One of the most common questions we get asked in the library is, “How do I paraphrase?” and, “Have I paraphrased this enough?” Paraphrasing effectively is an essential academic skill that you will need to develop throughout your studies.
Paraphrasing involves taking someone else’s ideas and substantially rewriting them using your own words (while still retaining the meaning). It is more than just changing a few words around or using synonyms. You must completely restructure the sentence and use different words than the author. When you paraphrase, you need to acknowledge the source of the idea with an in text reference at the end of the sentence.
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This video will give you much more advice about how to paraphrase correctly. A transcript for this video is available.
In short, plagiarism involves passing someone’s ideas or work off as your own. This might happen by:
- Direct copying, summarising, or paraphrasing another person’s work without appropriate acknowledgement of the sources
- Using or developing an idea or hypothesis from another person’s work without appropriate acknowledgement
- Representing the work of another person as your own work
- Copying non-word based material (such as diagrams, plans or audiovisual materials) and presenting them as one’s own work
- Using another person’s experimental results as one’s own or without appropriate acknowledgement.
Paraphrasing is one of the most important skills you can master as it shows your ability to comprehend and communicate your knowledge and understanding of a particular idea.
For more information, see QUT’s guide to academic integrity.
6 Comments
Very nicely written Megan and useful for PhD or dissertation scholars. Paraphrasing in right ratio and plagiarism free document are mandatory factors for the approval. For proper paraphrasing someone need to restructure their full document.
I also got too much confused for my PhD paraphrasing and searched for some professional help. After lot of searching got an answer as Chanakya Research. I need help for my paraphrasing of my assignment and their professional helped me a lot for the same.
Wonderful written Megan it will help many Ph.D. scholars, I also get frustrated how to do my PhD work, After research, I got to know about Vinayaka Research. I will highly recommend connecting with them.
This activities will make learners to learn other languages from different cultures, understanding the languages will make them appreciate cultural diversity amongst themselves
This is very helpful in content writing.
Thank you Megan for explaining paraphrasing so clearly. I am a blogger myself and sometimes even I get stuck while writing a blog. Paraphrasing can be a tedious task for someone very new in writing.
It would be awesome if someone is their to help you out in you early days. Well, I recommend to check out PhD Discussions because they have hundreds of PhD scholars helping student out during their research and best thing is that they do it for free.
Thank you Megan for Great Article . Its very Useful Blog for PhD Students