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How to paraphrase

Learning Intention: I know when to use paraphrasing

 I know how to paraphrase properly

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is taking a quote or an idea that someone else has put forward and putting it into your own words. Try to use direct quotes as little as possible. It's important that you develop you're own voice in your writing through paraphrasing the information you have gathered.

Let's have a look at how to do that

Quoting vs Paraphrasing

Here's the quote we are going to work with, we will look at how it would look to quote it and to paraphrase it

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what"

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Quoting

Quoting means you are using the author's phrasing word for word. Here's what it would look like to use that quote in an essay:

"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what" (Lee, 1960, p. 115)
When you are quoting it is important to put quotation marks " " around the words you are quoting and an in-text citation at the end to say where you got it from. Look at the citation guide for how to do in-text citations.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing means you are putting the author's words into your own.

This let's your voice and writing style shine through. Here's what it would look like to paraphrase that quote in an essay:

Courage is trying something even though you know it's hard and not giving up even when the going get's tough, it's not about guns, or muscles, or violence, or being big, and strong. (Lee, 1960)

Notice we still put the citation at the end, but now it does not have a page number as it is not a direct quote.

Is paraphrasing plagiarism?

As long as you remember the in-text citation then paraphrasing is not plagiarism.