Paraphrasing to Avoid Plagiarism

When I was in high school, I accidentally plagiarized an essay about Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and I didn’t get caught. I didn’t even know I had plagiarized. It was years later that I realized the errors of my ways. Since I believe in learning from my mistakes and helping others learn from them too, in today’s post, I’m going to share more about my error, explain what paraphrase isn’t, explain what paraphrase is, and offer an overview of a paraphrasing strategy you can use in your writing to avoid plagiarism.

Accidental Plagiarism: A Cautionary Tale

The assignment was to write an analysis of the book Pride and Prejudice. I was in an Advanced Placement English class, and this was our summer homework before the course started so I hadn’t yet learned how to write an analysis of a book. As I read, I enjoyed the book quite a bit, but when it came to writing the paper I found myself wondering, “What does the teacher mean by analysis? What ideas do I have to share about this book? What does this book mean, other than being a sweet love story?”

Since I didn’t know what to write, I went to the Themes, Motifs & Symbols page of Spark Notes for Pride and Prejudice. Here, I learned that major themes in the book included things like love, reputation, and class.  I knew enough to know it would be wrong to copy/paste what I read here, so that’s not what I did. Instead, I used what I had read there and wrote a paper about the significant themes of love, reputation, and class. I knew the Sparknotes webpage was not an appropriate source for this paper, so I never once cited Sparknotes. I paraphrased the ideas from this source, but I never included a citation. Even though I didn’t copy and paste from the source, this was still considered plagiarism. 

Years later, when I was in college, I was taught in a Composition course what plagiarism is and how to paraphrase effectively. In that moment, I realized what I’d done with that analysis paper in high school: I’d plagiarized.

What Paraphrase Isn’t

From this example, I learned a few things about what paraphrase is not, and I’d like to share those here. 

Paraphrase is not: Reading a source and getting some ideas from it, and then writing those ideas in your own words without a citation.

Paraphrase is also not: Reading a source and copy/pasting it into a paper, but then substituting synonyms for most words so that it’s “in your own words.” 

Nor is it: Copy/pasting a source into your paper without quotation marks and a citation.

What Paraphrase Is

As discussed on our Using Evidence: Paraphrase webpage and our Paraphrasing Source Information webinar, paraphrasing is using your own words and sentence structure to present the key points of an author’s ideas in a new way that is relevant for what you’re writing. Often, paraphrases are shorter than the original information. In addition, paraphrases must always include a citation and a reference entry, to clearly convey where the information was retrieved.

What an Effective Paraphrase Strategy Looks Like

As we discuss at residencies and in other venues like our website and webinars, there are strategies that you can employ to ensure that you’re paraphrasing effectively. Here is an overview of the paraphrasing process:

1.) Read the passage you want to paraphrase until you understand it fully. This might require multiple read-throughs. 

2.) Cover or hide the passage and then write out the author’s idea in your own words, selecting and emphasizing what’s important to you and the argument you’re making.

3.) Compare what you wrote to the original source, and do some analysis to ensure that you’re paraphrasing effectively and adequately reflecting the original author’s intent by asking yourself these questions:

• Have I accurately reflected the author’s ideas in this paraphrase?
• Have I emphasized only the part from this original source that’s relevant for my argument and for context for this information?
• Have I used my own sentence structure and words to reflect this idea?

4.) Revise your paraphrase depending on your answers to the questions above. If you’ve misinterpreted the author’s ideas, revise. If you’ve included irrelevant information, revise. If you’ve included information that’s too closely reflecting the original source, either revise or use quotation marks to enclose the borrowed phrases.

5.) Finish the paraphrase with a citation that should include the author’s name and the year. If you included any quoted materials, also include a page number. If you’re unfamiliar with how to cite, you can learn more on our Citations: Overview webpage.

The next time you’re writing a paper and integrating source information, keep these tips about what’s paraphrase and what’s not in mind. In addition, give this paraphrasing strategy a try and then let us know in the comments how it worked for you! Happy writing.

Jes Philbrook is a Writing Instructor and the Coordinator of Doctoral Writing Assessment in the Walden University Writing Center. Jes has been a writing tutor for over a decade, and because of adolescent struggles with using source information, she has a passion for helping students learn how to paraphrase and integrate source information to avoid plagiarism. In her free time, you can find Jes walking her dog Zoie, harvesting her community garden plot, cooking (but not from a recipe), and reading young adult fantasy series.

Never miss a new post; Opt-out at any time