Paraphrasing

• Paraphrasing means formulating someone else’s ideas in your own words.
• It’s your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
• A more detailed restatement than just a summary.
• One legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.

• Helps to avoid plagiarism and breach of copyright restrictions.
• 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.
• It helps to keep all your topic content in a similar style, regardless of where the ideas/concepts/fact originated from.

11 steps to get you started

Paraphrasing is a skill developed over time so be patient with yourself and don’t give up.

Step 1

Before you paraphrase, it is essential that you fully understand the ideas and concepts of the original text.

Step 2

Make notes summarising the original.

• Note only the main ideas, concepts or theory that are important from the original text.
• Express the ideas of the original text in your own words . Do not copy complete sentences (this will help you paraphrase better later).

Step 3

Write the bibliographical details now, so you can cite and reference your material later.

Step 4

Looking at your notes, attempt to rewrite the information fully into your own style, words and grammar. Do not just change the odd word here and there, it must be entirely rewritten in your language.

Step 5

Ensure you keep the specialised/technical words in your rewrite. It will be necessary to include these in your paraphrase because without them, the meaning will probably not be clear.

• For example , in the original text, the words marketing strategies, planner, segmenting, management, and marketers are all words which belong to the field of Marketing and therefore do not need to be changed.

Step 6

To help you paraphrase more effectively, try to use 'synonyms' of the original words (a thesaurus will help you achieve this).

Step 7

During your paraphrasing, try not to look at the original text. Write your paraphrase using only your notes.

Step 8

Check that your sentence(s) are indeed using your own words and sentence/paragraph structure , but keeping intact the original meaning of the original text.

Step 9

Use quotation marks to distinguish any terms or phrases that you have used exactly as they appear in the original source.

Step 10

Compare your paraphrase with the original to ensure that it expresses the same ideas and attitude that are expressed in the original, but that your version is sufficiently different from it.

• Ensure you have documented where you cited the original text so that it can be referenced. Citing in the comments throughout your storyboard is a good start.

Step 11

Do not include your own opinion or comments as this would change the meaning of the original and would result in ideas being wrongly attributed to the author.

_{¹For Copyright Owners © Commonwealth of Australia. CC BY 4.0. Adaptation of the original.}