Learning Lab Vietnam

What is a paraphrase?

A paraphrase is a restatement in your own words of an idea or item of information from the work of another person. You convey the original meaning but change the words and sentence structure. You must reference a paraphrase with the author’s name and the year of publication.

There are limits to the amount of work you can paraphrase. The aim is to integrate a sentence expressing the borrowed idea into a paragraph of your own writing. If you want to use more than one idea from another text, you need to ensure that you paraphrase and reference each idea separately.

To paraphrase, you need to:

• change the structure of the sentence(s), and
• change words

Avoiding plagiarism

Plagiarism is the direct copying of someone else's work without acknowledging (citing) the original author. In other words, you take credit for the ideas of another person. In academic writing, this is considered cheating. Avoid penalties by learning how to paraphrase correctly.  

Changing the structure of a sentence

1. Read the relevant sentence(s) and make sure you understand the main idea. Do not copy them down.
2. Put the article or book away and write your paraphrase from memory. This means that you are not copying the text word for word.
3. Ensure that you have changed the order of words.
4. To avoid accidental plagiarism, check what you have written against the original text. You should check that your version is different and you have retained the original idea.

Changing the words

People's writing styles and the words they use are very distinct. It is generally easy to tell when someone has copied directly from a textbook, as the language and the words used change from the writer's normal style and vocabulary. To paraphrase a text, follow these steps.

1. Read the sentence/paragraph you want to paraphrase a number of times to get the meaning of the text. Once you understand it, write out the sentence in your own words. If you do not fully understand the text, do not attempt to paraphrase it, as you will just copy it.
2. Circle the specialised words, i.e. the words that the text is actually about. These will need to be included in your paraphrase, as without these words, the meaning of the paraphrase will change completely.
3. Underline the keywords that can be changed. You now have a starting point to construct your paraphrase.
4. Find other words and phrases that have similar meanings that can be used to replace the keywords in the text. Use a thesaurus or dictionary to help if need be.