What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is expressing the written thoughts of published authors in your own words. For students, there are generally two contexts in which this takes place:

during note-taking whilst reading a source of information (book, journal article...) and
during the writing of an assignment.

It is a process which all students need to perform – indeed one which their tutors expect them to perform so that they can provide evidence of appropriate reading and of their understanding of that knowledge. The risk, of course, is that of plagiarism – resulting in the student’s transcribed version of a published text bearing a close resemblance to the original wording. Simply altering one or two words in the original is not enough; the student’s version should not be similar to the original.

So how can a piece of text be transcribed into a completely new form of words but one which at the same time conveys the same message or idea as the original?

How to paraphrase

The strategy to employ is to aim for understanding. This means you should not have your source of information (book, journal, web page etc.) open in front of you when you are writing. If you write as you read you will almost certainly plagiarise; you must have open either your source of information OR your writing - never both at the same time. (The exception is if you are quoting directly, when you must ensure you read carefully so that the quotation is accurate).

This strategy forces you to assimilate properly what you are reading before then exchanging the source of information for your notes or essay. Read a section, a few pages, a chapter, close the book or periodical or website and then and only then open your notebook or essay. If you have thoroughly understood what you have read, you will have less difficulty expressing it in your own words without referring to the original text. If you cannot, then you have probably not really understood it and will need to read it again. (Remember, the main reason you write essays is to show your understanding). This technique is good for revision too.

Examples of paraphrased text

Example 1 (simple)

"We come into the world with 100 billion neurons in place and ten times as many support cells. Each child’s experiences are unique – from within the womb and throughout the years of maturation. Our brains grow at an astonishing rate – doubling in size during the first two years and increasing by 400 per cent by sixteen years of age.” (Sardar, Appignanesi & Edney, 2007:103).

Paraphrased, this might be:

A human baby already has 100 billion neurons at birth, along with ten times as many other brain cells. By the second year of life, its brain will have increased in size by a factor of two and by a factor of four by age sixteen, acquiring along the way a series of experiences which will be unique to that individual (Sardar, Appignanesi & Edney, 2007).

This example shows the text referenced with Harvard Hull style which does not require page numbers for paraphrased text, just for direct quotations. Students who use the Footnotes Hull style would include a page number at the end of their footnote.

Example 2 (more complex)

“There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities with which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, armies in the clouds…. In proportion as any man’s course of life is governed by accident, we always find that he increases in superstition, as may particularly be observed of gamesters and sailors, who, though of all mankind the least capable of serious reflection, abound most in frivolous and superstitious apprehensions … All human life, especially before the institution of order and good government, being subject to fortuitous accidents, it is natural that superstition should prevail everywhere in barbarous ages, and put men on the most earnest enquiry concerning those invisible powers who dispose of their happiness or misery.”

(Extract from David Hume's The Natural History of Religion originally published in 1757, taken from a 1957 edition.)

A possible paraphrasing of this paragraph, avoiding any accusation of plagiarism, might be:

Human beings tend naturally to see human qualities in all living things and to see human shapes in inanimate objects. The less we understand, the more we become superstitious and Hume remarked that gamesters and sailors were most prone to this since they were, for him, people who had the least amount of thinking ability.¹ He suggested it was normal that unpredictable, natural events, which often played havoc with the lives of ancient peoples, causing them misery, or came about causing them occasional happiness, were interpreted everywhere with great superstition, especially before their lives were better governed.

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¹ D. Hume The Natural History of Religion (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1957), 29.

This example shows the text referenced using the Footnotes Hull style which requires page numbers to be included for both paraphrased and quoted text. Students using Harvard Hull referencing would show (Hume, 1957) at the point where the number 1 is shown within the text above.

Other resources:

Purdue Online Writing Lab - More examples and exercises on paraphrasing.