IPFW Center for Academic Support and Advancement

This handout explains how to avoid plagiarism by paraphrasing. Paraphrasing helps you gain a better understanding of a source because you put the author's information into your own words. If your paraphrase is too similar to the original source; however, it will sound like someone else's voice rather than your own. Therefore, rather than imitating the original author's style, put the information into your own words using your own writing style. These style changes, broken into the following six steps, can be accomplished by changing 1) grammar and phrasing, 2) vocabulary, 3) word choice, and 4) sentence order. Note: if you complete only one or a few steps, you may still be plagiarizing.

1. Explain complex ideas from the source by breaking the information into smaller pieces that are easier to understand.

Professional writers sometimes tend to write complex sentences that are difficult to understand. By breaking these ideas into simpler sentences, you can make the information easier to read, and it will fit in better with your writing.

2. Replace technical jargon or language that is specific to a particular discipline with vocabulary that is direct and familiar-if you're not sure what it means, chances are your audience won't either.

If the original source is confusing or difficult to understand because the author uses specialized language or technical terms, you can help your readers to understand the information by replacing those terms with common language that helps explain what the source means.

3. Use your own words by replacing key words in the source.

Make the information more your own. If you wouldn't use the word "inconsequential" in your writing, replace that word with something you would use, like "not important."

4. Reorder the information in a way that makes sense to you.

It is not enough to replace words with synonyms if you maintain the same sentence structure of the original text. Another way to make the information your own is to change the order that the information appears in your sentence. However, take care not to lose the author's meaning; if the author's ideas work best in a chronological order, you may confuse readers if you change the order.

5. In any citation style, information that you get from a source needs to be cited, usually in parentheses, even if you haven't quoted directly.

This is the same rule that applies when using direct quotes. Academic honesty requires that writers give credit for all ideas not originally their own. In addition, if someone reading your paper wants to get more information about the subject, or continue your research, they can find out where you got your information and look it up themselves.

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Last Updated: February 2, 2006
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February 2, 2006