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What is a paraphrasing tool?

This AI-powered paraphrasing tool lets you rewrite text in your own words. Use it to  paraphrase articles, essays, and other pieces of text. You can also use it to rephrase sentences and find synonyms for individual words. And the best part? It’s all 100% free!

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing involves expressing someone else’s ideas or thoughts in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. Paraphrasing tools can help you quickly reword text by replacing certain words with synonyms or restructuring sentences. They can also make your text more concise, clear, and suitable for a specific audience. Paraphrasing is an essential skill in academic writing and professional communication. 

Why use this paraphrasing tool?

• Save time: Gone are the days when you had to reword sentences yourself; now you can rewrite an individual sentence or a complete text with one click.
• Improve your writing: Your writing will always be clear and easy to understand. Automatically ensure consistent language throughout. 
• Preserve original meaning: Paraphrase without fear of losing the point of your text.
• No annoying ads: We care about the user experience, so we don’t run any ads.
• Accurate: Reliable and grammatically correct paraphrasing.
• No sign-up required: We don’t need your data for you to use our paraphrasing tool.
• Super simple to use: A simple interface even your grandma could use.
• It’s 100% free: No hidden costs, just unlimited use of a free paraphrasing tool.

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Features of the paraphrasing tool

Rephrase individual sentences

With the Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool, you can easily reformulate individual sentences.

• Write varied headlines
• Rephrase the subject line of an email
• Create unique image captions

Paraphrase a whole text

Our paraphraser can also help with longer passages (up to 125 words per input). Upload your document or copy your text into the input field.

With one click, you can reformulate the entire text.

Find synonyms with ease

Simply click on any word to open the interactive thesaurus.

• Choose from a list of suggested synonyms
• Find the synonym with the most appropriate meaning
• Replace the word with a single click

Paraphrase in two ways

• Standard: Offers a compromise between modifying and preserving the meaning of the original text
• Fluency: Improves language and corrects grammatical mistakes

Upload different types of documents

Upload any Microsoft Word document, Google Doc, or PDF into the paraphrasing tool.

Download or copy your results

After you’re done, you can easily download or copy your text to use somewhere else.

Powered by AI

The paraphrasing tool uses natural language processing to rewrite any text you give it. This way, you can paraphrase any text within seconds.

Avoid accidental plagiarism

Want to make sure your document is plagiarism-free? In addition to our paraphrasing tool, which will help you rephrase sentences, quotations, or paragraphs correctly, you can also use our anti-plagiarism software to make sure your document is unique and not plagiarized.

Scribbr’s anti-plagiarism software enables you to:

• Detect plagiarism more accurately than other tools
• Ensure that your paraphrased text is valid
• Highlight the sources that are most similar to your text

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How does this paraphrasing tool work?

1. put your text into the paraphraser, 2. select your method of paraphrasing, 3. select the quantity of synonyms you want, 4. edit your text where needed, who can use this paraphrasing tool.

Paraphrasing tools can help students to understand texts and improve the quality of their writing. 

Create original lesson plans, presentations, or other educational materials.

Researchers

Explain complex concepts or ideas to a wider audience. 

Journalists

Quickly and easily rephrase text to avoid repetitive language.

Copywriters

By using a paraphrasing tool, you can quickly and easily rework existing content to create something new and unique.

Bloggers can rewrite existing content to make it their own.

Writers who need to rewrite content, such as adapting an article for a different context or writing content for a different audience.

A paraphrasing tool lets you quickly rewrite your original content for each medium, ensuring you reach the right audience on each platform.

The all-purpose paraphrasing tool

The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool is the perfect assistant in a variety of contexts.

Brainstorming

Writer’s block? Use our paraphraser to get some inspiration.

Professional communication

Produce creative headings for your blog posts or PowerPoint slides.

Academic writing

Paraphrase sources smoothly in your thesis or research paper.

Social media

Craft memorable captions and content for your social media posts.

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The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool lets you rewrite as many sentences as you want—for free.

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Scribbr is committed to protecting academic integrity. Our plagiarism checker , AI Detector , Citation Generator , proofreading services , paraphrasing tool, grammar checker , summarizer , and free Knowledge Base content are designed to help students produce quality academic papers.

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Frequently asked questions

The act of putting someone else’s ideas or words into your own words is called paraphrasing, rephrasing, or rewording. Even though they are often used interchangeably, the terms can mean slightly different things:

Paraphrasing is restating someone else’s ideas or words in your own words while retaining their meaning. Paraphrasing changes sentence structure, word choice, and sentence length to convey the same meaning.

Rephrasing may involve more substantial changes to the original text, including changing the order of sentences or the overall structure of the text.

Rewording is changing individual words in a text without changing its meaning or structure, often using synonyms.

It can. One of the two methods of paraphrasing is called “Fluency.” This will improve the language and fix grammatical errors in the text you’re paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing and using a paraphrasing tool aren’t cheating. It’s a great tool for saving time and coming up with new ways to express yourself in writing.  However, always be sure to credit your sources. Avoid plagiarism.  

If you don’t properly cite text paraphrased from another source, you’re plagiarizing. If you use someone else’s text and paraphrase it, you need to credit the original source. You can do that by using citations. There are different styles, like APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago. Find more information about citing sources here.

The Paraphrasing Tool on our page is powered by the QuillBot service, which uses advanced language processing technology.

Both Scribbr and QuillBot are Learneo, Inc. services, ensuring that your inputs are processed in accordance with Learneo’s Privacy Policy.

For more, please read the QuillBot section of the Learneo Privacy Policy . Your use of our Paraphraser is subject to QuilBot Terms .

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 cite the source . This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style .

As well as citing, 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 in 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 in your own words and properly cite the source .

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Paraphrase: Write It in Your Own Words

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Paraphrasing is one way to use a text in your own writing without directly quoting source material. Anytime you are taking information from a source that is not your own, you need to specify where you got that information.

A paraphrase is...

• Your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
• One legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
• A more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...

• It is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage.
• It helps you control the temptation to quote too much.
• The mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.

6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing

• Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
• Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
• Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
• Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
• Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
• Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Some examples to compare

Note that the examples in this section use MLA style for in-text citation.

The original passage:

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers . 2nd ed., 1976, pp. 46-47.

A legitimate paraphrase:

In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

An acceptable summary:

Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).

A plagiarized version:

Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

A note about plagiarism: This example has been classed as plagiarism, in part, because of its failure to deploy any citation. Plagiarism is a serious offense in the academic world. However, we acknowledge that plagiarism is a difficult term to define; that its definition may be contextually sensitive; and that not all instances of plagiarism are created equal—that is, there are varying “degrees of egregiousness” for different cases of plagiarism.

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How to Paraphrase in 5 Simple Steps (Without Plagiarizing)

By 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

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.

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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.

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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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Academic Integrity at MIT

A handbook for students, search form, avoiding plagiarism - paraphrasing.

In writing papers, you will paraphrase more than you will quote. For a report or research paper, you may need to gather background information that is important to the paper but not worthy of direct quotation. Indeed, in technical writing direct quotation is rarely used.

Exactly what does "paraphrase" mean?

It means taking the words of another source and restating them, using your own vocabulary. In this way, you keep the meaning of the original text, but do not copy its exact wording.

What strategies can I use to paraphrase?

Use synonyms for all words that are not generic. Words like world, food, or science are so basic to our vocabulary that is difficult to find a synonym.

Change the structure of the sentence.

Change the voice from active to passive and vice versa.    

Change clauses to phrases and vice versa.

Change parts of speech.

A good paraphrase combines a number of strategies: the goal is to rephrase the information so that it appears in your words, not those of the author.

Example 4: Using Multiple Strategies to Paraphrase

Example 5: Unacceptable Paraphrase

Advanced Paraphrasing Tool

Elevate your writing with our free and ai-powered paraphraser. instantly correct or rephrase your sentences in different tones., paraphrasing tool, please rewrite my sentence, what is paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing is the art of rewriting text into other words. This includes using synonyms, restructuring phrases, and connecting ideas in different ways. A state-of-the-art paraphraser provides automatic and simple-to-use rephrasing of complete sentences.

Why Should I Paraphrase My Sentences?

By paraphrasing existing sentences, you can elevate your writing and achieve different goals as a writer. That’s why rephrasing is helpful in plenty of cases: rewriting citations, strengthening the message of your text, and rewording your ideas while improving style.

How Does Rephrasing Help Me Become a Better Writer?

This feature is highly customizable, meaning you’re in control. Choose from five different categories—general, formal, concise, fluent, or simple—to transform your writing to better suit the context and tone. Paraphrasing helps you by refining and perfecting your masterpieces.

Where Can I Use the Paraphrasing Tool?

Rephrasing is available wherever and whenever! All you need is a LanguageTool account and a stable internet connection to rewrite your sentences in almost all of LanguageTool's extensions. The feature is easily accessible for everyone that aims to improve their writing.

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What exactly does an online paraphraser do.

LanguageTool’s paraphrasing feature does so much more than just rewrite sentences. Not only does it check for stronger, more suitable word choice, but it also corrects your sentence as a whole to ensure high-quality writing. With its intuitive and user-friendly interface, everyone can leverage Artificial Intelligence to achieve the best results possible.

What Other Features Does LanguageTool’s Paraphraser Provide?

The best part of using A.I. to paraphrase your writing is that the suggested sentences come free of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Want to also improve style? Simply go back to the general correction to view stylistic suggestions.

As multilingual as you

Make your text sound professional and avoid embarrassing style, punctuation, and grammar mistakes

It’s an online tool that rewrites texts in a new (stylistically different) way by using alternative wording and a rephrased sentence structure.

This function is recommended for all types of texts, including professional, academic, and creative writing. It’s available for all LanguageTool users, but unlimited paraphrasing is only available in Premium.

A paraphrasing tool can easily enhance your writing by improving the tone and style of your text. Moreover, it helps you avoid having to write direct citations by rewriting copy-and-pasted text.

Premium accounts offer even more useful and powerful features:

Only with Premium

Sentence correction of longer texts

Style guide for customizing individual rules

Team features for companies

More in-depth suggestions, especially for word choice and style

How Can I Effectively Use the Rephrasing Tool?

For basic users, the paraphrasing feature is limited to three times daily. If you need more rephrased sentences, you can upgrade to LanguageTool Premium to get access to unlimited paraphrasing in six languages and several English dialects. Remember: No personal data is stored (ever) and privacy guidelines are strictly followed (always).

Strengthen Your Communication Skills

Try out the best paraphrasing tool for free and discover how LanguageTool can elevate your writing.

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How to Paraphrase to Avoid Plagiarism

What is Paraphrasing?

“Paraphrasing” means expressing the meaning of someone else’s words in your own words instead of quoting directly. Paraphrasing is applied both by the author of the text and by editors during the proofreading process .

By paraphrasing the work and arguments of others effectively, you can:

• save space and keep your study more focused
• distill complex information into language that general readers can understand
• avoid plagiarism (including self-plagiarism ) and provide your own authorial voice in your paper

How to Paraphrase in Research

Direct Quote:  simply a “copy-and-paste” of the original words and/or word order. In all research papers with formatting guidelines (APA, AMA, MLA, etc.), quoted text must be accompanied by quotation marks and in-text citations.

Paraphrasing:   can include some key terms from the original work but must use new language to represent the original work—DO NOT COPY THE ORIGINAL WORK. When you paraphrase–that is, rewrite the text you want to use–you do not need to include quotation marks, but you must still cite the original work.

Paraphrasing Source Text

Step 1 : Read important parts of the source material until you fully understand its meaning.

Step 2 : Take some notes and list key terms of the source material.

Step 3:  Write your own paragraph without looking at the source material, only using the key terms.

Step 4:  Check to make sure your version captures important parts and intent of the source material.

Step 5:  Indicate where your paraphrasing starts and ends using in-text citations.

When to Paraphrase vs Use Direct Quotes

Paraphrasing Examples in Research Writing

Use the following methods to make your paraphrases even stronger. Note that you should not apply only one of these rules in isolation—combine these techniques to reduce your chances of accidental plagiarism.

*Text in red indicates key changes from the source material.

Change the source text voice : active vs. passive voice

By changing the voice of the sentence (active voice to passive; passive voice to active—have a look at this article for details on the different roles of both voices in scientific writing), you can alter the general structure of your paraphrase and put it into words that are more your own.

Use a thesaurus to find synonyms and related terms

A thesaurus can be an excellent resource for finding terms that are synonymous with or similar to those in the original text, especially for non-native English speakers. However, be careful not to use terms that you don’t fully understand or that might not make sense in the context of your paper.

Include introductory phrases with signaling terms

Signaling terms (e.g., “they write ,” “Kim notes that…” “He believes that…”) help smoothly introduce the work of other studies and let the reader know where your own ideas end and where the cited information begins.

Use specific signaling verbs to show your position

Authors also show their positions regarding the original content by using verbs that are neutral , that show agreement , or that show disagreement . A relative pronoun (“that,” “how,” “if”) is also used in many instances. Include these terms to introduce your position in paraphrased content.

Merge multiple sentences into a one- or two-sentence paraphrase

One major reason for paraphrasing is to capture the main idea of the original text without using so many words. Use only one sentence or two in your paraphrase to capture the main idea—even if the original is an entire paragraph.

Original Source Text :

The journal primarily considers empirical and theoretical investigations that enhance understanding of cognitive, motivational, affective, and behavioral psychological phenomena in work and organizational settings, broadly defined. Those psychological phenomena can be at one or multiple levels — individuals, groups, organizations, or cultures; in work settings such as business, education, training, health, service, government, or military institutions; and in the public or private sector, for-profit or nonprofit organizations. (Source: Journal of Applied Psychology Website  http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/apl/ )

Paraphrased Source Text :

The Journal of Applied Psychology accepts studies that increase understanding of a broad range of psychological phenomena and that apply to a variety of settings and levels, not limited by subgroup, institution, or sector (JAP, 2015).

Combine quotes and paraphrased text in the same sentence

Too often, research writers separate information from the current work and information cited from earlier studies into completely different sentences. This limits the dialogue between the works, makes it boring for readers, and can even create issues of plagiarism if the paper is composed of too much quoted material. Include direct quotes within your paraphrased sentences to fix all of these issues and make your research writing much smoother and more natural.

Some details from the original source are quoted because they are taken directly from the text. They provide important information that readers might need to know and it thus makes more sense to use quotes here.

Cite your sources, create a References list, and copy your citations to MS Word using the following Wordvice Citation Generators:

Although paraphrasing can be very helpful in helping to reduce instances of plagiarism, writers still need to follow the rules of citation and referencing carefully. Here are a few rules to keep in mind when paraphrasing any original material, whether from someone else’s published work or your own work.

Here are a few things you must keep in mind when paraphrasing any original material, even your own earlier publications.

• When you paraphrase, use your own terms along with the key terms from the source material.
• Even when you paraphrase using your own terms, you still must provide in-text citations (according to the specific formatting requirements—APA, AMA, MLA , etc.).
• If you are quoting or paraphrasing your own previous work, treat it as another person’s work (i.e., you must still use quotation marks and/or citations).

Example of Plagiarism in Paraphrasing

The following example is an attempt to paraphrase the above source text taken from the Journal of Applied Psychology website . Note that the author does not follow the above-mentioned rules to avoid plagiarizing the work.

Plagiarized Source Text

The Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP 2015) accepts empirical and theoretical investigations that increase knowledge of motivational, affective, cognitive, and behavioral psychological phenomena in many settings, broadly conceived. These phenomena can be at several levels—individual, teams, or cultures; in professional settings like business, education, training, health, government, or military institutions; and in either public or private sector, in nonprofit or for-profit institutions.

Some of the source text words have been changed or removed, but the underlined terms are identical to the original; overall the meaning and even the grammar structures have been copied. Finally, quotation marks are missing. Do not copy passages like this unless you put quotation marks around the content.

Examples of Multiple Attribution Methods:

In this paraphrase example, the details in the source text and how they have been changed in the paraphrase are indicated in red. Note the usage of signaling terms in each version to introduce the author’s content.

Original Source Tex t:

Fully grown penguins generate pressures of around  74 mm Hg  to excrete liquid material and  430 mm Hg  to excrete material of higher  viscosity similar to that of oil. ”

Direct Quote

In her study of Antarctic penguin defecation habits, Brooks (1995, p.4) wrote, “fully grown Chinstrap penguins generate pressures of around  74 mm Hg  to excrete liquid material and  430 mm Hg  to excrete material of higher  viscosity similar to that of oil. ”

*Quotations around quotes; citations included; many details provided; a complete sentence is quoted.

Paraphrased Text

When studying Chinstrap penguin defecation habits, Brooks (1995, p.4) observed that fully grown penguins generate a  much higher  pressure when excreting  more viscous  fecal matter.

*No quotation marks; citations included; the most important data fact is highlighted: “Penguins use more pressure to excrete thicker poo.”

Quote/Paraphrase Combination

When studying penguin defecation habits, Brooks (1995, p.4) observed that fully grown penguins vary in how they excrete waste, generating “pressures of around 74 mm Hg to excrete liquid material and 430 mm Hg to excrete material of higher viscosity similar to that of oil .”

*Quotation marks only around directly quoted information; citations included; the most important data fact is paraphrased; additional details provided by direct quote.

More Paraphrasing Examples for Reference

The following paraphrasing examples do not include citations and are therefore better used for reference when learning how to paraphrase original text. Therefore, the tips mentioned earlier in this article should be applied when paraphrasing published academic work.

Paraphrasing Checklist

• Write the paraphrased text in your own words.
• Always include a citation with a paraphrase—you are still using someone else’s ideas
• When you use a direct quote, be sure to clarify the quote to show why you have included it.
• Avoid using blocks of quoted text, especially in papers in the natural sciences. You can almost always use a paraphrase/quote combination instead.
• Overall, focus on your study first—any extra information should be used to enhance your arguments or clarify your research.

Wordvice Resources

After paraphrasing the source text in your research paper, be sure to use a plagiarism checker to make sure there are no overt similarities in your paper. And get English proofreading and academic editing for your journal manuscript or essay editing for your admissions essay to ensure that your writing is ready for submission to journals or schools. Finally, visit our academic resources pages to get more tips beyond how to paraphrase, including common academic phrases , the best transition words in academic papers, verbs for research writing , and many more articles on how to strengthen your academic writing skills.

Find and fix writing mistakes instantly

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How to Paraphrase in an Essay

When you learn how to paraphrase correctly, you become a more proficient writer. This is especially true if you’re referencing outside information and using supporting evidence for your claims. Paraphrasing is useful because it shows that you understand the key, underlying concepts behind a passage. By putting these ideas in your own words, you can show your instructor that you’re capable of more than just copying and pasting quotes.

Learning how to paraphrase is also useful when you want to clarify a concept and make it easier for the reader to understand. For example, perhaps you know that you’re writing to an audience with only a cursory understanding of the topic at hand. You may want to phrase complex concepts in simpler terms so that your writing is more accessible.

It’s always a good idea to paraphrase throughout your writing instead of relying on direct quotes. Quotes are only meant to be used sparingly throughout your text. When you learn how to paraphrase properly, you can reference other people’s work without your entire essay devolving into one long string of endless quotes.

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is when you rewrite another author’s text into your own words.  A paraphrased passage can be shorter, longer, or the same length as the original text. After you learn how to paraphrase, you can help the reader understand a passage more clearly. This is especially true if you think the subject matter is too antiquated or complex for your readers.

How to paraphrase

In an academic setting, there are a number of specific rules and guidelines when it comes to paraphrasing. You can’t simply put someone else’s ideas in your own words and call it a day. For example, you must properly attribute the source material when paraphrasing. Although this process might seem daunting at first, it’s quite easy to learn how to paraphrase when you follow a few easy steps:

1.    Read the text

First, you need to thoroughly read the text. The key to paraphrasing is developing a strong understanding of the ideas at play. Once you develop a firm grasp on the meaning behind the passage, you’ll find it much easier to paraphrase it effectively. Don’t be afraid to read the source material over three or four times and really think about what it all means.

2.    Put the original text away and try to paraphrase by memory

Although it might seem tempting to constantly refer back to the original text while paraphrasing, it’s best to close the book or document and start from scratch. This ensures that you’re using your own unique language instead of being influenced too much by the source material. Remember, to paraphrase correctly you need to do more than simply change one or two words.

Once you’ve put the original text away, try to convey the same general message by memory alone. As you write, you’ll naturally express the passage in words that seem more familiar to you. You’ll likely end up with a paraphrase that seems clearer than the source material, and this is one of the main goals of paraphrasing.

3.    Think about how you’re going to use your paraphrase

Context is important when paraphrasing. While you’re constructing your paraphrase, it’s always a good idea to think about how you’re going to use it in your own writing. Is there a specific point you want to make with this paraphrase? If you’re using the paraphrase as evidence of something, what purpose does the evidence need to serve?

If you keep these ideas in the back of your mind, you can create an effective paraphrase that fits with your writing. That being said, you can’t pick and choose certain parts of a passage when paraphrasing. Instead, you have to refer to all of the ideas in the passage without leaving anything out.

4.    Check the original text

Once you’ve finished writing your paraphrase from memory alone, it’s time to check the original text to make sure that you’ve presented the ideas in an accurate manner. At this point, you should also make sure that your paraphrase is not too similar to the source material.

Unlike summaries, paraphrases are specific instead of selective. In other words, you need to say exactly the same thing as the original author when paraphrasing. This means that all of their key ideas must also be present in your paraphrase.

5.    Acknowledge your source

Even though you’re not using a direct quote, you still need to attribute your source when paraphrasing. Essentially, you’re using other people’s ideas to make a point, so you need to give people credit for the concepts that you’re borrowing.

The exact format for source attribution will depend on your course, subject, or instructor. For example, MLA and Chicago style formats both have different paraphrasing requirements. If you’re not sure what format you need to adhere to, check with your instructor and ask how they’d like you to cite sources when paraphrasing.

If you’re looking for help creating a citation, check out www.CitationMachine.net !

When creating your paraphrase, you may decide that you want to keep one or two words from the source material. If you do this, it’s important to use quotation marks. This is helpful when you want to make use of powerful words in the original text. Alternatively, specific words may be important when using paraphrases as evidence.

Avoiding plagiarism

Even when you diligently follow all the steps for proper paraphrasing, it can be easy to accidentally plagiarize another work. The most common mistake is to unintentionally create paraphrases that are too similar to the source material. Sometimes, students do this on a subconscious level.

This is why it’s so important to rely on your memory when writing paraphrases. Not only that, but it’s also crucial to check the source material for overt similarities after you’ve written your paraphrase.

Another obvious tip for avoiding plagiarism is to cite your sources. It’s important to note that only 10% of your writing should contain other people’s work in the form of direct quotes. This is why paraphrases and summaries are so useful in academic writing.

Key takeaways

• Paraphrasing is useful because it shows that you understand the source material
• The goal of paraphrasing is to make ideas easier to understand
• Paraphrases can be longer, shorter, or the same length as the original passage
• Read the source material thoroughly
• Close the book or document and paraphrase from memory
• Check for similarities between your paraphrase and the source material
• Think about context
• Cite your sources properly
• You can’t just change one or two words and claim that you’re paraphrasing

Published October 29, 2020.

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Quoting and Paraphrasing

Download this Handout PDF

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

Free Paraphrasing Tool to Avoid Plagiarism

You've finished your essay, but are worried about plagiarism? We’ve got good news for you. Our free online paraphrasing tool is here to rewrite your texts. Be sure never to be accused of plagiarizing!

In this article, you’ll find:

• The paraphrasing tool;
• Ways to steer clear of plagiarism;
• All you need to know about sentence rewriting;
• Answers to frequently asked questions about this topic.

• What Is a Paraphrasing Tool?
• How to Use the Rewording Tool
• What Makes Our Online Rephrasing Tool Handy?
• How to Reword a Sentence
• How to Reword a Quote

✅ What Is a Paraphrasing Tool?

To paraphrase means to present an idea in different words. A big part of this technique is consulting a thesaurus for synonyms. Luckily, you can put the dull dictionary aside and let the plagiarism changer do the job for you.

When writing a paper, make sure you properly cite all your sources. Also, keep your content unique. Failing to do this will result in plagiarism.

Cue the rephrasing generator. This quick machine:

• Provides alternative word suggestions;
• Replaces any part of speech with synonyms;
• Keeps your intended meaning;
• Guarantees plagiarism-free results.

🖥️ How to Use the Rewording Tool

With our free paraphrasing tool, you can rewrite a text in your own words in a matter of seconds. In this step-by-step guide, you’ll find everything you need to do:

• Open the website and paste your document into the box.
• Click “paraphrase my text.”
• Pick the synonyms you like.
• You’re done! Now you can copy your paraphrased text.
• Be sure to do a plagiarism check. For example, the online writing tool Grammarly has a professional plagiarism checker.

👍 What Makes Our Online Word Changer Handy?

Now that you know how our tool rephrases your sentences, you’re probably wondering why you need it. Here are its benefits;

• Unlike expensive software with the same purpose, it’s free and always available .
• It offers various synonyms to choose from , saving you time, and ensuring that your text still makes sense.
• Rephrasing helps avoid plagiarism .
• The generator can also assist you in creating summaries .

We’ve got your back, but it’s good to know how to stay away from trouble by yourself. Read on to get acquainted with various rewriting strategies.

✏️ How to Rephrase: Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of stealing someone’s intellectual property. It can be deliberate but often happens unintentionally. In academia, this mostly means taking someone’s idea and not crediting the source. But don't worry: there are many ways avoid this. Here are the basics:

• Always using a plagiarism checker . This way, you’ll know for sure that what you’ve written is 100% yours.
• Quoting means adopting the original author’s wording directly and putting it in quotation marks. Make sure to resort to direct quoting only if it strengthens your argument, or if the quote is particularly expressive.
• A summary is a shortened version of the source. You don’t paraphrase its entire contents but break it down into the crucial parts.
• Taking notes while reading articles. Try to formulate the central ideas in simple words. This way, you'll automatically have a first draft of what you want to paraphrase.
• Lastly, changing the sentence structure while paraphrasing will help you sound natural.

Keep reading to learn more about rewording sentences and quotes.

📖 How to Reword a Sentence

Paraphrasing is very similar to summarizing. Both are key skills for writers. With these recommendations, you’ll always rewrite correctly and without plagiarizing.

To some terms, such as "globalization," you’ll hardly find alternatives. However, common words can easily be replaced.

Use various conjunctions or break the sentences up.

Replace nouns with verbs, verbs with adjectives, or vice versa.

This includes:

• Switching the voice from passive to active and the other way round.
• Turning clauses into phrases and vice versa, e.g., by omitting or adding pronouns.

This being said, the most effective method to rephrase something is by using all these techniques combined. Here are some examples:

“Categorization has become a major field of study, thanks primarily to the pioneering work of Eleanor Rosch, who made categorization an issue. (Lakoff 1987: 7)”

“Eleanor Rosch, who was the first to point out the importance of categorization, paved the way to make it an important subject. (see Lakoff 1987: 7)”

In this version, you can see multiple strategies at work. The structure is different, and all possible words were substituted. Yet, it still contains the original meaning. That’s precisely what we want!

Let’s have a look at this variant instead:

Paraphrase:

“Categorization is now a major field of study. It can be credited to the pioneering work of Eleanor Rosch, the first person to make categorization an issue.”

While the voice is switched in this paraphrase, it still is too close to the original. It uses the same wording and doesn’t credit the source.

Here’s another example:

“In a rare instance of consensus, linguists agree that grammar is extremely complex and hard to properly describe. (Langacker 2008: 27)”

“Linguists rarely agree with each other, but they all acknowledge that grammar is problematic and that it’s nearly impossible to explain it correctly. (Langacker 2008: 27)”

This version has synonyms and adds an extra preposition. Unfortunately, the alternatives "problematic" and "explain" tamper with the original meaning. Let's see how to paraphrase this paragraph properly:

“While linguists rarely share the same opinions, they all admit that grammar is almost impossible to depict comprehensively due to its intricate nature. (Langacker 2008: 27)”

In this case, the concept stays the same. The phrases are changed; there are a new structure and extra conjunction. Perfect!

💬 How to Reword a Quote

If you want your assignments to sound natural, provide the proper context for your quotes. It includes introducing them with phrases such as according to, in the words of, as defined by . Citing is appropriate, if:

• The wording is especially valuable;
• You need to support a claim;
• You want to debate and analyze the author’s position.

When writing, use a mix of direct quotes and paraphrases with an emphasis on the latter. Once you cite a source, adhere to specific standards. Stick to any one of these styles throughout your entire text:

• An in-text APA style reference can be either narrative , e.g. Zaliznyak & Šmelev, 1997, or parenthetical , e.g. (Zaliznyak & Šmelev, 1997).
• MLA formatting style requires the author’s last name and the page, for example, Clasmeier 37.
• When citing Chicago style , all source data (name, title, publisher, year, page) goes into the footnotes.

We're happy if this article was useful to you. And don't forget: if you want to save yourself some time, try our free paraphrasing tool!

📌 Is Rewording Plagiarism?

📌 how do you rewrite articles in your own words, 📌 can i use the rewriting tool to avoid plagiarism.

Updated: Apr 5th, 2024

🔗 References

• Avoiding Plagiarism: Choosing Whether to Quote or to Paraphrase: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Paraphrasing, Summarizing, and Quoting: Australia University
• Quoting, Paraphrasing, & Summarizing: Ashford University
• Paraphrasing: American Psychological Association
• Chicago Quoting and Paraphrasing: Massey University
• MLA In-Text Citations: Purdue University

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A publication of the harvard college writing program.

Harvard Guide to Using Sources 

• The Honor Code
• Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting

Depending on the conventions of your discipline, you may have to decide whether to summarize a source, paraphrase a source, or quote from a source.

When and how to summarize

When you summarize, you provide your readers with a condensed version of an author's key points. A summary can be as short as a few sentences or much longer, depending on the complexity of the text and the level of detail you wish to provide to your readers. You will need to summarize a source in your paper when you are going to refer to that source and you want your readers to understand the source's argument, main ideas, or plot (if the source is a novel, film, or play) before you lay out your own argument about it, analysis of it, or response to it.

Before you summarize a source in your paper, you should decide what your reader needs to know about that source in order to understand your argument. For example, if you are making an argument about a novel, you should avoid filling pages of your paper with details from the book that will distract or confuse your reader. Instead, you should add details sparingly, going only into the depth that is necessary for your reader to understand and appreciate your argument. Similarly, if you are writing a paper about a journal article, you will need to highlight the most relevant parts of the argument for your reader, but you should not include all of the background information and examples. When you have to decide how much summary to put in a paper, it's a good idea to consult your instructor about whether you are supposed to assume your reader's knowledge of the sources.

Guidelines for summarizing a source in your paper

• Identify the author and the source.
• Represent the original source accurately.
• Present the source’s central claim clearly.
• Don’t summarize each point in the same order as the original source; focus on giving your reader the most important parts of the source
• Use your own words. Don’t provide a long quotation in the summary unless the actual language from the source is going to be important for your reader to see.

Stanley Milgram (1974) reports that ordinarily compassionate people will be cruel to each other if they are commanded to be by an authority figure. In his experiment, a group of participants were asked to administer electric shocks to people who made errors on a simple test. In spite of signs that those receiving shock were experiencing great physical pain, 25 of 40 subjects continued to administer electric shocks. These results held up for each group of people tested, no matter the demographic. The transcripts of conversations from the experiment reveal that although many of the participants felt increasingly uncomfortable, they continued to obey the experimenter, often showing great deference for the experimenter. Milgram suggests that when people feel responsible for carrying out the wishes of an authority figure, they do not feel responsible for the actual actions they are performing. He concludes that the increasing division of labor in society encourages people to focus on a small task and eschew responsibility for anything they do not directly control.

This summary of Stanley Milgram's 1974 essay, "The Perils of Obedience," provides a brief overview of Milgram's 12-page essay, along with an APA style parenthetical citation. You would write this type of summary if you were discussing Milgram's experiment in a paper in which you were not supposed to assume your reader's knowledge of the sources. Depending on your assignment, your summary might be even shorter.

When you include a summary of a paper in your essay, you must cite the source. If you were using APA style in your paper, you would include a parenthetical citation in the summary, and you would also include a full citation in your reference list at the end of your paper. For the essay by Stanley Milgram, your citation in your references list would include the following information:

Milgram, S. (1974). The perils of obedience. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.), The Blair reader (pp.725-737).

When and how to paraphrase

When you paraphrase from a source, you restate the source's ideas in your own words. Whereas a summary provides your readers with a condensed overview of a source (or part of a source), a paraphrase of a source offers your readers the same level of detail provided in the original source. Therefore, while a summary will be shorter than the original source material, a paraphrase will generally be about the same length as the original source material.

When you use any part of a source in your paper—as background information, as evidence, as a counterargument to which you plan to respond, or in any other form—you will always need to decide whether to quote directly from the source or to paraphrase it. Unless you have a good reason to quote directly from the source , you should paraphrase the source. Any time you paraphrase an author's words and ideas in your paper, you should make it clear to your reader why you are presenting this particular material from a source at this point in your paper. You should also make sure you have represented the author accurately, that you have used your own words consistently, and that you have cited the source.

This paraphrase below restates one of Milgram's points in the author's own words. When you paraphrase, you should always cite the source. This paraphrase uses the APA in-text citation style. Every source you paraphrase should also be included in your list of references at the end of your paper. For citation format information go to the Citing Sources section of this guide.

Source material

The problem of obedience is not wholly psychological. The form and shape of society and the way it is developing have much to do with it. There was a time, perhaps, when people were able to give a fully human response to any situation because they were fully absorbed in it as human beings. But as soon as there was a division of labor things changed.

--Stanley Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience," p.737.

Milgram, S. (1974). The perils of obedience. In L.G. Kirszner & S.R. Mandell (Eds.), The Blair reader (pp.725-737). Prentice Hall.

Milgram (1974) claims that people's willingness to obey authority figures cannot be explained by psychological factors alone. In an earlier era, people may have had the ability to invest in social situations to a greater extent. However, as society has become increasingly structured by a division of labor, people have become more alienated from situations over which they do not have control (p.737).

When and how much to quote

The basic rule in all disciplines is that you should only quote directly from a text when it's important for your reader to see the actual language used by the author of the source. While paraphrase and summary are effective ways to introduce your reader to someone's ideas, quoting directly from a text allows you to introduce your reader to the way those ideas are expressed by showing such details as language, syntax, and cadence.

So, for example, it may be important for a reader to see a passage of text quoted directly from Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried if you plan to analyze the language of that passage in order to support your thesis about the book. On the other hand, if you're writing a paper in which you're making a claim about the reading habits of American elementary school students or reviewing the current research on Wilson's disease, the information you’re providing from sources will often be more important than the exact words. In those cases, you should paraphrase rather than quoting directly. Whether you quote from your source or paraphrase it, be sure to provide a citation for your source, using the correct format. (see Citing Sources section)

You should use quotations in the following situations:

• When you plan to discuss the actual language of a text.
• When you are discussing an author's position or theory, and you plan to discuss the wording of a core assertion or kernel of the argument in your paper.
• When you risk losing the essence of the author's ideas in the translation from their words to your own.
• When you want to appeal to the authority of the author and using their words will emphasize that authority.

Once you have decided to quote part of a text, you'll need to decide whether you are going to quote a long passage (a block quotation) or a short passage (a sentence or two within the text of your essay). Unless you are planning to do something substantive with a long quotation—to analyze the language in detail or otherwise break it down—you should not use block quotations in your essay. While long quotations will stretch your page limit, they don't add anything to your argument unless you also spend time discussing them in a way that illuminates a point you're making. Unless you are giving your readers something they need to appreciate your argument, you should use quotations sparingly.

When you quote from a source, you should make sure to cite the source either with an in-text citation or a note, depending on which citation style you are using.  The passage below, drawn from O’Brien’s  The Things They Carried , uses an MLA-style citation.

On the morning after Ted Lavender died, First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross crouched at the bottom of his foxhole and burned Martha's letters. Then he burned the two photographs. There was a steady rain falling, which made it difficult, but he used heat tabs and Sterno to build a small fire, screening it with his body holding the photographs over the tight blue flame with the tip of his fingers.

He realized it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid. (23)

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried . New York: Broadway Books, 1990.

Even as Jimmy Cross burns Martha's letters, he realizes that "it was only a gesture. Stupid, he thought. Sentimental too, but mostly just stupid" (23).

If you were writing a paper about O'Brien's The Things They Carried in which you analyzed Cross's decision to burn Martha's letters and stop thinking about her, you might want your reader to see the language O'Brien uses to illustrate Cross's inner conflict. If you were planning to analyze the passage in which O'Brien calls Cross's realization stupid, sentimental, and then stupid again, you would want your reader to see the original language.

• Locating Sources
• Evaluating Sources
• Sources and Your Assignment
• A Source's Role in Your Paper
• Choosing Relevant Parts of a Source
• The Nuts & Bolts of Integrating

PDFs for This Section

• Using sources
• Integrating Sources
• Online Library and Citation Tools

Paraphrases

A paraphrase restates another’s idea (or your own previously published idea) in your own words. Paraphrasing allows you to summarize and synthesize information from one or more sources, focus on significant information, and compare and contrast relevant details.

Published authors paraphrase their sources most of the time, rather than directly quoting the sources; student authors should emulate this practice by paraphrasing more than directly quoting.

When you paraphrase, cite the original work using either the narrative or parenthetical citation format .

Although it is not required to provide a page or paragraph number in the citation, you may include one (in addition to the author and year) when it would help interested readers locate the relevant passage within a long or complex work (e.g., a book).

Webster-Stratton (2016) described a case example of a 4-year-old girl who showed an insecure attachment to her mother; in working with the family dyad, the therapist focused on increasing the mother’s empathy for her child (pp. 152–153).

These guidelines pertain to when you read a primary source and paraphrase it yourself. If you read a paraphrase of a primary source in a published work and want to cite that source, it is best to read and cite the primary source directly if possible; if not, use a secondary source citation .

Paraphrases are covered in the seventh edition APA Style manuals in the Publication Manual Sections 8.23 and 8.24 and the Concise Guide Sections 8.23 and 8.24

Related handout

• Paraphrasing and Citation Activities (PDF, 357KB)

Long paraphrases

A paraphrase may continue for several sentences. In such cases, cite the work being paraphrased on first mention. Once the work has been cited, it is not necessary to repeat the citation as long as the context of the writing makes it clear that the same work continues to be paraphrased.

Velez et al. (2018) found that for women of color, sexism and racism in the workplace were associated with poor work and mental health outcomes, including job-related burnout, turnover intentions, and psychological distress. However, self-esteem, person–organization fit, and perceived organizational support mediated these effects. Additionally, stronger womanist attitudes—which acknowledge the unique challenges faced by women of color in a sexist and racist society—weakened the association of workplace discrimination with psychological distress. These findings underscore the importance of considering multiple forms of workplace discrimination in clinical practice and research with women of color, along with efforts to challenge and reduce such discrimination.

If the paraphrase continues into a new paragraph, reintroduce the citation. If the paraphrase incorporates multiple sources or switches among sources, repeat the citation so the source is clear. Read your sentences carefully to ensure you have cited sources appropriately.

Play therapists can experience many symptoms of impaired wellness, including emotional exhaustion or reduced ability to empathize with others (Elwood et al., 2011; Figley, 2002), disruption in personal relationships (Elwood et al., 2011; Robinson-Keilig, 2014), decreased satisfaction with work (Elwood et al., 2011), avoidance of particular situations (Figley, 2002; O’Halloran & Linton, 2000), and feelings or thoughts of helplessness (Elwood et al., 2011; Figley, 2002; O’Halloran & Linton, 2000).

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Paraphrase Online

Paraphrase online is a free online paraphrasing tool used to change words and rephrase sentences.

How to Use our Paraphrasing Tool?

It is very easy to paraphrase online with our paraphrasing tool. To rephrase, follow the steps below.

• Type/paste the text into the input box or upload a file (.doc, .docx, .pdf, .txt) from local storage.
• Select the required paraphrasing mode and click on the "Paraphrase" button.
• The paraphrased text will be displayed on the right box. You can also change the modes for different outputs.
• You can also copy and download the paraphrased text by clicking on the output buttons.

Free Paraphrasing Tool

Our paraphrasing tool (paraphraser) helps students, writers, and bloggers to avoid plagiarism. This rewording tool uses advanced AI algorithms to change sentence structure, synonymize the text and make other similar changes. 

This word changer has a built-in paraphrase generator that helps in rephrasing any paragraph accurately.

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is one way to use a text in your own writing without directly quoting source material ( according to Purdue University ). It is the process of rewording and rearranging sentence structure while keeping the original meaning of the context.

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Paraphrase Online offers numerous features such as paraphrasing essays, assignments, and rewording articles. Our paraphrase tool works as the best sentence rephraser and word changer.

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You can use this feature to upload files directly from your device and skip the copy-paste or typing step. Our tool supports Doc, Docx, PDF & .txt file formats.

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Our word paraphraser is 100% free and completely secure to use for all kinds of rephrasing paragraphs and sentences to avoid plagiarism.

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Paraphrase Online has a user-friendly interface and simple navigation that makes our paraphrase generator the most easy to use paraphrasing tool online.

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Content paraphrased by our sentence rephraser will be 100% plagiarism-free. Our paraphrasing tool helps you rephrase any text in seconds to avoid plagiarism issues.

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Our paraphraser can rephrase any text within seconds and provides quick results. Paraphrase Online also allows you to customize the output to suit your needs, e.g: choosing the specific words to be replaced.

05 Different Paraphrasing Modes

Our paraphrasing tool offers five different paraphrasing modes/styles that you can choose from as per your need and requirement. Here is a brief profile of each mode:

Word Changer

The Word Changer mode is designed to replace the words in the text with suitable synonyms. This mode focuses on changing words and does not make other types of alterations.

Sentence Rephraser

The Sentence Rephraser mode is made to rephrase sentences as a whole by making changes to the words as well as the phrases.

The Academic mode of our paraphrasing tool makes your text more formal and suitable for academic uses.

The Creative mode makes smart and extensive changes to the text to make it look different from the original version. This mode is best for avoiding plagiarism, improving readability, and enhancing engagement.

The Shorten mode rephrases text while also making it shorter than the original input. This mode is best for creating a paraphrased + summarized output for your existing text.

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Our paraphrase tool is the best rewording tool that helps you to write content in your own words. This paraphrase generator changes words and phrases quickly and accurately.

Supported Languages

ES , ID , BR

Users of Paraphrase Online

This paraphraser is widely used by:

Students can use this paraphrasing tool to paraphrase their assignments and research papers. Our tool can help students:

Avoid plagiarism : It helps students to make their work plagiarism-free.

Make assignments more readable : Our tool also makes content more readable and free of grammar errors. And if English is not their first language then this tool is no less than a best friend.

• Save time : Generate assignments and essays by quickly paraphrasing the existing content.

Creating class notes and study material on the same topic is a very tough task for teachers. Hey teachers! You can thank us for this awesome rewording tool. You can:

• Paraphrase any notes within seconds while keeping its original meaning;
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Webmasters/Bloggers

Bloggers have to post on a regular basis, and mostly on similar topics. They can create unique content for their blogs without spending a lot of time by just rewording existing blogs.

SEO Specialists

SEO specialists can use our AI-based paraphrasing tool to create unique content for their websites. SEO experts must use our tool because:

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Content Writers

Content writers play the most creative part in a website. Our rephrase tool helps them to come up with new ideas using existing content. Content writers can also use our paraphrase tool to rephrase their write-ups to avoid plagiarism.

Copywriters

Make your next advertising campaign line catchy and engaging using our paraphrasing tool. Create messages that will sell products, services, or ideas. Paraphrase Online makes your writing visually appealing and effective.

Media Marketers

Best marketing lines matter in digital marketing. Our paraphrase tool provides different versions of the same lines that can be used for A/B testing. Even a simple choice of different words can generate more leads.

Researchers

Researchers can use our shorten mode to summarize and paraphrase their research papers. It makes it easy for them to change their literature reviews.

Business Professionals

Rewording emails, reports, or other business documents is very common for business professionals. Our reword tool could be very helpful in rewording texts for better clarity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is using an online paraphrasing tool illegal.

No, using an online paraphrasing tool is not illegal. If you want to paraphrase someone else’s content, be sure to cite the source to avoid plagiarism.

Why is paraphrasing important?

Paraphrasing is important as it lets you avoid plagiarism and make your content more easily understandable. Paraphrasing is often done to improve clarity in a piece of text.

Which paraphrasing tool is best for university students?

The paraphrasing tool by Paraphrase Online is an excellent choice for university students. It is free and provides accurate results.

How can I use paraphrase tool for research paper?

You can easily use our paraphrase tool for improving the quality of your research papers and for getting new/better ideas for them. Using Paraphrase Online is easy and simple. You just have to enter your text, choose a mode, and then click on the button.

What are the benefits of paraphrasing in communication?

Paraphrasing can help make communication easier and more clear. You can paraphrase your mails and messages to make them more readable, natural, and better-flowing.

Paraphrasing in communication examples:

• You can paraphrase your work emails to make sure that the recipient easily understands them.
• You can paraphrase your letters and memos to make them clear and understandable for the office people.
• You can also paraphrase simple text messages to avoid having to repeat or explain yourself afterward.