Do’s and Don’ts of Paraphrasing
Suppose you are looking to reintroduce a piece of information from a source that could be an article from a journal, book, or a website in your work. It could be approached by quoting the work directly from the source, or you can rephrase it in your own words. The latter approach is known as paraphrasing. Students and writers need to particularly develop skills for writing effectively.
Writing is never easy, even for the native users of a language. Whether it’s academic or professional writing, both are intricate, and it requires a distinct purpose of conveying the ideas and thoughts with clarity. It becomes more challenging because there is a temptation among the students, researchers, and writers to plagiarize. The focal point of this blog post is to let the readers know about the dos and don’ts of paraphrasing.
What is Paraphrasing?
It is all about altering the argument, narrative, and explanation of another author by keeping the essence of the original text intact. There are various purposes that paraphrasing could serve. The first and foremost is to reduce bare-bones of passage or clarify the information. However, many people are often confused with summarizing and paraphrasing, but there’s a difference between them.
Paraphrasing could be regarded as an integral part of summarizing, but it also has a separate baseline. A summary is defined as a shorter version of an original text. In simple words, it is a condensation of hefty chunks of content. In contrast, paraphrasing is about altering the words completely by keeping the actual meaning intact. Nevertheless, in both cases, the words should be substantially different from the original source.
Now, let’s get to know about the Dos and Don’ts of Paraphrasing.
Do You Comprehend the Purpose of Paraphrasing?
Paraphrasing isn’t just limited to reformulating someone else’s ideas and thoughts in your own words. As a researcher or writer, you need to completely understand and comprehend the original text. You need to demonstrate that you have a clear understanding of the source material. You will need to adopt a unique writing style by not subtracting the core meaning of the original source material. You will need to alter the sentence structure and vocabulary but not the meaning of the text.
Don’t Paraphrase Just with the Help of Thesaurus
It might be shocking for you, but the thesaurus is in no way the way for paraphrasing. If you are just swapping words back and forth from the original text, it would be known as patchwriting, prone to plagiarism. It wouldn’t be a better option to resort to the thesaurus. The major problem with a thesaurus is that you aren’t using your own words but from a book. Along with that, if you aren’t familiar with the concept of original source material or you aren’t familiar with English, then you will end up using inappropriate synonyms. However, if you aren’t good at reformulating, you can use an online paraphrasing tool to serve the purpose.
Do Break the Information Tactically
Paraphrasing as the original text’s word count usually remains the same. However, playing with the number of sentences can alter the resemblance. For example, if there are two sentences in the original text, you can combine them to make it one. The information could be a break and combined according to the alignment of the source material. Over here, the paraphrasing tool could become your companion in doing the chore. You will have to provide the text to the tool, and it will rephrase the content by breaking up the sentences.
Don’t Paraphrase Too Closely
Apparently, paraphrasing seems to be an easy task, but it isn’t. You need to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate ones. It is not about simply rearranging or changing one or two words. It is far more than that; you will have to completely change the sentence formation and words to give a fresh look. However, in some cases, there’s a need to cite the original source, while there isn’t a need to do so in others.
How to Paraphrase Effectively?
It is often recommended that you need to take out notes from an original source on a rough paper. After that, start comparing your text with the original one to ensure that you have covered all the information and key points. Suppose you have tangible notes of all the notes. In that case, there are little to no chances of unintentional plagiarism, while you will also be covering the key information that the source material contains. Writing down the key information distance yourself from the original source material, and you will no longer be prone to duplication of the content. However, if you want to reduce your burden and execute the task swiftly, then going out for a paraphrasing text utility could save your time and energy.
Epilogue
Paraphrasing isn’t easy and expeditious for newbies, and they will surely have to go through a lot of hassle. Certain standards need to be maintained while reformulating the original source material. Therefore, it becomes difficult for them to cope up with all the paraphrasing needs. For that reason, it is recommended to use a reliable and trustworthy tool. The advanced algorithms of these tools make sure that the sentence formation and words are changed appropriately by keeping the meaning intact. Consequently, it will save your precious time. You will be able to get the resultant content in no time.
If you are still looking to paraphrase the source material manually, then you need to bear in mind the aforementioned dos and don’ts. It will help you out in reformulating the text effectively, and there won’t be any instances of plagiarism. Must perform a plagiarism check before sending your material to anyone. Because you might be aware that duplication is not tolerated, and the one who commits such an act is surely penalized.
