Using Sources in a Paper: How to Paraphrase

Before you begin to write, make sure you understand the material

• Read it carefully
• Identify important terms and concepts
• Look up unfamiliar terms

Then try to write down the information in your own words without looking at the original.

Make some additional changes unless your first attempt is completely original in both wording and phrasing/sentence structure

To paraphrase a single sentence:

• Eliminate unnecessary wording
• Put the information at the end of the sentence at the beginning of your paraphrase
• Add, remove, or replace modifiers (adjectives, adverbs, modifying phrases and clauses)
• Change the parts of speech
• Replace passive constructions with active ones and vice versa
• Replace singular nouns with plurals and plural nouns with singulars (if this will not change the meaning of the passage)

To paraphrase a longer passage:

• Combine information from several sentences to form a single sentence
• Break long, complex sentences into smaller parts (sentences, clauses, phrases) and deal with each part separately

 Check your paraphrase against the original:

• Make sure it accurately reflects the meaning of the original passage
• Make sure it does not include exact wording or phrasing of the original passage
• Make sure you did not rely on word substitution, that is, replacing some of the words with synonyms while keeping the original phrasing and sentence structure
• Make sure you included a citation giving the author credit for the information in the required research style

When paraphrasing technical material, don’t use inaccurate or simplistic wording just to avoid using the same technical terms as the original. Use the appropriate wording and add quotation marks only if it is unique to the source (e.g., a new term coined by the author you are citing).