pp. 319-320). 

“Teachers of U.S. history continuously struggle to effectively discuss the topic of race. The cause of the problem is not that historians or practitioners cannot see the race-history correlation. The real challenge is inherent in the way they tell the history.”

We again used synonyms throughout the passage. Since the subject in the first sentence is “history curriculum,” we know that it is about “ teachers of history .” 

Why? Because the word “curriculum” implies education. And educators are teachers. You can look for such clues in the original passage to come up with your own words and phrases that are synonymous with those used in the original. 

Next, we used technique 4 in the second sentence of the original passage. This sentence is long and can be easily broken down into two shorter ones. That’s exactly what we did here.

And we used technique 2 again – using synonyms. “Shortcoming” became “ cause of the problem .” “Innate” became “ inherent .”

Finally, we used technique 4 and turned “the nature history is told” to “ telling the history .” In effect, we switched from passive to active voice, which is an improvement. 

Paraphrasing Example 4

“Despite widespread disputes, no one has written an adequate history of legal statehood. The American public has ignored basic questions about how and when statehood developed, perhaps assuming that states arrived along with sailors’ luggage or developed through some kind of natural evolution.” (Green, 2020, p. 6). 

“Although historians have widely debated state formation, they still have not written a satisfactory history of the subject. Americans have overlooked the fundamentals of the process of state development. Maybe they tend to think that states came to the new world packed in sailors’ luggage or somehow evolved naturally.”

In sentence 1, we primarily used technique 2 – synonyms. Note that the phrase “no one” really refers to historians. Why? Because the sentence and the passage are really about the history of state formation. 

So, who else could be writing the history of the formation of American states if not historians? This is our opportunity to use a new word that is totally correct.

We also changed “despite” to “ although ” and “adequate” to “ satisfactory .”

And, like in the previous example, sentence 2 in the original is really long and presents us with an opportunity to chunk it down, which is technique 4. We broke this sentence into two.

Note that a good place to break a sentence is at the appearance of the second verb. The first verb in the original sentence 2 is “ignored.” The public ignored questions. 

The second verb that refers to the subject is “assuming.” Meaning, the public “ignored” AND “assumed.” So, we made one sentence in the paraphrased version about ignoring and the other about assuming. 

Another pointer at a good spot to break up a sentence is a conjunction or a transition. I call these power words because they allow the writer to extend sentences. 

In the example above, the original sentence 2 really should have the word “and” connecting its two parts with the two verbs – “ignore” and “assume.” 

The writer simply chose to use a different verb form instead of using the word “and.” So, instead of writing “The public ignored X and assumed Y,” he wrote “The public ignored X, assuming Y.” 

In short, chunk the sentence down at conjunctions and additional verbs. 

Paraphrasing Example 5

“Compared to its European counterparts, Japan’s imperial family is at once more unassuming and more withdrawn from the people it represents. Nowhere are the affairs and scandals that feed the media machine around the Windsors. The top gossip in recent years has been a potential marriage between a royal granddaughter and a law school student with a (gasp) indebted mother.” (Surak, 2019, p. 31). 

“Unlike European royalty, the imperial family of Japan is rather quiet and withdrawn from the public eye. It is not prone to scandals and controversies, in contrast to the Windsors. The biggest talk of the town lately has been a possible marriage of the princess to a student of law whose mother has a debt.”

In this example, we primarily used synonyms:

• “Compared to” became “ unlike ”
• “Unassuming” became “ quiet ”
• “Nowhere” became “ not prone ”
• “Top gossip” became “ talk of the town ”

Other than that, you can detect slight changes in wording and phrasing but no major changes in sentence or paragraph structure. This approach works just fine.

Paraphrasing Example 6

“A recent survey found that more than 80 percent of Polish high-school seniors aspire to go abroad immediately following graduation, whether for short-term work in a service industry, on a temporary European educational exchange like Erasmus, or on merit scholarships to universities in France, the United Kingdom or the United States. As for the teens, twentysomethings and thirtysomethings who remain in Poland, so the argument goes, ideas like “democratic revolution” and “national freedom” mean nothing.” (Kosicki, 2015, p. 27). 

“According to a recent poll, over 80 percent of seniors in Polish high schools dream of going abroad as soon as they graduate. They may get short-term jobs in the service industry, seek placement in student exchange programs, or apply for university scholarships in Western Europe or the U.S. And when it comes to young people from teens to people in their thirties, they seem to hardly value high national political ideals.”

You may have noticed that we used technique 2 – synonyms – throughout the paraphrase. This is the most widely used technique that works every time. 

We also chunked down the first sentence because it is a really long one. We made the split at the word “whether,” which is a transition. 

Here are some of the synonyms we used:

• “Survey” became “ poll ”
• “Aspire” became “ dream ”
• “Work” became “ jobs ”
• “Merit” became “ apply for ”
• “So the argument goes” became “ seem ”

Note that it’s okay to sometimes use summarizing techniques while paraphrasing. If a phrase does not lend itself well to synonyms, it’s okay to slightly summarize occasionally. 

Thus, “democratic revolution” and “national freedom” became “ high national political ideals .”

Summarizing is not a paraphrasing technique per se, so use it with caution when paraphrasing because an important detail may become swallowed up in the process. 

Paraphrasing Example 7

“During the last months of her campaign leading up to the election, Dilma Rousseff, then candidate and now the first female elected president in Brazil, affirmed her position on favoring the legalization of abortion as a public policy initiative. Even though she was heavily favored to win the election, according to many political observers, making this declaration severely cost Rousseff support from pivotal voting blocs and was one of the principal factors that led to a runoff election.” (Ogland & Verona, 2011, p. 812). 

“Dilma Rousseff, former candidate and currently the first woman president elect in Brazil, asserted her stance on legalizing abortion as a part of her public policy during the concluding months of her election campaign. According to many pundits, although she was strongly positioned to win the race, affirming her position deprived her of crucial voting blocs and eventually resulted in a runoff election.”

In this paraphrase, we used techniques 1 and 2. We started both sentences at a point which occurs in the middle of the original sentence. This way, each sentence sounds different.

We used a lot of synonyms:

• “Last months” became “ concluding months ”
• “Female” became “ woman ”
• “Affirmed her position” became “ asserted her stance ”
• “Political observers” became “ pundits ”

If you look up these words and phrases, you’ll find that they are almost exact or perfectly exact equivalents of the original ones. Using synonyms is very powerful in paraphrasing. 

Paraphrasing Example 8

“During the Cold War, the relatively stable relationship between South Korea and Japan, which was backed by active United States military and diplomatic engagement, was a linchpin of peace and stability in Northeast Asia. Tied to the United States through bilateral military alliance pacts, the two countries not only coordinated their policies toward the communist bloc, but also served as a bulwark against the expansion of the communist Soviets and China.” (You & Kim, 2020, p. 53). 

“The relatively steady relations between South Korea and Japan backed by the United States by means of the military and diplomacy during the Cold War became a backbone of peace and security in Northeast Asia. Bound to the United States by two-sided military alliance agreements, the two nations managed their strategy of dealing with the communist countries and acted as a wall of protection from the Soviets and China.”

We mainly used technique 2 – the synonyms – in this example:

• “stable “ became “ steady ”
• “relationship” became “ relations ”
• “linchpin” became “ backbone ”
• “tied“ became “ bound ”
• “bilateral” became “ two-sided ”
• “bulwark” became “ wall of protection ”

You can achieve a great paraphrased passage just by using synonyms. This becomes especially useful when paraphrasing difficult passages. 

Sometimes the original is so tightly written that it’s hard to paraphrase it without making it wordy. Using synonyms with the help of a thesaurus can help you get the task done. 

Paraphrasing Example 9

“Bigger paychecks are just more good news for U.S. families. The average household debt-to-income ratio is the lowest since 2002. And falling food and gas prices are leaving more money in our pockets, cash that can boost consumer spending overall, which in turn accounts for 68% of the U.S. economy—setting up a virtuous circle of growth.” (Smith, 2015, p. 13). 

“Americans definitely welcome higher pay, and since 2002 the debt-to-income ratio for an average family has not been lower. An upward cycle of growth occurs as groceries and petroleum become cheaper and people have more money to spend. Consumer spending, which constitutes 68% of the U.S. economy, has experienced a boost.”

For the first time, we actually chunked up the first two sentences, which means that we put them together into one. 

And we chunked down the next, longer sentence of the original into two sentences. 

We also used technique 3 to rearrange the order in which parts of the sentence appear. You’ll notice that we used a lot fewer synonyms in this passage. Instead, we focused on chunking up and down and rearranging. 

Paraphrasing Example 10

“A new survey of Louisiana schools reveals a critical issue facing most states nationwide: schools are lacking the technology needed to conduct online testing required by the Common Core State Standards. Although the looming requirement that all testing be conducted online has been discussed, the degree to which states are unprepared has not been known. And only five school systems meet the requirements.” (Abrams, 2012, p. 73). 

“According to a new study, schools in Louisiana lack the technology necessary to administer online tests mandated by the Common Core State Standards. This is a problem common to most states. Despite the discussions of the online testing requirement, just how well states are prepared is unclear, with only five school systems fulfilling the requirement.”

We again used chunking up and chunking down in this example. We broke the original sentence 1 into two sentences. 

And then we chunked up by combining the next two sentences in the original into one. This is one way in which we made our paraphrase dissimilar, which is what we want.

We also used synonyms, which are, as you know, the main and most common technique used in paraphrasing:

• “A new survey reveals” became “ According to a new study ”
• “required” became “ mandated ”
• “Although” became “ despite ”
• “And” became “ with ”

Note that the last two items are transitions. Transitions can be used as splice points to either chunk up or chunk down, as we did in this example. 

And that’s all! Hope this was helpful. 

Now go ahead and write your own brilliant paraphrase!

Tutor Phil.

Abrams, S. (2012). The emergence of district social media managers. District Administration, 48 (7), 73-73.

Green, C. (2020). United/States: A revolutionary history of American statehood. Michigan Law Review, 119 (1), 1-69.

Kosicki, P. H. (2015). Apathy or anniversary? Nation, 300 (1), 27-37.

Ogland, C. P. & Verona, A. P. (2011). Religion and attitudes toward abortion and abortion policy in Brazil. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 50 (4), 812-821.

Popham, W. J. (2014). The right test for the wrong reason. Phi Delta Kappan, 96 (1), 46-52.

Rochester, A. & Heafner, T. L. (2020). An African American and Latinx history of the United States. Curriculum & Teaching Dialogue, 22 (1/2), 319-322.

Smith, A. K. (2015). U.S. Economy: Leader of the pack. Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, 69 (1), 13-14.

Surak, K. (2019). Imperial hallucinations. New Statesman, 148 (5471), 30-33.

Thalheimer, J. (2015). Ketosis fad diet alert. Environmental Nutrition, 38 (9), 3. 

You, C. & Kim, W. (2020). Loss aversion and risk-seeking in Korea-Japan relations. Journal of East Asian Studies, 20 (1), 53-74.

Tutor Phil is an e-learning professional who helps adult learners finish their degrees by teaching them academic writing skills.

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Quoting and Paraphrasing

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College writing often involves integrating information from published sources into your own writing in order to add credibility and authority–this process is essential to research and the production of new knowledge.

However, when building on the work of others, you need to be careful not to plagiarize : “to steal and pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one’s own” or to “present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”1 The University of Wisconsin–Madison takes this act of “intellectual burglary” very seriously and considers it to be a breach of academic integrity . Penalties are severe.

These materials will help you avoid plagiarism by teaching you how to properly integrate information from published sources into your own writing.

1. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1993), 888.

How to avoid plagiarism

When using sources in your papers, you can avoid plagiarism by knowing what must be documented.

Specific words and phrases

If you use an author’s specific word or words, you must place those words within quotation marks and you must credit the source.

Information and Ideas

Even if you use your own words, if you obtained the information or ideas you are presenting from a source, you must document the source.

Information : If a piece of information isn’t common knowledge (see below), you need to provide a source.

Ideas : An author’s ideas may include not only points made and conclusions drawn, but, for instance, a specific method or theory, the arrangement of material, or a list of steps in a process or characteristics of a medical condition. If a source provided any of these, you need to acknowledge the source.

Common Knowledge?

You do not need to cite a source for material considered common knowledge:

General common knowledge is factual information considered to be in the public domain, such as birth and death dates of well-known figures, and generally accepted dates of military, political, literary, and other historical events. In general, factual information contained in multiple standard reference works can usually be considered to be in the public domain.

Field-specific common knowledge is “common” only within a particular field or specialty. It may include facts, theories, or methods that are familiar to readers within that discipline. For instance, you may not need to cite a reference to Piaget’s developmental stages in a paper for an education class or give a source for your description of a commonly used method in a biology report—but you must be sure that this information is so widely known within that field that it will be shared by your readers.

If in doubt, be cautious and cite the source. And in the case of both general and field-specific common knowledge, if you use the exact words of the reference source, you must use quotation marks and credit the source.

Paraphrasing vs. Quoting — Explanation

Should i paraphrase or quote.

In general, use direct quotations only if you have a good reason. Most of your paper should be in your own words. Also, it’s often conventional to quote more extensively from sources when you’re writing a humanities paper, and to summarize from sources when you’re writing in the social or natural sciences–but there are always exceptions.

In a literary analysis paper , for example, you”ll want to quote from the literary text rather than summarize, because part of your task in this kind of paper is to analyze the specific words and phrases an author uses.

In research papers , you should quote from a source

• to show that an authority supports your point
• to present a position or argument to critique or comment on
• to include especially moving or historically significant language
• to present a particularly well-stated passage whose meaning would be lost or changed if paraphrased or summarized

You should summarize or paraphrase when

• what you want from the source is the idea expressed, and not the specific language used to express it
• you can express in fewer words what the key point of a source is

How to paraphrase a source

General advice.

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

Methods of Paraphrasing

• Look away from the source then write. Read the text you want to paraphrase several times until you feel that you understand it and can use your own words to restate it to someone else. Then, look away from the original and rewrite the text in your own words.
• Take notes. Take abbreviated notes; set the notes aside; then paraphrase from the notes a day or so later, or when you draft.

If you find that you can’t do A or B, this may mean that you don’t understand the passage completely or that you need to use a more structured process until you have more experience in paraphrasing.

The method below is not only a way to create a paraphrase but also a way to understand a difficult text.

Paraphrasing difficult texts

Consider the following passage from Love and Toil (a book on motherhood in London from 1870 to 1918), in which the author, Ellen Ross, puts forth one of her major arguments:

• Love and Toil maintains that family survival was the mother’s main charge among the large majority of London?s population who were poor or working class; the emotional and intellectual nurture of her child or children and even their actual comfort were forced into the background. To mother was to work for and organize household subsistence. (p. 9)

Children of the poor at the turn of the century received little if any emotional or intellectual nurturing from their mothers, whose main charge was family survival. Working for and organizing household subsistence were what defined mothering. Next to this, even the children’s basic comfort was forced into the background (Ross, 1995).

According to Ross (1993), poor children at the turn of the century received little mothering in our sense of the term. Mothering was defined by economic status, and among the poor, a mother’s foremost responsibility was not to stimulate her children’s minds or foster their emotional growth but to provide food and shelter to meet the basic requirements for physical survival. Given the magnitude of this task, children were deprived of even the “actual comfort” (p. 9) we expect mothers to provide today.

You may need to go through this process several times to create a satisfactory paraphrase.

Successful vs. unsuccessful paraphrases

Paraphrasing is often defined as putting a passage from an author into “your own words.” But what are your own words? How different must your paraphrase be from the original?

The paragraphs below provide an example by showing a passage as it appears in the source, two paraphrases that follow the source too closely, and a legitimate paraphrase.

The student’s intention was to incorporate the material in the original passage into a section of a paper on the concept of “experts” that compared the functions of experts and nonexperts in several professions.

The Passage as It Appears in the Source

Critical care nurses function in a hierarchy of roles. In this open heart surgery unit, the nurse manager hires and fires the nursing personnel. The nurse manager does not directly care for patients but follows the progress of unusual or long-term patients. On each shift a nurse assumes the role of resource nurse. This person oversees the hour-by-hour functioning of the unit as a whole, such as considering expected admissions and discharges of patients, ascertaining that beds are available for patients in the operating room, and covering sick calls. Resource nurses also take a patient assignment. They are the most experienced of all the staff nurses. The nurse clinician has a separate job description and provides for quality of care by orienting new staff, developing unit policies, and providing direct support where needed, such as assisting in emergency situations. The clinical nurse specialist in this unit is mostly involved with formal teaching in orienting new staff. The nurse manager, nurse clinician, and clinical nurse specialist are the designated experts. They do not take patient assignments. The resource nurse is seen as both a caregiver and a resource to other caregivers. . . . Staff nurses have a hierarchy of seniority. . . . Staff nurses are assigned to patients to provide all their nursing care. (Chase, 1995, p. 156)

Word-for-Word Plagiarism

Critical care nurses have a hierarchy of roles. The nurse manager hires and fires nurses. S/he does not directly care for patients but does follow unusual or long-term cases. On each shift a resource nurse attends to the functioning of the unit as a whole, such as making sure beds are available in the operating room , and also has a patient assignment . The nurse clinician orients new staff, develops policies, and provides support where needed . The clinical nurse specialist also orients new staff, mostly by formal teaching. The nurse manager, nurse clinician, and clinical nurse specialist , as the designated experts, do not take patient assignments . The resource nurse is not only a caregiver but a resource to the other caregivers . Within the staff nurses there is also a hierarchy of seniority . Their job is to give assigned patients all their nursing care .

Why this is plagiarism

Notice that the writer has not only “borrowed” Chase’s material (the results of her research) with no acknowledgment, but has also largely maintained the author’s method of expression and sentence structure. The phrases in red are directly copied from the source or changed only slightly in form.

Even if the student-writer had acknowledged Chase as the source of the content, the language of the passage would be considered plagiarized because no quotation marks indicate the phrases that come directly from Chase. And if quotation marks did appear around all these phrases, this paragraph would be so cluttered that it would be unreadable.

A Patchwork Paraphrase

Chase (1995) describes how nurses in a critical care unit function in a hierarchy that places designated experts at the top and the least senior staff nurses at the bottom. The experts — the nurse manager, nurse clinician, and clinical nurse specialist — are not involved directly in patient care. The staff nurses, in contrast, are assigned to patients and provide all their nursing care . Within the staff nurses is a hierarchy of seniority in which the most senior can become resource nurses: they are assigned a patient but also serve as a resource to other caregivers. The experts have administrative and teaching tasks such as selecting and orienting new staff, developing unit policies , and giving hands-on support where needed.

This paraphrase is a patchwork composed of pieces in the original author’s language (in red) and pieces in the student-writer’s words, all rearranged into a new pattern, but with none of the borrowed pieces in quotation marks. Thus, even though the writer acknowledges the source of the material, the underlined phrases are falsely presented as the student’s own.

A Legitimate Paraphrase

In her study of the roles of nurses in a critical care unit, Chase (1995) also found a hierarchy that distinguished the roles of experts and others. Just as the educational experts described above do not directly teach students, the experts in this unit do not directly attend to patients. That is the role of the staff nurses, who, like teachers, have their own “hierarchy of seniority” (p. 156). The roles of the experts include employing unit nurses and overseeing the care of special patients (nurse manager), teaching and otherwise integrating new personnel into the unit (clinical nurse specialist and nurse clinician), and policy-making (nurse clinician). In an intermediate position in the hierarchy is the resource nurse, a staff nurse with more experience than the others, who assumes direct care of patients as the other staff nurses do, but also takes on tasks to ensure the smooth operation of the entire facility.

Why this is a good paraphrase

The writer has documented Chase’s material and specific language (by direct reference to the author and by quotation marks around language taken directly from the source). Notice too that the writer has modified Chase’s language and structure and has added material to fit the new context and purpose — to present the distinctive functions of experts and nonexperts in several professions.

Shared Language

Perhaps you’ve noticed that a number of phrases from the original passage appear in the legitimate paraphrase: critical care, staff nurses, nurse manager, clinical nurse specialist, nurse clinician, resource nurse.

If all these phrases were in red, the paraphrase would look much like the “patchwork” example. The difference is that the phrases in the legitimate paraphrase are all precise, economical, and conventional designations that are part of the shared language within the nursing discipline (in the too-close paraphrases, they’re red only when used within a longer borrowed phrase).

In every discipline and in certain genres (such as the empirical research report), some phrases are so specialized or conventional that you can’t paraphrase them except by wordy and awkward circumlocutions that would be less familiar (and thus less readable) to the audience.

When you repeat such phrases, you’re not stealing the unique phrasing of an individual writer but using a common vocabulary shared by a community of scholars.

Some Examples of Shared Language You Don’t Need to Put in Quotation Marks

• Conventional designations: e.g., physician’s assistant, chronic low-back pain
• Preferred bias-free language: e.g., persons with disabilities
• Technical terms and phrases of a discipline or genre : e.g., reduplication, cognitive domain, material culture, sexual harassment

Chase, S. K. (1995). The social context of critical care clinical judgment. Heart and Lung, 24, 154-162.

How to Quote a Source

Introducing a quotation.

One of your jobs as a writer is to guide your reader through your text. Don’t simply drop quotations into your paper and leave it to the reader to make connections.

Integrating a quotation into your text usually involves two elements:

• A signal that a quotation is coming–generally the author’s name and/or a reference to the work
• An assertion that indicates the relationship of the quotation to your text

Often both the signal and the assertion appear in a single introductory statement, as in the example below. Notice how a transitional phrase also serves to connect the quotation smoothly to the introductory statement.

Ross (1993), in her study of poor and working-class mothers in London from 1870-1918 [signal], makes it clear that economic status to a large extent determined the meaning of motherhood [assertion]. Among this population [connection], “To mother was to work for and organize household subsistence” (p. 9).

The signal can also come after the assertion, again with a connecting word or phrase:

Illness was rarely a routine matter in the nineteenth century [assertion]. As [connection] Ross observes [signal], “Maternal thinking about children’s health revolved around the possibility of a child’s maiming or death” (p. 166).

Formatting Quotations

Short direct prose.

Incorporate short direct prose quotations into the text of your paper and enclose them in double quotation marks:

According to Jonathan Clarke, “Professional diplomats often say that trying to think diplomatically about foreign policy is a waste of time.”

Longer prose quotations

Begin longer quotations (for instance, in the APA system, 40 words or more) on a new line and indent the entire quotation (i.e., put in block form), with no quotation marks at beginning or end, as in the quoted passage from our Successful vs. Unsucessful Paraphrases page.

Rules about the minimum length of block quotations, how many spaces to indent, and whether to single- or double-space extended quotations vary with different documentation systems; check the guidelines for the system you’re using.

Quotation of Up to 3 Lines of Poetry

Quotations of up to 3 lines of poetry should be integrated into your sentence. For example:

In Julius Caesar, Antony begins his famous speech with “Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” (III.ii.75-76).

Notice that a slash (/) with a space on either side is used to separate lines.

Quotation of More than 3 Lines of Poetry

More than 3 lines of poetry should be indented. As with any extended (indented) quotation, do not use quotation marks unless you need to indicate a quotation within your quotation.

Punctuating with Quotation Marks

Parenthetical citations.

With short quotations, place citations outside of closing quotation marks, followed by sentence punctuation (period, question mark, comma, semi-colon, colon):

Menand (2002) characterizes language as “a social weapon” (p. 115).

With block quotations, check the guidelines for the documentation system you are using.

Commas and periods

Place inside closing quotation marks when no parenthetical citation follows:

Hertzberg (2002) notes that “treating the Constitution as imperfect is not new,” but because of Dahl’s credentials, his “apostasy merits attention” (p. 85).

Semicolons and colons

Place outside of closing quotation marks (or after a parenthetical citation).

Question marks and exclamation points

Place inside closing quotation marks if the quotation is a question/exclamation:

Menand (2001) acknowledges that H. W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage is “a classic of the language,” but he asks, “Is it a dead classic?” (p. 114).

[Note that a period still follows the closing parenthesis.]

Place outside of closing quotation marks if the entire sentence containing the quotation is a question or exclamation:

How many students actually read the guide to find out what is meant by “academic misconduct”?

Quotation within a quotation

Use single quotation marks for the embedded quotation:

According to Hertzberg (2002), Dahl gives the U. S. Constitution “bad marks in ‘democratic fairness’ and ‘encouraging consensus'” (p. 90).

[The phrases “democratic fairness” and “encouraging consensus” are already in quotation marks in Dahl’s sentence.]

Indicating Changes in Quotations

Quoting only a portion of the whole.

Use ellipsis points (. . .) to indicate an omission within a quotation–but not at the beginning or end unless it’s not obvious that you’re quoting only a portion of the whole.

Adding Clarification, Comment, or Correction

Within quotations, use square brackets [ ] (not parentheses) to add your own clarification, comment, or correction.

Use [sic] (meaning “so” or “thus”) to indicate that a mistake is in the source you’re quoting and is not your own.

Additional information

Information on summarizing and paraphrasing sources.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.). (2000). Retrieved January 7, 2002, from http://www.bartleby.com/61/ Bazerman, C. (1995). The informed writer: Using sources in the disciplines (5th ed). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Leki, I. (1995). Academic writing: Exploring processes and strategies (2nd ed.) New York: St. Martin?s Press, pp. 185-211.

Leki describes the basic method presented in C, pp. 4-5.

Spatt, B. (1999). Writing from sources (5th ed.) New York: St. Martin?s Press, pp. 98-119; 364-371.

Information about specific documentation systems

The Writing Center has handouts explaining how to use many of the standard documentation systems. You may look at our general Web page on Documentation Systems, or you may check out any of the following specific Web pages.

If you’re not sure which documentation system to use, ask the course instructor who assigned your paper.

• American Psychological Assoicaion (APA)
• Modern Language Association (MLA)
• Chicago/Turabian (A Footnote or Endnote System)
• American Political Science Association (APSA)
• Council of Science Editors (CBE)
• Numbered References

You may also consult the following guides:

• American Medical Association, Manual for Authors and Editors
• Council of Science Editors, CBE style Manual
• The Chicago Manual of Style
• MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association

Academic and Professional Writing

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Analysis Papers

Reading Poetry

A Short Guide to Close Reading for Literary Analysis

Using Literary Quotations

Play Reviews

Writing a Rhetorical Précis to Analyze Nonfiction Texts

Incorporating Interview Data

Grant Proposals

Planning and Writing a Grant Proposal: The Basics

Additional Resources for Grants and Proposal Writing

Job Materials and Application Essays

Writing Personal Statements for Ph.D. Programs

• Before you begin: useful tips for writing your essay
• Guided brainstorming exercises
• Get more help with your essay
• Frequently Asked Questions

Resume Writing Tips

CV Writing Tips

Cover Letters

Business Letters

Proposals and Dissertations

Resources for Proposal Writers

Resources for Dissertators

Research Papers

Planning and Writing Research Papers

Writing Annotated Bibliographies

Creating Poster Presentations

Writing an Abstract for Your Research Paper

Thank-You Notes

Advice for Students Writing Thank-You Notes to Donors

Reading for a Review

Critical Reviews

Writing a Review of Literature

Scientific Reports

Scientific Report Format

Sample Lab Assignment

Writing for the Web

Writing an Effective Blog Post

Writing for Social Media: A Guide for Academics

Unit 2: Paraphrasing and Avoiding Plagiarism

1 Paraphrasing Introduction

Preview Questions:

• What is paraphrasing?
• When do we have to paraphrase?
• Why do we have to paraphrase?
• Paraphrasing is a really difficult thing to do. Why can’t I just use a direct quotation every time I want to use somebody else’s idea as supporting evidence for my own writing?
• What are the criteria for a good paraphrase?
• Why do I have to learn how to paraphrase? Can’t I just use an AI-based paraphrasing tool to write my paraphrases for me?

Paraphrasing is an important skill we use in our daily lives. We might share a story we heard from a friend. When we do this, we use our own way of explaining the story. Learning how to paraphrase effectively will be useful when you write about the ideas you have read in sources.

Although there are many AI-based paraphrasing tools, learning how to paraphrase yourself is an important skill in the journey of developing your own writing.

Three criteria for a good paraphrase

• All main ideas included.
• No new ideas added.
• Uses no more than THREE words in a row from the original source.
• Changes grammar and vocabulary as much as possible.
• Includes the name of the author or the name of the source (a citation).
• You must be able to evaluate the effectiveness yourself and ensure you have the correct citation.

Citation Examples

In-text citations (APA Style)

• Baker (2017) reports that 70% of Instagram users are under 35 years old (p. 3).
• Seventy percent of Instagram users are under 35 years old (Baker, 2017, p. 3).

Adapted from: Dollahite, N.E. & Huan, J. (2012). SourceWork: Academic Writing for Success.

Paraphrase examples

1) writer versus idea focused.

Notice how the examples meet the above criteria, yet are slightly different.

Original: “More than 150 million people use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, share photographs and videos and post regular updates of their movements and thoughts.” – From David Derbyshire, “ Social Websites Harm Children’s Brains,” (2009), p. 2.

Paraphrase 1 (writer focused): Derbyshire (2009) states that over 150 million people frequently share photos and updates with friends through Facebook (p. 2).

Paraphrase 2 (idea focused): Facebook has enabled over 150 million users to share pictures and updates regularly with their friends (Derbyshire, 2009, p. 2).

2) Paraphrase of 2 or more sentences

Below are two methods for paraphrasing multiple sentences. (Note that the paraphrased information is shorter than the original; this example combines the skills of paraphrasing and summarizing.)

Original: “The pandemic tested the resilience of colleges and universities as they executed online learning on a massive scale by creating online courses, adopting and adapting to unfamiliar technologies, engaging faculty en masse in remote teaching, and successfully meeting the instructional needs of students. Those experiences and lessons should not be discarded. The next phase for higher education in a post-COVID-19 world is to harness what worked well during the emergency response period and use those experiences to improve institutional practices for the benefit of both internal and external constituencies in the future.” From John Nworie, “Beyond COVID-19: What’s next for online teaching and learning in higher education,” (2021), p. 7.

Paraphrase 1 (writer focused): Nworie (2021) recommends that the valuable lessons higher education institutions learned in response to the pandemic be applied to future education models. The development of large-scale online courses while adapting to technological challenges in the process did allow students educational needs to be met (p. 7).

Paraphrase 2 (idea focused): The valuable lessons higher education institutions learned in response to the pandemic can be applied to future education models; the development of large-scale online courses while adapting to technological challenges in the process did allow students educational needs to be met (Nworie, 2021, p. 7).

Knowledge Check

Exercise: decide which of the paraphrases below is most effective., exercise: test your knowledge about plagiarism..

From Excelsior Online Writing Lab, https://owl.excelsior.edu/plagiarism/plagiarism-how-much-do-you-know/

Academic Writing I Copyright © by UW-Madison ESL Program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Sample Essay for Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting

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The following is a sample essay you can practice quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Examples of each task are provided at the end of the essay for further reference. Here is the citation for Sipher's essay:

Sipher, Roger. “So That Nobody Has to Go to School If They Don't Want To.” The New York Times , 19 Dec. 1977, p. 31.

So That Nobody Has To Go To School If They Don't Want To

by Roger Sipher

A decline in standardized test scores is but the most recent indicator that American education is in trouble.

One reason for the crisis is that present mandatory-attendance laws force many to attend school who have no wish to be there. Such children have little desire to learn and are so antagonistic to school that neither they nor more highly motivated students receive the quality education that is the birthright of every American.

The solution to this problem is simple: Abolish compulsory-attendance laws and allow only those who are committed to getting an education to attend.

This will not end public education. Contrary to conventional belief, legislators enacted compulsory-attendance laws to legalize what already existed. William Landes and Lewis Solomon, economists, found little evidence that mandatory-attendance laws increased the number of children in school. They found, too, that school systems have never effectively enforced such laws, usually because of the expense involved.

There is no contradiction between the assertion that compulsory attendance has had little effect on the number of children attending school and the argument that repeal would be a positive step toward improving education. Most parents want a high school education for their children. Unfortunately, compulsory attendance hampers the ability of public school officials to enforce legitimate educational and disciplinary policies and thereby make the education a good one.

Private schools have no such problem. They can fail or dismiss students, knowing such students can attend public school. Without compulsory attendance, public schools would be freer to oust students whose academic or personal behavior undermines the educational mission of the institution.

Has not the noble experiment of a formal education for everyone failed? While we pay homage to the homily, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink," we have pretended it is not true in education.

Ask high school teachers if recalcitrant students learn anything of value. Ask teachers if these students do any homework. Quite the contrary, these students know they will be passed from grade to grade until they are old enough to quit or until, as is more likely, they receive a high school diploma. At the point when students could legally quit, most choose to remain since they know they are likely to be allowed to graduate whether they do acceptable work or not.

Abolition of archaic attendance laws would produce enormous dividends.

First, it would alert everyone that school is a serious place where one goes to learn. Schools are neither day-care centers nor indoor street corners. Young people who resist learning should stay away; indeed, an end to compulsory schooling would require them to stay away.

Second, students opposed to learning would not be able to pollute the educational atmosphere for those who want to learn. Teachers could stop policing recalcitrant students and start educating.

Third, grades would show what they are supposed to: how well a student is learning. Parents could again read report cards and know if their children were making progress.

Fourth, public esteem for schools would increase. People would stop regarding them as way stations for adolescents and start thinking of them as institutions for educating America's youth.

Fifth, elementary schools would change because students would find out early they had better learn something or risk flunking out later. Elementary teachers would no longer have to pass their failures on to junior high and high school.

Sixth, the cost of enforcing compulsory education would be eliminated. Despite enforcement efforts, nearly 15 percent of the school-age children in our largest cities are almost permanently absent from school.

Communities could use these savings to support institutions to deal with young people not in school. If, in the long run, these institutions prove more costly, at least we would not confuse their mission with that of schools.

Schools should be for education. At present, they are only tangentially so. They have attempted to serve an all-encompassing social function, trying to be all things to all people. In the process they have failed miserably at what they were originally formed to accomplish.

Example Summary, Paraphrase, and Quotation from the Essay:

Example summary: Roger Sipher makes his case for getting rid of compulsory-attendance laws in primary and secondary schools with six arguments. These fall into three groups—first that education is for those who want to learn and by including those that don't want to learn, everyone suffers. Second, that grades would be reflective of effort and elementary school teachers wouldn't feel compelled to pass failing students. Third, that schools would both save money and save face with the elimination of compulsory-attendance laws.

Example paraphrase of the essay's conclusion: Roger Sipher concludes his essay by insisting that schools have failed to fulfill their primary duty of education because they try to fill multiple social functions (par. 17).

Example quotation: According to Roger Sipher, a solution to the perceived crisis of American education is to "[a]bolish compulsory-attendance laws and allow only those who are committed to getting an education to attend" (par. 3).

How to paraphrase in IELTS writing

Paraphrasing in ielts essays..

Updated: August 2022

An important skill in IELTS writing is being able to paraphrase the task question. Paraphrasing means to say something in your own words while keeping the same meaning.

In the introduction of your essay, the first thing you should do is paraphrase the topic question by changing the structure of the sentences or changing the formation of the words. This can be done using synonyms (words with the same meaning). Remember that if you just copy the original question word for word you may lose marks. However, you do not have to paraphrase every single word especially if there are no synonyms that accurately match.

Keep it simple and concise, do not use overly complicated language or try to impress the examiner with very high-level grammar. Simple and concise is the key.

Changing the structure and word formation

Changing the form of the words is an important skill to practice by using: a verb, gerund, adjective, noun . Look at the examples below.

1. People increasingly access the news online these days, rather than buying newspapers and magazines to find out what is going on in the world.

2. there is an increase in people accessing the news online these days, rather than buying newspapers and magazines to find out what is going on in the world., 3. an increasing number of people are buying what they need online nowadays., 4. in recent times, the number of people who buy what they need online is on the increase..

• Sentence 1:  adverb + verb (increasingly access)
• In sentence 2: noun + subject+ gerund (an increase in people accessing…) also I re-ordered the sentence.
• Sentence 3: collocation (an increasing number of) + present continuous (are buying)
• Sentence 4:  relative clause (who buy..) + set noun phrase (on the increase)

Using this technique you need to be confident with your grammar. If you decide to reorder the sentence structure it will show the examiner your ability to manipulate grammar effectively.

To see a lesson on paraphrasing without synonyms, Click here.

Note on synonyms : Be careful when using synonyms because if they are used incorrectly they will lower your score.  Remember that not everything has to be paraphrased. Some words can remain the same, just rephrase the keywords.

Let’s look at some IELTS questions and my ideas below.

I have not written a thesis statement or my opinion yet, the examples below are just to show how to paraphrase the question.

One of the major problems facing the world today is the growing number of refugees. Some say developed nations of the world should tackle this problem by taking more refugees. 

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Paraphrased version: A major issue in the world recently is the increasing number of refugees. Many believe that developed countries ought to deal with this problem by accepting more refugees .

Take a look at how I have paraphrased the words.

1. one of the major problems facing the world today = A major issue in the world recently 2. The growing number of = the increasing number of 3. some say = many believe 4. developed nations = developed countries 5. should tackle this problem = ought to deal with this problem 6. taking = accepting

You will notice I have not paraphrased the word ‘refugees’ as this is difficult to paraphrase. The closest word to this would be ‘asylum seekers’ but that carries a slightly different meaning. So, in this case, I just keep the same word from the task.

Some people think that sports involving violence, such as boxing and martial arts, should be banned from TV as well as from international sporting competitions.

To what extent do you agree?

Paraphrased version: Certain people believe that violent sports, namely martial arts and boxing, should not be shown on TV including international sporting events.

1. some people think = certain people believe 2. such as = namely 3. should be banned from TV = should not be shown on TV 4. as well as = including 5. competitions = events

In many countries, a small number of people earn very high salaries. Some people believe that this is good for the country, but others think that governments should not allow salaries above a certain level.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

Paraphrased version In several nations, there are some people who make large salaries. Some would argue that this is beneficial for the country, whereas others believe governments should limit salaries to a certain amount.

1. in many countries = in several nations 2. a small number of people = some people 3. some people believe = some would argue 4. good = beneficial 5. but others think = whereas others believe 6. should not allow salaries above a certain level. = should limit salaries to a certain amount

Some people prefer to spend their lives doing the same things and avoiding change. Others, however, think that change is always a good thing.

Paraphrased version Many individuals would rather go through life staying the same, whereas others like the idea of facing new challenges.

1. Some people prefer = Many individuals would rather 2. spend their lives doing the same things = go through life staying the same 3. others however = whereas others 4. think that change is always a good thing =  like the idea of facing new challenges.

The impact that the growing demand for more flights has had on the environment is a major concern for many countries. Some people think that one way to limit the number of people travelling by air is to increase the tax on flights.

To what extent do you think this could solve the problem?

Paraphrased version There are global concerns over environmental problems caused by the growth of air travel. Tax hikes on tickets have been suggested by some as a measure to limit the number of air travellers.

You can see here the way I have moved the sentences around and changed the form of the words. It is not just about using synonyms. Practice this skill for a higher band score in vocabulary.

As you can see from all the examples, I have not rephrased everything. Some words cannot be accurately paraphrased because they lose the meaning.

After paraphrasing the question you will need to write a thesis statement ( click here for a lesson on Thesis statements )  If the question asks for an opinion you must include it in your thesis statement and throughout the essay.

If you do not paraphrase the essay question you could lose marks. Be careful too as synonyms used incorrectly can lower your score.

Let’s practice.

Can you paraphrase the task question below?

Some people think that governments should give financial support to creative artists such as painters and musicians, while others believe that creative artists should be funded by alternative sources.

Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Some people would argue that support in the form of government subsidies should be provided to creative artists, whereas others say that they ought to seek funds from other sources.

 I have not added a thesis statement here as this is for paraphrasing practice only.

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• How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on 8 April 2022 by Courtney Gahan and Jack Caulfield. Revised on 15 May 2023.

Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words. Paraphrasing a source involves changing the wording while preserving the original meaning.

Paraphrasing is an alternative to  quoting (copying someone’s exact words and putting them in quotation marks ). In academic writing, it’s usually better to paraphrase instead of quoting. It shows that you have understood the source, reads more smoothly, and keeps your own voice front and center.

Every time you paraphrase, it’s important to cite the source . Also take care not to use wording that is too similar to the original. Otherwise, you could be at risk of committing plagiarism .

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Table of contents

How to paraphrase in five easy steps, how to paraphrase correctly, examples of paraphrasing, how to cite a paraphrase, paraphrasing vs quoting, paraphrasing vs summarising, avoiding plagiarism when you paraphrase, frequently asked questions about paraphrasing.

If you’re struggling to get to grips with the process of paraphrasing, check out our easy step-by-step guide in the video below.

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Putting an idea into your own words can be easier said than done. Let’s say you want to paraphrase the text below, about population decline in a particular species of sea snails.

Incorrect paraphrasing

You might make a first attempt to paraphrase it by swapping out a few words for  synonyms .

Like other sea creatures inhabiting the vicinity of highly populated coasts, horse conchs have lost substantial territory to advancement and contamination , including preferred breeding grounds along mud flats and seagrass beds. Their Gulf home is also heating up due to global warming , which scientists think further puts pressure on the creatures , predicated upon the harmful effects extra warmth has on other large mollusks (Barnett, 2022).

This attempt at paraphrasing doesn’t change the sentence structure or order of information, only some of the word choices. And the synonyms chosen are poor:

• ‘Advancement and contamination’ doesn’t really convey the same meaning as ‘development and pollution’.
• Sometimes the changes make the tone less academic: ‘home’ for ‘habitat’ and ‘sea creatures’ for ‘marine animals’.
• Adding phrases like ‘inhabiting the vicinity of’ and ‘puts pressure on’ makes the text needlessly long-winded.
• Global warming is related to climate change, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Because of this, the text reads awkwardly, is longer than it needs to be, and remains too close to the original phrasing. This means you risk being accused of plagiarism .

Correct paraphrasing

Let’s look at a more effective way of paraphrasing the same text.

Here, we’ve:

• Only included the information that’s relevant to our argument (note that the paraphrase is shorter than the original)
• Retained key terms like ‘development and pollution’, since changing them could alter the meaning
• Structured sentences in our own way instead of copying the structure of the original
• Started from a different point, presenting information in a different order

Because of this, we’re able to clearly convey the relevant information from the source without sticking too close to the original phrasing.

Explore the tabs below to see examples of paraphrasing in action.

• Journal article
• Newspaper article
• Magazine article

Once you have your perfectly paraphrased text, you need to ensure you credit the original author. You’ll always paraphrase sources in the same way, but you’ll have to use a different type of in-text citation depending on what citation style you follow.

Generate accurate citations with Scribbr

It’s a good idea to paraphrase instead of quoting in most cases because:

• Paraphrasing shows that you fully understand the meaning of a text
• Your own voice remains dominant throughout your paper
• Quotes reduce the readability of your text

But that doesn’t mean you should never quote. Quotes are appropriate when:

• Giving a precise definition
• Saying something about the author’s language or style (e.g., in a literary analysis paper)
• Providing evidence in support of an argument
• Critiquing or analysing a specific claim

A paraphrase puts a specific passage into your own words. It’s typically a similar length to the original text, or slightly shorter.

When you boil a longer piece of writing down to the key points, so that the result is a lot shorter than the original, this is called summarising .

Paraphrasing and quoting are important tools for presenting specific information from sources. But if the information you want to include is more general (e.g., the overarching argument of a whole article), summarising is more appropriate.

When paraphrasing, you have to be careful to avoid accidental plagiarism .

Students frequently use paraphrasing tools , which can be especially helpful for non-native speakers who might have trouble with academic writing. While these can be useful for a little extra inspiration, use them sparingly while maintaining academic integrity.

This can happen if the paraphrase is too similar to the original quote, with phrases or whole sentences that are identical (and should therefore be in quotation marks). It can also happen if you fail to properly cite the source.

To make sure you’ve properly paraphrased and cited all your sources, you could elect to run a plagiarism check before submitting your paper.

To paraphrase effectively, don’t just take the original sentence and swap out some of the words for synonyms. Instead, try:

• Reformulating the sentence (e.g., change active to passive , or start from a different point)
• Combining information from multiple sentences into one
• Leaving out information from the original that isn’t relevant to your point
• Using synonyms where they don’t distort the meaning

The main point is to ensure you don’t just copy the structure of the original text, but instead reformulate the idea in your own words.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly reference the source . This means including an in-text referencing and a full reference , formatted according to your required citation style (e.g., Harvard , Vancouver ).

As well as referencing your source, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely into your own words and properly reference the source .

To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

• Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
• You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
• You’re presenting a precise definition
• You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Gahan, C. & Caulfield, J. (2023, May 15). How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 29 April 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/paraphrasing/

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The Politics of Pessimism

Why so many American leaders are advancing a new kind of nihilism

It had been clear for years that China was rising and rising—building rail lines and airports and skyscrapers at a rate that put the United States to shame, purchasing the favor of poorer countries, filling the world with its wares—when, in April 2014, I happened upon a bit of news. CNBC , citing a “new study from the world’s leading statistical agencies,” reported that China’s rapidly growing economy would rank first in the world, surpassing the United States’, by as soon as the end of the year. Our century-plus reign as the world’s wealthiest nation was over, or about to be. What a run we’d had!

But the study, which used debatable methodology, turned out to be wrong. It interested me less than something else I learned when I began poking around the internet to put it in some sort of context. I discovered that most Americans thought that China already had become our economic superior. And they’d thought that—erroneously—for several years.

In 2011, Gallup polled Americans on the question of whether the United States, China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, or India was the leading economic power in the world. More than 50 percent answered China, while fewer than 35 percent said the United States. Those numbers held when Gallup did the same polling the next year and the next and in 2014, when the portion of Americans choosing China rose to 52 percent and the portion choosing America dipped to 31 percent. That’s a whopping differential, especially considering its wrongness.

China’s economy still lags behind ours, although Americans have been reluctant to recognize that. In 2020, when China was pilloried as the cradle of the coronavirus pandemic, 50 percent of Americans indeed saw our economy as the mightier of the two. But that rediscovered swagger was short-lived. In 2021, 50 percent gave the crown back to China. Last year, Americans saw the economies as essentially tied.

From the May 1888 issue: What is pessimism?

A fundamental misperception of global affairs by Americans isn’t surprising. Too many, if not most, of us are disinclined to look or think beyond our shores. But this particular misperception startled and fascinated me: We’d traditionally been such a confident, even cocky, nation, enamored of our military might (and often too quick to use it), showy with our foreign aid, schooled in stories—true ones—about how desperately foreigners wanted to make new lives here and what extraordinary risks they took to do so. We saw ourselves as peerless, and we spoke a distinctively American vocabulary of infinite possibility, boundless optimism, and better tomorrows.

American dream. American exceptionalism. Land of opportunity. Endless frontier. Manifest destiny. Those were the pretty phrases that I grew up with. We were inventors, expanders, explorers. Putting the first man on the moon wasn’t just a matter of bragging rights—though it was indeed that, and we bragged plenty about it. It was also an act of self-definition, an affirmation of American identity. We stretched the parameters of the navigable universe the way we stretched the parameters of everything else.

That perspective, obviously, was a romanticized one, achieved through a selective reading of the past. It discounted the experiences of many Black Americans. It minimized the degree to which they and other minorities were shut out from all of this inventing and exploring. It mingled self-congratulatory fiction with fact. And it probably imprinted itself more strongly on me than on some of my peers because of my particular family history. My father’s parents were uneducated immigrants who found in the United States exactly what they’d left Southern Italy for: more material comfort, greater economic stability, and a more expansive future for their children, including my father, who got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, went on to earn an M.B.A., and became a senior partner in one of the country’s biggest accounting firms. He put a heated in-ground pool in the backyard. He put me and my three siblings in private schools. He put our mother in a mink. And he pinched himself all the while.

It was nonetheless true that the idea of the United States as an unrivaled engine of social mobility and generator of wealth held sway with many Americans, who expected their children to do better than they’d done and their children’s children to do even better. That was the mythology, anyway. Sure, we hit lows, but we climbed out of them. We suffered doubts, but we snapped back. The tumult of the late 1960s, Richard Nixon’s degradation of the presidency, and the gas lines, international humiliation, and stagflation of Jimmy Carter’s presidency gave way, in 1980, to the election of Ronald Reagan, who declared that it was “morning again in America” and found an abundance of voters eager to welcome that dawn, to reconnect with an optimism that seemed more credibly and fundamentally American than deviations from it.

I don’t detect that optimism around me anymore. In its place is a crisis of confidence, a pervasive sense among most Americans that our best days are behind us, and that our problems are multiplying faster than we can find solutions for them. It’s a violent rupture of our national psyche. It’s a whole new American pessimism.

Well, maybe not entirely new. In Democracy in America , published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville noted a perpetually unsatisfied yearning in Americans, who, he wrote, “are forever brooding over advantages they do not possess.” He found Americans unusually attuned to their misfortunes, and that made (and still makes) sense: With big promises come big disappointments. Boundless dreams are bound to be unattainable.

Even in periods of American history that we associate with prosperity and tranquility, like the 1950s, there were rumblings and disenchantment: Rebel Without a Cause , The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit . And the late 1960s and early ’70s were an oxymoronic braid of surgent hope for necessary change and certainty that the whole American enterprise was corrupt. There were headstrong and heady demands for dignity, for equality, for justice. There were also cities on fire and assassinations. But the overarching story—the general trend line—of the United States in the second half of the 20th century was progress.

Read: The patron saint of political violence

Then, in 2001, the Twin Towers fell. In 2008, the global economy nearly collapsed. By 2012, I noticed that our “shining city on a hill,” to use one of Reagan’s favorite terms for the United States, was enveloped in a fog that wouldn’t lift. In June of that year, Jeb Bush visited Manhattan; had breakfast with several dozen journalists, including me; and mused about the country’s diminished position and fortunes. Perhaps because his political life was then on pause—he’d finished his two terms as Florida governor and his 2016 presidential campaign was still years away—he allowed himself a bluntness that he might not have otherwise. “We’re in very difficult times right now, very different times than we’ve been,” he said, and while that was already more downbeat than mainstream politicians’ usual prognostications, his following words were even darker: “We’re in decline.”

In the years that followed, I paid greater and greater heed to evidence that supported his appraisal, which mirrored my own. I was struck by how tempered and tentative President Barack Obama seemed by the second year of his second term, when he often mulled the smallness, not the largeness, of his place in history, telling David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker , that each president is just “part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.” “Mr. President,” my New York Times colleague Maureen Dowd wrote in response, “I am just trying to get my paragraph right. You need to think bigger.”

Of course, when Obama had thought bigger, he’d bucked up against an American political system that was polarized and paralyzed—that had turned “hope and change” into tweak and tinker. Obama’s longtime adviser David Axelrod told the Times ’ Michael Shear: “I think to pretend that ‘It’s morning in America’ is a misreading of the times.”

That was in 2014, when I registered and explored the revelation that so many Americans thought China was wealthier than we were. Around the same time, I also noticed a long memo by the prominent Democratic political strategist Doug Sosnik in Politico . He observed that for 10 years running, the percentage of Americans who believed that the United States was on the wrong track had exceeded the percentage who thought it was on the right track. “At the core of Americans’ anger and alienation is the belief that the American dream is no longer attainable,” Sosnik wrote. “For the first time in our country’s history, there is more social mobility in Europe than in the United States.”

That “first time” turned out to be no fleeting aberration. Since then, the negative markers have multiplied, and the negative mood has intensified. The fog over our shining city won’t lift. Almost every year from 2000 to the present, the suicide rate has increased. A kind of nihilism has spread, a “rot at the very soul of our nation,” as Mike Allen wrote last year in his Axios newsletter summarizing a Wall Street Journal /NORC poll that charted both the collapse of faith in American institutions and the abandonment of tradition and traditional values. Only 38 percent of respondents said that patriotism was very important, in contrast with 70 percent of respondents from a similar Journal /NBC survey a quarter century earlier, in 1998.

To recognize those dynamics is to understand America’s current politics, in which so many politicians—presidential candidates included—whip up support less by talking about the brightness of the country’s future than by warning of the apocalypse if the other side wins. They’re not clarions of American glory. They’re bulwarks against American ruin.

This essay was adapted from the forthcoming The Age of Grievance .

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AskEasy: simplify your life with a smart assistant! Looking for a good recipe to surprise your guests? Need ideas for a birthday party? Or some help with writing an essay or composing a resume? Simply open the app and ask! AskEasy is a real lifesaver. It finds answers to any questions, generates texts and brainstorms ideas, helps with daily tasks, proofreads and improves your content, and even acts as a fun empathetic friend always open for a chat! All you need to do is just type in your request and see how an accurate answer magically appears on your screen! What sets this app apart are its four most powerful chat models: GPT 3.5, GPT 4, Llama 2, and Gemini. These cutting-edge AI technologies ensure that you can easily choose the model that best meets your specific needs, providing tailored, intelligent responses in real-time. Have questions about a YouTube video? Or need a short summary of a video instead of watching it whole? Now, you can simply paste the video link and ask away. Our chatbot will answer your questions based on the video content and provide a concise summary of it. Need to create unique visuals for your project? Go to Image Generator and get inspiring images generated by AI in seconds! All you have to do is just to type in the text description – and see how it magically transforms into images. Moreover, you can easily get creative captions, tags and stories based on your images by using the Text to Image tool. AI understands and interprets the context and emotions of your photos, and brings the ideas of creative texts that will enhance your social media presence. With """"Upload & Ask,"""" you have the power to directly upload a PDF document and effortlessly ask questions about its content. This feature deciphers the text, providing you with precise answers and insights without the need for manual searching or reading. Meanwhile, """"Ask by Link"""" offers an equally innovative capability where you can insert a link to a web page and receive answers derived from its content. Whether it's a detailed explanation, summary, or specific information, this feature ensures you get the answers you need quickly and efficiently. Your creativity is your only limit! Experiment with your queries to discover everything the chatbot can do for you, and you will be amazed by the mind-blowing results: - Choose the chat model (GPT 3.5, GPT 4, Llama 2, or Gemini) to solve your tasks quickly and efficiently - Write anything: from tweets, email responses, and ad copies to essays, poems, and creative stories - Brainstorm ideas: new recipes, movie and song recommendations, places to go, party ideas, etc. - Check and improve your writing - Simplify your texts by summarizing them - Insert a link to YouTube video and ask your questions based on it - Get quick and concise summary of a video on YouTube - Get AI-generated images from your word description - Transform any text into visually captivating quotes - Generate captivating captions, relevant tags, or stories for your pics - Create original jokes and holiday greetings - Translate texts into other languages or even into programmatic commands - Use it for analytics and business intelligence - Get prepared for an exam or job interview - Or simply check out your daily horoscope! Features: - Smart chat for iPhone - GPT 3.5, GPT 4, Llama 2, and Gemini support - Spell and grammar check - Images Generator - Quote Maker - Text for Image - “Ask by Link” and “Upload & Ask” features - Ask Youtube and Youtube Summary - Text writing and facts search - History of your queries - CV and social profile builder - Clear and smart design - Simple and blazingly fast to use Privacy Policy Url - https://mychat-ai.cloud/pp Term Of Use Url - https://mychat-ai.cloud/tou Support Address - [email protected]

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Dear User! We are very grateful to you for taking the time to leave us a review. We consider a customer-centric approach and always put ourselves in our customer’s mind. That way, we can align the learning experience with their expectations and improve our application. We will definitely take into account the fact that the users need more time to evaluate the application and will not force them to rate the app too quickly. We have our users' best interests at heart and will continue to work tirelessly to better ourselves and our application. Best regards, AI ChatBot: Smart Assistant Support Team

Concern over longevity

I have tried numerous AI Assistants. And this one, by far, is my favorite. I even went so far as to opt in for paying for full features. However, as an assistant or even aid, it is limited and out dated. When querying about the up-to-date information it could provide me, my assistant informs me that it is only as up-to-date as 2021. So, I queried about when the databases may be updated. And there was no information on that. The databases are already years behind and this is concerning. I didn’t pay to have something that can’t actually do as it is alleged to be able to perform. I can google and get more current information.

Dear Crashed and Lost! Thank you for your feedback and for choosing our AI ChatBot as your favorite assistant. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the limitations of the up-to-date information provided. We are constantly working on improving our databases and ensuring the latest information is available. But as we use the official open AI api and their system is based on data up to 2021, the assistant informs you that it is only as up-to-date as 2021. Best regards, AI ChatBot: Smart Assistant Support Team

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Hey, A.I. Let’s Talk

Meta, Google and others are driving a renaissance for voice assistants, but people have found the technology uncool for more than a decade.

By Brian X. Chen

Brian X. Chen is The Times’s lead consumer technology writer and the author of Tech Fix , a column about the social implications of the tech we use.

A pair of glasses from Meta shoots a picture when you say, “Hey, Meta, take a photo.” A miniature computer that clips to your shirt, the Ai Pin , translates foreign languages into your native tongue. An artificially intelligent screen features a virtual assistant that you talk to through a microphone .

Last year, OpenAI updated its ChatGPT chatbot to respond with spoken words, and recently, Google introduced Gemini , a replacement for its voice assistant on Android phones.

Tech companies are betting on a renaissance for voice assistants, many years after most people decided that talking to computers was uncool.

Will it work this time? Maybe, but it could take a while.

Large swaths of people have still never used voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google’s Assistant, and the overwhelming majority of those who do said they never wanted to be seen talking to them in public, according to studies done in the last decade.

I, too, seldom use voice assistants, and in my recent experiment with Meta’s glasses , which include a camera and speakers to provide information about your surroundings, I concluded that talking to a computer in front of parents and their children at a zoo was still staggeringly awkward.

It made me wonder if this would ever feel normal. Not long ago, talking on the phone with Bluetooth headsets made people look batty, but now everyone does it. Will we ever see lots of people walking around and talking to their computers as in sci-fi movies?

I posed this question to design experts and researchers, and the consensus was clear: Because new A.I. systems improve the ability for voice assistants to understand what we are saying and actually help us, we’re likely to speak to devices more often in the near future — but we’re still many years away from doing this in public.

Here’s what to know.

Why voice assistants are getting smarter

New voice assistants are powered by generative artificial intelligence, which use statistics and complex algorithms to guess what words belong together, similar to the autocomplete feature on your phone. That makes them more capable of using context to understand requests and follow-up questions than virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, which could respond only to a finite list of questions.

For example, if you say to ChatGPT, “What are some flights from San Francisco to New York next week?” — and follow up with “What’s the weather there?” and “What should I pack?” — the chatbot can answer those questions because it is making connections between words to understand the context of the conversation. (The New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft , last year for using copyrighted news articles without permission to train chatbots.)

An older voice assistant like Siri, which reacts to a database of commands and questions that it was programmed to understand, would fail unless you used specific words, including “What’s the weather in New York?” and “What should I pack for a trip to New York?”

The former conversation sounds more fluid, like the way people talk to each other.

A major reason people gave up on voice assistants like Siri and Alexa was that the computers couldn’t understand so much of what they were asked — and it was difficult to learn what questions worked.

Dimitra Vergyri, the director of speech technology at SRI, the research lab behind the initial version of Siri before it was acquired by Apple, said generative A.I. addressed many of the problems that researchers had struggled with for years. The technology makes voice assistants capable of understanding spontaneous speech and responding with helpful answers, she said.

John Burkey, a former Apple engineer who worked on Siri in 2014 and has been an outspoken critic of the assistant, said he believed that because generative A.I. made it easier for people to get help from computers, more of us were likely to be talking to assistants soon — and that when enough of us started doing it, that could become the norm.

“Siri was limited in size — it knew only so many words,” he said. “You’ve got better tools now.”

But it could be years before the new wave of A.I. assistants become widely adopted because they introduce new problems. Chatbots including ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta AI are prone to “hallucinations,” which is when they make things up because they can’t figure out the correct answers. They have goofed up at basic tasks like counting and summarizing information from the web.

When voice assistants help — and when they don’t

Even as speech technology gets better, talking is unlikely to replace or supersede traditional computer interactions with a keyboard, experts say.

People currently have compelling reasons to talk to computers in some situations when they are alone, like setting a map destination while driving a car. In public, however, not only can talking to an assistant still make you look weird, but more often than not, it’s impractical. When I was wearing the Meta glasses at a grocery store and asked them to identify a piece of produce, an eavesdropping shopper responded cheekily, “That’s a turnip.”

You also wouldn’t want to dictate a confidential work email around others on a train. Likewise, it’d be inconsiderate to ask a voice assistant to read text messages out loud at a bar.

“Technology solves a problem,” said Ted Selker, a product design veteran who worked at IBM and Xerox PARC. “When are we solving problems, and when are we creating problems?”

Yet it’s simple to come up with times when talking to a computer helps you so much that you won’t care how weird it looks to others, said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, a research firm.

While walking to your next office meeting, it’d be helpful to ask a voice assistant to debrief you on the people you were about to meet. While hiking a trail, asking a voice assistant where to turn would be quicker than stopping to pull up a map. While visiting a museum, it’d be neat if a voice assistant could give a history lesson about the painting you were looking at. Some of these applications are already being developed with new A.I. technology.

When I was testing some of the latest voice-driven products, I got a glimpse into that future. While recording a video of myself making a loaf of bread and wearing the Meta glasses, for instance, it was helpful to be able to say, “Hey, Meta, shoot a video,” because my hands were full. And asking Humane’s Ai Pin to dictate my to-do list was more convenient than stopping to look at my phone screen.

“While you’re walking around — that’s the sweet spot,” said Chris Schmandt, who worked on speech interfaces for decades at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.

When he became an early adopter of one of the first mobile phones about 35 years ago, he recounted, people stared at him as he wandered around the M.I.T. campus talking on the phone. Now this is normal.

I’m convinced the day will come when people occasionally talk to computers when out and about — but it will come very slowly.

Brian X. Chen is the lead consumer technology writer for The Times. He reviews products and writes Tech Fix , a column about the social implications of the tech we use. More about Brian X. Chen

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