Paraphrasing

The word paraphrase was derived from a Latin word paraphrasis and Greek paráphrasis, meaning “additional manner of expression”. Paraphrasing refers to re-writing the content without changing its meaning. In other words, paraphrasing means to recapitulate the text in your own words without losing its meaning. Writing in your own words helps you to express your thoughts more freely. Your ideas can be conveyed appropriately as exactly as what you want to say. It is a great writing method especially for students who want to write and elaborate their points by taking help from different authors but still don’t want to plagiarize. Since no individual can have all the knowledge on every topic thus taking help from other sources will not be referred to as cheating. Paraphrasing helps a lot when there is a need to review the required literature and integrate it into your tasks. Also, paraphrasing gives your expression individuality.

Why should you Paraphrase?

Paraphrasing is an opportunity to think out loud and clarifies that the person working with a project has captured the full knowledge of the work. Today, the act of copy-paste is common but it is a severe academic offense besides being unethical. Since the introduction of many plagiarism checking software/programs like turnitin, now it is almost impossible to cheat your teachers. It is highly recommended and encouraged that you always paraphrase your content to be genuine and avoid plagiarism issues. Paraphrasing helps you to give a life to your work maybe because the writings of some other authors appear to be dull and are not catchy enough for the reader. Sometimes, the original source does not come up to or fulfill your requirements thus paraphrasing helps a lot.

At other times, sources, references or citations are not valid; they maybe quoting wrong authors but the matter written suits your need; here, you can include the text in your work by paraphrasing it perfectly without changing its meaning. By paraphrasing, you can accomplish your work as per your requirements, your thoughts, your words, your ideas and your understanding.

Is Paraphrasing Important?

Paraphrasing means what a person reads, understands and interprets that gives him an opportunity to “think about his thoughts”; concepts are understood in a better way – it opens one’s mind to new ideas. Paraphrasing plays an important role in communication as paraphrasing increases the vocabulary that allows one to identify synonymous, grammatical structures, word forms and connotations. Students must be aware of paraphrasing as it helps them to make their research papers exclusive. Paraphrasing is vital in almost all fields especially in academics. It greatly helps students to gather up information from different sources, authors and researches and then interpret them into their own words. This not only gives quality to their work but also helps them to get an expert on their task and become well knowledgeable about the topic.

Paraphrasing further helps to clarify a point after quoting its source through writing and explaining it or elaborating it in your own words.