Paraphrasing

1. Paraphrasing

2. What is Paraphrasing? Taking someone else’s ideas and putting them in your own words

3. Why is this important? • Avoid plagiarism • Support your own argument or thesis in writing • Good paraphrasing means good reading comprehension

4. Avoid Plagiarism • Plagiarism is taking someone else’s ideas or writing and pretending that it is your own • Against the law and against your school’s code of ethics!

5. Support your own argument or thesis in writing • gives authenticity and validation to your writing • Much better substantiation than “because I said so!”

6. 3. Good paraphrasing means good reading comprehension • If you understand something well enough to rewrite or retell it, then you fully understand it. • You already do this on a regular basis. • What happened at the game last night? • What happened on tv?

7. The Paraphrase Two Step • Read • Rewrite or retell what you have read using your own words

8. When you read: • Picture in your mind what the author is saying • Read slowly and carefully • Don’t go ahead to the next sentence unless you comprehend the one that you are on • Highlight the main ideas • Take notes while you read

9. When you rewrite: DON’T COPY!

10. Also when you rewrite: • Use substitutions-synonyms or phrases • Rewrite the ideas, not just the words • Simplify complex ideas into less complex ones • Change the order of ideas • Use your own sentence structure and your own writing style

11. Original: The consumption of wheatgrass in the Western world began in the 1930s as a result of experiments by Charles F. Schnabel and his attempts to popularize the plant . • Wheatgrass • Charles F Schnabel • wanted to make it popular in the west • In 1930’s

12. Original: The consumption of wheatgrass in the Western world began in the 1930s as a result of experiments by Charles F. Schnabel and his attempts to popularize the plant • Too Similar: Wheatgrass began to be consumed in the Western world in the 1930’s because Charles F. Schnabel did experiments and attempted to popularize the plant.

13. Original: The consumption of wheatgrass in the Western world began in the 1930s as a result of experiments by Charles F. Schnabel and his attempts to popularize the plant . • Too Different: During the 1930’s, Charles F Schnabel made Western people eat wheatgrass.

14. Original: The consumption of wheatgrass in the Western world began in the 1930s as a result of experiments by Charles F. Schnabel and his attempts to popularize the plant . • Good Paraphrase: Wheatgrass was introduced to the Western world in the 1930’s thanks to the efforts of Charles F. Schnabel.

15. 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): 46-47.

16. 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.

17. 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). 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