Paraphrasing Saying it in your own words

Quote Farming Take fifteen minutes to browse through your sources and do some quote farming Look for sentences that: Encompass an important idea or concept Contain statistics, figures, percentages Give definitions Explain a complicated idea Try to find info from at least two sources

A paraphrase is... another legitimate way, when cited, to borrow from a source your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a main idea

Quoting Summarizing Paraphrasing Match the source word for word Exact same number of words Summarizing Compress the main ideas in your own words Uses less words Paraphrasing putting information from a source into your own words Uses a similar number of words

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because... it helps you control the temptation to quote too much better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage the mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original

How to Paraphrase? Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning Don’t pick information to paraphrase just because it sounds good Make note of key ideas or phrases Why is this information worth using? Set the original aside and write your paraphrase Think of how you’d explain it to a friend Check your paraphrase with the original to make sure they have similar meaning Cite the source!

Paraphrasing Tips Don’t just change a word or two—that’s not paraphrasing Try to change the sentence structure as well as the words Check the original to make sure the meaning is the same Not every synonym is equal Diagnosis  Analysis, judgment, verdict Don’t try to find synonyms for every word E.g. seizure  appropriation, capture, confiscation

In-class Writing Pick three quotes Read the line a few times then put it aside Write a paraphrase of each line Compare them to the original and assess its accuracy Similarity

In-class Writing Trade with some one next to you and compare their paraphrase with the original quote Is the paraphrase: Clear? accurate? Too similar?