How to Write a Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is restating information from a text into your own words. Unlike a summary, a paraphrase does not condense information by just providing an overview. Instead a paraphrase should always be the same length as the original text, and should be completely in your own words and reflect the text’s intended meaning. The steps below tell you when to use a paraphrase and how to write one.

Difficulty:

Moderate

Instructions

Why Paraphrase

1. Use a paraphrase to clarify information. If you think you can restate something more clearly, efficiently or more interestingly than a text, go for it.

2. Use a paraphrase to explain complex information. Say you are writing a paper for a general audience about a medical procedure and your source explains the procedure using tons of complex medical jargon. Most likely, a general audience will not understand such jargon, so rewording the information into more conversational language would be very helpful to your reader.

3. Use a paraphrase to adjust the text to your audience’s reading level. Consider your audience every time you write. Replace difficult or complex words or sentence structure with more easily understood words and style.

Writing a Paraphrase

1. First, read the material that you plan to paraphrase. Read it several times so that you understand it well.

2. Look up complex words or phrases in a dictionary. Use a thesaurus for help in finding synonyms, but rearrange sentence structure or order of sentences if you are paraphrasing a paragraph.

3. Put the text aside and write down its intended meaning using your own words.

4. Compare the length of what you’ve written to the original text. They should be the same length. Remember, a paraphrase does not condense material.

5. Make sure the meaning of what you’ve written is the same as the meaning of the original text. Take great care not to bias or slant information in any way.

6. The paraphrase should make sense in its own right. This means that you are writing a sentence or paragraph so it should still read like one. If the paraphrase doesn’t make sense, revise it.

7. Cite your paraphrase using an acceptable citation method like MLA or APA. Remember that these are not your ideas so you must give credit to where you got them.

Tips & Warnings

• Recheck and revise everything. You cannot be too careful. Check that your paraphrase accurately reflects the meaning of the original text, is completely in your own words, makes sense and is cited.

• Be cautious when using a thesaurus. While this is a great resource, synonyms are not necessarily interchangeable and connotations of words must be considered. For example, “private” and “intimate” may be synonyms, but they have very different connotations. Make sure that words selected from a thesaurus accurately fit the meaning and context of both the paraphrase and original text.

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish