SKILL FOCUS | Writing: How to paraphrase

In today’s post, I’m going to talk about paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing is when you express the meaning of something written or spoken using different words.

Why is paraphrasing important?

Remember that these techniques should only be used once you have ensured you fully understood the text; do not try to paraphrase a text you have not understood.

1. Using synonyms (words that mean the same)

2. Changing the form of words

3. Changing the grammatical structure

4. Using several techniques

In this final example, you will notice that:

• the order in which information is presented is different in the paraphrase
• different word forms in the same word family have been used (effective regulation > regulated effectively)
• synonyms have been used (in the absence of competition > without competition).

Note that successful paraphrasing requires the use of multiple techniques each time. It is not sufficient to simply replace the keywords with synonyms and in fact this is a common mistake among students learning to paraphrase. Changing the structure of the sentence is also important to fit the sentence into your paragraph effectively.

Source: © University of Reading

I’ve also found these websites which might help you with your paraphrasing

• https://www.paraphraser.io/  
• https://quillbot.com/
• https://paraphrasing-tool.com/

Try them out and let me know what you think about them.