paraphrasing practice activity

Best 5 Paraphrasing Exercises

Read on to see our helpful paraphrasing exercises and tips in this article to get you started.

One of the most important skills you can hone as a student or writer is to paraphrase the words of other academics and experts effectively. Since new knowledge is built upon that which is already known, it makes sense that you’d want to reference the ideas of others in your work. However, this is often easier said than done. Paraphrasing, especially if you want to do it well, can be challenging.

Fortunately, as is the case with most other skills in life, you can improve your ability to paraphrase through practice. For instance, you can improve this skill by regularly doing paraphrasing exercises. As I was an academic for a long time in my life, I thought it might be helpful to those who have little or no experience in paraphrasing if I provided a list of paraphrasing exercises. If you’re such a person, I hope that this article will get you started on your journey toward mastering the art of paraphrasing. Your academic or writing career will undoubtedly be better off for it when you do.

The Art of Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing exercises and activities to help you master the skill, 1. broaden your vocabulary, 2. create a word map, 3. paraphrase in small chunks, 4. ways to paraphrase shorter and easier sentences, 5. imagine you’re explaining the source material to someone, helpful tips, 1. avoid plagiarism, 2. summarizing is not paraphrasing, 3. changing word order is not paraphrasing.

Although paraphrasing is an essential skill when writing papers, essays, or articles, it’s one that many find challenging to master. To paraphrase the words of others, you need first to comprehend their meaning, and then you need to express this meaning in your own words. To do this effectively requires a broad and sophisticated range of vocabulary and advanced grammar skills.

As stated in the introduction, you can improve your paraphrasing skills through paraphrasing exercises. Doing this will help you construct meaningful and original paraphrased sentences and increase the speed at which you work. Especially when you’re a student, reading, and paraphrasing the words of other scholars and experts can form a big chunk of your work. Learning how to paraphrase well and at a quick pace will enhance your academic experience and will open up your schedule for other activities, such as sports or parties.

Our paraphrasing vs. summarizing guide might be helpful.

Now that you know the importance of paraphrasing, let’s dive right in and look at some exercises and activities that can help you improve. Remember, as is the case when learning any other new skill, you need to engage with these exercises regularly.

Since you cannot paraphrase appropriately without a decent range of vocabulary, it makes sense to aim to add more words to your vocabulary bank constantly. Of course, if you’re an academic, you’ll want to focus on improving your academic vocabulary in your specific field. However, since academic language has a formal tone, you can add general terms to your vocabulary bank to help you express yourself more sophisticatedly. Examples of such words, for instance, are verbs such as “theorize,” “opine,” “constitute,” and “approximate.”

There are various ways in which you can enrich your academic vocabulary. These include:

• Keeping a word journal: A great way to learn new words is to carry a little book along with you, in which you can write down words that you don’t know. You can write down the word and then look up the meaning when you have time. It can also be helpful to construct your sentence with the word once you’ve jotted down its definition.
• Highlight words in texts: Whether you’re working with a physical copy of a text or a digital version, it’s good to highlight or underline words that you don’t know. You can then either write a definition of the words in the margin or, if you’re working with a digital copy, you can add a comment. Another good tip is to write by hand – people learn better when writing something by hand than if they typed the same information.
• Read as much as you can: Although this may be obvious, the best way to improve your vocabulary is to read as many books and articles as you can fit into your schedule. Even if you don’t have the time to look up the meaning of each word that you don’t understand, just seeing the word pop up in different contexts will help you work out the meaning for yourself over time. Apart from reading, you can also listen to podcasts or watch documentaries and news channels.

If you’re battling to paraphrase an original paragraph or sentence into your own words, it can be helpful to create a word map. You can, for instance, write a few complex words or phrases down on a piece of paper. Next, draw a box around each word or phrase, and leave enough space around each so that you can draw and link other boxes. As a next step, you can draw boxes in which you write the synonym of each word. You can also write down the definition of each word if you’re unsure of its meaning.

Next, you need to clarify the relationship between these words or terms. Draw arrows between them indicating patterns, correlation, or cause and effect. You can also add boxes between the original words or phrases in which you add other words, such as verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, or adjectives. Doing so can help you further explain the terms or link them meaningfully. Once you’ve added all the information you can think of, try to create a paraphrased sentence or paragraph from your word map.

A valuable way to learn how to paraphrase when you’re a beginner is to break sentences into smaller parts. For example, instead of paraphrasing a long and complex sentence, which can become overwhelming if you’re not used to this process, you can focus on shorter phrases. Let’s take a look at an example. Here, for instance, is a long and complex sentence:

“ Many impacts are unavoidable and will hit the world’s most vulnerable populations hardest, it warns — but collective action from governments to both curb greenhouse-gas emissions and prepare communities to live with global warming could yet avert the worst outcomes. “

You may find it challenging to paraphrase this sentence as a whole. However, breaking it into smaller chunks makes the task more doable. You can break this sentence up in the following way:

• Many impacts are unavoidable
• And will hit the world’s most vulnerable populations hardest, it warns
• But collective actions from governments
• To both curb greenhouse-gas emissions
• And prepare communities to live with global warming
• Could yet avert the worst outcomes

Remember, the sentence structure of your paraphrased version can and often will look different from the source. This means that you can form two or multiple sentences if this helps you create a meaningful paraphrased version, even if the original is one sentence.

If you want to practice your paraphrasing skills, you can do so by paraphrasing a sentence in two or three different ways. You can practice finding different synonyms, grammar, and sentence structures while retaining the meaning across all versions.

If you have time, you can do this exercise with longer sentences. However, it may be good to start by paraphrasing shorter sentences. Doing so will allow you to focus on finding multiple synonyms and different ways to write the same sentence.

Here’s an example:

“ Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of factors. “

Paraphrased version 1:

“Experts maintain that the future of bees is in danger due to multiple causes.”

Paraphrased version 2:

“There are many different reasons why bees are going extinct, according to scientists.”

A helpful way of practicing paraphrasing while reading through articles or research papers is to recite your paraphrased version of some more complex sentences. Since the first step of paraphrasing is to ensure that you’ve correctly understood the source, repeating what you’ve just read in your own words can help you grasp the meaning of the source material.

You don’t need to use formal academic language and complex terms when doing this paraphrasing exercise. Instead, the aim is to repeat what you’ve read in plain and simple terms. Also, since you don’t need to write anything down for this paraphrasing exercise, it’s something you can regularly do while you’re reading through the source material.

It’s vital that you understand what you’re reading and that all the information is not just going over your head. Doing this exercise, primarily when you find yourself drifting off or having problems grasping a sentence, will ensure that you’ve understood the section you’ve read. At the same time, you get to practice your paraphrasing skills.

Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind while paraphrasing.

Even though you’re not using direct quotes when paraphrasing but rather stating another author’s ideas in your own words, you still need to reference their work. Failing to do so amounts to plagiarism, a serious offense, whether you’re producing academic work or an article for a web page.

The format you have to use when citing the work of others varies. For instance, in academic writing, you need to provide in-text citations and a list of references at the end of your essay, article, or thesis. The precise way you’ll write your in-text citations and list of references will be determined by the formatting style, whether this is APA , Harvard , Chicago , or MLA .

Although both tools or techniques involve using your own words to describe somebody else’s text, they are different. You need to retain the original work’s meaning with both techniques while using your own words. When you’re summarizing a work , you’re selecting only the most essential points of the text and rewriting these in your own words. This means that you provide a short overview of what a text is about.

It would be best to remain far more loyal to the source material with paraphrasing. You refer to specific ideas an author has provided to incorporate these into your work. To ensure that you’re not changing the original version too much or skewing the meaning the author intended to bring across, you have to rewrite actual sentences and paragraphs. You can’t just write a summary of large chunks of text.

Although this is a “technique” employed by lazy students, you should be aware that merely swapping around the word order of an original text does not constitute paraphrasing. It’s also not good enough to merely change a sentence from passive voice to active voice or vice versa.

Using either of these as your only paraphrasing method when rewriting somebody else’s words can amount to plagiarism since you’ve not used your own words or demonstrated your understanding of the source material. In such instances, you’d be better off simply rewriting the author’s exact words and placing these in quotation marks.

To learn more, check out our guide on paraphrasing vs. plagiarism .

Bryan Collins is the owner of Become a Writer Today. He's an author from Ireland who helps writers build authority and earn a living from their creative work. He's also a former Forbes columnist and his work has appeared in publications like Lifehacker and Fast Company.

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Paraphrase Games and Activities You Should Know

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Paraphrase games and activities teach your students to paraphrase without putting them to sleep. This article teaches and reinforces this skill in fun and exciting ways by using activities and games.

Students must sometimes find solutions or facts from what they’ve read and not merely duplicate the source. We call this “paraphrasing.”

Why does this matter? First, we want to make sure we don’t plagiarize, so we don’t use someone else’s work and call it our own. After rephrasing and rethinking, teachers need to hear what a student says to know if they understand.

Why Play Paraphrase Games?

Teachers must often hear students synthesize and rewrite words to evaluate if they grasp it. Most people aren’t born knowing how to paraphrase. These activities and games teach and reinforce paraphrase.

Most of us aren’t born knowing how to paraphrase, though. Use these games and activities to help your students learn and practice paraphrasing.

1. Paraphrasing Races

The teacher puts the students into groups and gives each group a sentence. They have three minutes to come up with as many different ways to say the sentence as they can. Each good way of putting it is worth one point. The winner is the team with the most points.

2. Fun Question and Answer

At its core, paraphrasing means rewriting something in your own words, so have students start by doing that. Split your students into pairs and ask them questions.

Questions like “What did you do yesterday after school?” Tell me your vacation plans etc.

• Student A gives a three- or four-sentence answer to the question.
• Student B rewrites what Student A said.
• Then, each pair changes roles.

You should show the class how to do this a few times before you start.

3. Quiz, Quiz, Trade Game

This is another version of the “Talk at First” Game. Start by:

• Giving each student a piece of paper with a sentence on it.
• Have students find partners.
• Student A says her sentence, and Student B rewrites it in his or her own words.

The students then switch places. Then, they trade cards and go on to find different partners.

4. The Use of Index Cards

Ask students to take something their parent or sibling says and put it in their own words. Send them home with two index cards. On one, have them write down the original idea and on the other, how they changed it. Share the next day in class.

5. Identify Me

Make index cards with samples of academic text, like a few sentences from your science or social studies book.

Instructions

Give each group both a set of sample text cards and a set of blank index cards. Have each group choose someone to be the first judge and someone else to be the reader.

The judge picks a ready-made card and reads it out loud. Then, the judge puts it in the middle of the group so that everyone can see it.

Everyone in the group (except the reader) rewrites the text in their own words and writes it on a blank index card.

The card is then put in the reader. The reader reads each quoted card aloud, and the judge tries to guess who authored it. Give points for each right answer. Switch roles and keep playing until all of the task cards are used up.

6. Paraphrase Together

Try rewriting a short paragraph as a whole class. Use your document, camera or write it on the board to show the paragraph. You might want to give each student a copy. Make sure your pupils are aware of the distinction between paraphrasing and summarizing . Talk about the different ways to do things.

The students are to use the Four R’s to paraphrase correctly.

Reword the sentences

• Students should try to reword the sentences. Use synonyms for words and phrases whenever you can.

Rearrange the sentences

• Students should be able to change the order of the words in a sentence to make a new sentence. They can even switch the order of the ideas in a paragraph.

Realize that s ome words are unchangeable

• Students should be aware that some words and phrases cannot be changed. Words such as names, dates, titles, etc., but they can be rephrased in a different way.

Recheck for same meaning

• Make sure that the meaning of your paraphrase is the same as the original.

Paraphrase games are a great way to practice and develop your paraphrasing skills . They provide a space to reflect on and improve on your writing skills as well as work on teamwork, and creativity.

With a bit of creative thinking and originality, these games provide a lot of possibility for unforgettable moments.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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I Used My Own Words! Paraphrasing Informational Texts

• Resources & Preparation
• Instructional Plan
• Related Resources

Paraphrasing helps students make connections with prior knowledge, demonstrate comprehension, and remember what they have read. Through careful explanation and thorough modeling by the teacher in this lesson, students learn to use paraphrasing to monitor their comprehension and acquire new information. They also realize that if they cannot paraphrase after reading, they need to go back and reread to clarify information. In pairs, students engage in guided practice so that they can learn to use the strategy independently. Students will need prompting and encouragement to use this strategy after the initial instruction is completed. The lesson can be extended to help students prepare to write reports about particular topics.

Featured Resources

• San Diego Zoo: Animal Bytes  
• National Geographic Kids: Creature Features  
• Australia Zoo: Amazing Animals

From Theory to Practice

• Paraphrasing helps readers monitor their comprehension.  
• Paraphrasing encourages readers to make connections with prior knowledge.  
• Paraphrasing helps readers remember what they have read.
• In effective strategy instruction, the teacher explains the purpose of the strategy, how to use it, and when and where to use it  
• In effective strategy instruction, the teacher models strategy use for students and provides guided practice before expecting students to use the strategy independently.

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

Materials and Technology

• Computers with Internet access  
• Whiteboard (or overhead) for projection of text and shared writing  
• Print or digital texts on instructional levels of students in the class  
• Individual copies of texts (if computers are not available)

Preparation

Student objectives.

Students will

• Demonstrate comprehension by paraphrasing facts from informational texts  
• Gain knowledge and apply what they have learned about paraphrasing by reading information about three unusual animals

Session 1: Introduction of Paraphrasing

Session 2: review and guided practice with paraphrasing, session 3: review and guided practice with paraphrasing, session 4: review and independent practice with paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing is a good way to prepare students to write written reports. When students put information into their own words, they are not copying directly from a text. After the previous four sessions, a possible extension would be to identify another topic (such as countries, planets, plants), have students brainstorm what kind of questions would be interesting to answer about these, assign print materials or websites for students to read and paraphrase, take notes to answer the questions, and prepare written reports. These would be more formal than the quick writes that were done in the paraphrasing sessions.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• Throughout the sessions, when students are working in pairs or independently, make note of whether or not they are using their own words in paraphrasing. Be ready to intervene with additional modeling and practice if students are having difficulty paraphrasing.  
• The quick writes at the end of the sessions should be collected to see whether students are using their own words, whether they have understood the text they read, and what information they have learned about the animals. Compare the prior knowledge that you assessed at the beginning of each session with the information included in the quick writes to see what new information has been learned.

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Teaching Students to Paraphrase

Ideas for scaffolding paraphrasing so that students correctly learn this valuable but difficult-to-master skill.

When discussing text in the classroom, it’s tough for students to shift from utilizing an author’s words (copying) to accepting the challenge to express that author’s idea in their own words (paraphrasing).

But teaching effective paraphrasing is necessary because the use of paraphrasing facilitates important literacy skills : It encourages repeated reading, develops note-taking habits as students track quotes and outline text details, and expands vocabulary as they consider appropriate ways to describe the original text. The skill may seem daunting to students because it takes time to find the appropriate words to reshape a sentence, but that is time well spent.

We also need to teach paraphrasing, of course, so that students develop the skill set required to avoid committing plagiarism unintentionally .

Student Tools

One way to support students is to make them aware of tools that may help when they’re paraphrasing. Think of these as training wheels—students won’t use them forever.

Academic Phrasebank : Ready-made phrases help students organize their sentences when they paraphrase. The site provides sentence starters for defining ideas, comparing and contrasting ideas, describing cause and effect, and explaining evidence to support statements.

For instance, if a student were paraphrasing vocabulary word X, they would be able to find sentence starters such as “The word X encompasses...,” “The word X is challenging to define because...,” and “The word X is intended to....”

Ashford University Writing Center : This website has a five-item quiz to review the paraphrasing process. It allows students to identify examples and non-examples of paraphrasing for a given text.

When examining non-examples, students are shown how replacing or rearranging words is akin to copying and pasting on a computer. Students see examples of effective paraphrasing, including a change of sentence structure or personal elaboration combined with limited quoted information.

Tone Analyzer : This tool allows students to enter a brief sample from a text and receive an analysis of the tone. When using this tool, students can request an assessment of whether the text illustrates anger, joy, sadness, etc. In addition to these emotions, the website includes language descriptors such as confident (used to describe texts that use active voice and/or words such as will , must , etc.) or tentative (texts with words such as seems , appears , might , etc.). This tool is useful in helping students successfully align the tone of their paraphrased material with the tone of the original text.

Student Self-Check Prompts

Students should outgrow the tools above, and teachers can encourage that growth by showing them how to monitor their own progress with paraphrasing. Students can self-check to determine how on track with paraphrasing they are by asking themselves these questions:

• Can I identify elements of the text that are most significant (and thus appropriate to preserve) when I put it in my own words?
• Can I recite elements of the text from memory in order to prepare to put it into my own words?
• How can I adjust the sentence structure to preserve the meaning of the text?

Student Cautions

Because the journey to paraphrasing may involve a few hiccups, it’s a good idea to identify potential student challenges. When paraphrasing, remind students that they should:

• Attempt to describe the text in their own words gradually, one component at a time (thanks to Doug Lemov and Maggie Johnson for this close reading strategy). For instance, they might first use their own words to describe significant phrases in the reading, and then make an effort to explain one or two key sentences, and finally attempt to paraphrase an entire paragraph.
• Monitor the similarities between the text and the paraphrase. For instance, after describing specific sentences or paragraphs, they should note how many words are shared. Instead of using the same words as the author, focus on mirroring the same main idea. The Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning at Yale offers easy-to-follow models for how to achieve this.
• Ensure that there is a sufficient number of word substitutions in the paraphrased material. (Substituting only a couple of words could constitute plagiarism.) Students should focus on changing the structure of the sentence . This may involve converting a simple sentence to a compound sentence or adding a prepositional phrase.
• Avoid adjusting special language (acronyms, figurative language, jargon, etc.). These kinds of terms are considered common knowledge, so using them in a paraphrase doesn’t constitute plagiarism. Resources such as the Purdue Online Writing Lab can help students figure out whether a particular term is common knowledge.

Teachers can push students to move beyond copying by encouraging them to see paraphrasing as the go-to reading response. When we equip students with needed resources, we make student voice the rule instead of the exception.

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Paraphrasing Worksheets

Language arts categories, free weekly worksheets, worksheets by email, what is paraphrasing.

People love to discuss something new every day. They gossip television shows, heard stories, news with the other persons. This talk further proceeds in the curiosity of what, how, and why the incident occurred? It happened between friends, family, and colleagues to refresh their minds. Whatever theme the discussion has included storyline, events, main characters, crucial points, considerations, etc. The author uses his or her own words or informal writing (under rules and regulations). All of such a structure of writing something or explaining something will be in your own words. During all of this process, you convey someone's message or express someone's ideas. Don't forget to maintain your ideas and source meaning while paraphrasing. You will use the main idea at the time of specific needs in your own words. How can you paraphrase a source? Give two or three times to read the original paragraph until and unless you understand it. After a thorough understanding, start writing the main idea by using your own words. Avoid generating the order of emphasis and ideas. Go through all unknown words. Observe each word that makes a clear sense of your writing. Check the tone of each paragraph, and it must be intuitive with a correct flow of understanding. Change as per the requirement, such as appropriate tone, meaning variation, and words or phrases related to the original words.

When you paraphrase, you restate an author’s words in your own words without changing the meaning of the passage or including any of your own thoughts or ideas about it. When you paraphrase something, you only relay the main idea, not the entire passage.

Paraphrasing from Sources

Read each passage. On a separate page, paraphrase each passage. Try not to look back at the original while you are paraphrasing.

: The passage below is from The Practice and Science of Drawing by Harold Speed. Read the passage. Then paraphrase what you have read.

Where Is It?

Highlight the portion of the text that you would like to focus on. Then paraphrase the ideas on the notecard below.

In Your Own Words

Paraphrase each passage.

Paraphrasing Practice

Read the passage. Highlight what you think is most important. Then paraphrase the highlighted information below.

Paraphrasing and Synonyms

One strategy for paraphrasing is to use synonyms. Rewrite each sentence below, replacing each underlined word or phrase with a synonymous word or phrase.

What are the author’s main supporting points?

Use Synonyms

Rewrite each sentence below, replacing each underlined word with a synonym.

The Manifesto

The passage below is taken from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Paraphrase the passage.

50 million people in the U.S. eat fast food daily, which equates to about one in every seven people. It’s not surprising, then, the fast food restaurants have a combined revenue in the U.S. of $110 billion dollars every year.

What does the main character(s) decide to do about their problem?

Paraphrasing for Research

When You Do It!

When you paraphrase, you convey the main ideas of a passage in your own words. A paraphrase should contain all the most important information in a brief format. Use the organizer below to identify what you want to make sure that you include when you paraphrase the passage. Write your paraphrase below.

Paraphrasing Worksheets

The Communist Manifesto

Restate The Passage

Synonymous Words

Make It Brief

Just The Main Idea

Key Details

Take Notes And Think

Listing Supporting Points

Learn The Process

Articulate The Structure

Paraphrase The Story

Conduct A Research

5 Wh And 1 H

Consulting Sources

All about these 15 worksheets.

Paraphrasing involves rephrasing the words of others to convey the same meaning in a new and original way. It’s an important skill to develop for writing essays, research papers, and for understanding complex texts. We work on a wide variety of skills including:

Passages to Paraphrase –  These include short passages that students are asked to paraphrase. This helps students practice putting ideas into their own words.

Comparing Paraphrases – Students might be given an original passage and several paraphrased versions, and asked to identify the best paraphrase. This can help students understand what makes a good paraphrase.

Paraphrase and Original Side by Side – These include an original text and a paraphrase side by side, asking students to identify the similarities and differences. This can help students understand how to maintain the original meaning while changing the wording.

Originality Awareness –  The focus here is on distinguishing between paraphrasing and plagiarism, teaching students the importance of changing the structure and words of the original text significantly, and of giving credit to the original source.

What Are the 3 Ways of Paraphrasing?

Here are three common techniques for paraphrasing:

1. Change the Word Order

Changing the sentence structure can be an effective way to paraphrase. Be careful to ensure that the new sentence still accurately represents the original meaning.

2. Use Synonyms

Replace words with their synonyms, but be careful about the words that have no exact synonym or whose meanings vary based on context. Always double-check to make sure that the synonyms fit the context and preserve the original meaning.

3. Change the Voice

If the sentence is in active voice, you can change it to passive voice, and vice versa. However, you should use this method judiciously as overuse of the passive voice can make your writing seem weak or awkward.

Let’s take an example sentence to illustrate these techniques:

Original sentence: “The cat chased the mouse.”

Change the Word Order: “The mouse was chased by the cat.”

Use Synonyms: “The feline pursued the rodent.”

Change the Voice: “The mouse was being chased by the cat.”

Remember, even when you paraphrase, you must provide appropriate citation. Paraphrasing is not just about changing words but about fully understanding and conveying the original idea in your own style. Even if you’ve put the idea into your own words, it’s still someone else’s idea, so it’s important to give credit where it’s due.

What Are the 5 Steps of Paraphrasing?

Step 1: Read and Understand the Original Text

First, thoroughly read the original text to ensure you fully understand the meaning. You might need to read difficult or complex texts several times before you grasp the core idea.

Step 2: Identify the Main Ideas

Once you understand the text, identify the main ideas that you want to include in your paraphrase. This step might involve taking notes or highlighting key points in the text.

Step 3: Write Without Looking at the Original

Put the original text aside and write the paraphrase in your own words. This helps to ensure that you’re not just substituting words with synonyms but truly expressing the idea in a new way.

Step 4: Compare With the Original

After writing, compare your paraphrase with the original text. Make sure you have accurately represented the main ideas and details, and that your paraphrase is significantly different from the original. Check that you haven’t inadvertently used the same phrases or sentence structures.

Step 5: Cite the Source

Even though you are paraphrasing, the ideas are still someone else’s, so it’s important to appropriately cite the source of the information. The citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago) you use will depend on the academic discipline or the preference of your instructor or institution.

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Paraphrase and Summary Exercises

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

The exercises in this section provide opportunities for second language writers (ESL) of various proficiency levels to practice with paraphrase and summary writing.

Exercises in this section were developed by Kamal Belmihoub. Last Update May 29, 2014.

Basic-level Paraphrase and Summary Writing

Paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing refers to rewriting a given sentence using your own words. When we need to use a sentence in our writing that someone else wrote, we paraphrase it. That is, we use the same idea(s) in that sentence and write it differently. In addition to using different words, we use different grammar. The main purpose of paraphrasing has to do with being able to use someone else’s ideas while we write our own texts. Of course, it is required that any writer acknowledges the original source using the proper citation format.

This paraphrase has too many words, such as “PayLess is closed because of” are repeated. It is important to use different words and grammatical structure, while keeping the same meaning of the original sentence.

As can be seen in the above example, in addition to using different words, the grammatical structure of the sentence was changed by starting with the second part (dependent clause) of the original sentence.

Summarizing

A summary should be a short version of a longer original source. Its main goal is to present a large amount of information in a short and concise text that includes only the most important ideas of the original text.

Intermediate-level Paraphrase Exercises

Source Material

Inappropriate paraphrase

The inappropriate paraphrase is too close to the original sentence. Several words are the same and the complex structure of the sentence is the same. Deleting some words from the original sentence is not enough to write an appropriate paraphrase.

Appropriate paraphrase

The appropriate paraphrase uses a different structure for the sentence, and most words are different from the original.

Paraphrase Summary Exercises List of Works Consulted

List of works consulted.

“American History Series: The United States Turns Inward After World War One.” Voice of America, 24 Nov. 2010. Web. 1 April 2013.

“Budgets Slash English Classes for Immigrants.” 8 Apr.. 2013. Web. 1 May 2013.

“Bullying.” Science Daily, n.d. Web. 30 May 2013.

“Business English Speakers Can Still be Divided by a Common Language.” Voice of America, 1 Mar. 2011. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“Camaraderie of sports Teams May Deter Bullying.” Science Daily, 5 May 2013. Web. 30 May 2013.

“Childhood Bullying Increases the Propensity to Self-Harm During Adolescence.” Science Daily, 28 May 2013. Web. 30 May 2013.

“Exposure to Two Languages Can Have Far-Reaching Benefits.” Northwestern, 20 May 2009. Web. 1 May 2013.

“Global Economic Forum Rates Global Risks for 2013.” Voice of America, 11 Jan. 2013. Web. 30 May 2013.

“Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!” Voice of America, 25 Jan. 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“Lifestyle Habits Lower Heart Failure Risk.” Science Daily, 13 Sep. 2011. Web. 30 May 2013.

“More Wins for TEA Party Activists, but Will They Win in November?” Voice of America, 17 Sep. 2010. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“Movies Become Big Business in the 1920s.” Voice of America, 7 Dec. 2010. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“New Anti-Cancer Components of Extra-Virgin Olive Oil Revealed.” Science Daily, 27 Dec. 2008. Web. 30 May 2013.

“New Hampshire Chinese Language School Attracts non-Chinese Students.” 30 Oct. 2009. Web. 1 May 2013.

“Quitting Smoking: Licensed Medications are Effective.” Science Daily, 30 May 2013. Web. 30 May 2013.

“Soccer Training Improves Heart Health of Men with Type 2 Diabetes.” Science Daily, 30 May 2013. Web. 30 May 2013.

“Tornado Season Returns, Voice of America.” Voice of America. 30 Apr. 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“What is the Human Relations Commission?” City of West Lafayette Indiana, 6 Mar. 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“Women Edge Past Men in Getting Doctorates, Voice of America.” Voice of America, 5 Oct. 2010. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

“World’s Population Reaches 7 Billion Voice of America. 4 Jan. 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

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Paraphrasing and Summarizing Exercises with Answers

Paraphrasing and Summarizing are two skills that are highly useful for writers. With these two techniques, writers can get help creating their content and providing it to their readers in an easy-to-peruse way.

However, if you happen to be new to the field of writing, you could be a little unaware and untrained in both these skills. But don’t worry. Everyone starts out as a beginner.

In this post, we’re going to be looking at some  paraphrasing and summarizing  exercises along with their answers and explanations. By following along, you’ll get a good idea about how you can use these techniques in your own capacity.

Let’s begin!

What is Paraphrasing and Summarizing?

Before we get to the exercises, let’s digress a little and understand what paraphrasing and summarization actually are.

Let’s start with paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing  is the process in which a particular piece of content is reworded and rephrased in such a way that it looks different from its original version but it has the same meaning and context.

A simple example of paraphrasing would be to change “John likes his cat” to “John adores his feline pet”. Paraphrasing can be as slight as merely changing some words in the text, or it can be as drastic as fully changing the tone, structure, order, and words of the content.

On the other hand,  Summarizing  is the process in which a piece of content is shrunk and shortened to about one-tenth of its original size. In this shortened version, the main idea and concept of the content is provided.

Summarization is usually used by authors and writers when they want to give a brief outline of a book or article to their readers.

Now that we’ve looked at the definitions of both, let’s move ahead to look at some exercises.

Paraphrasing Exercises (with Answers)

The main purpose of providing these exercises along with their answers is to help you understand what these techniques look like when they are implemented. Since we have explained their core definition above, you can try and work along the exercises to improve your skills a little as well.

Related:  Difference Between Paraphrasing And Rephrasing

Paraphrasing Exercise # 1:

Here is a sample paragraph that we will be paraphrasing as an exercise. We’ll write the paragraph alone first, and then provide the answer after a brief explanation.

Sample Paragraph:

"John could not find the butter in his fridge. He went to buy some from the store. On coming back, he saw his cat sitting on the floor, smacking its lips. There was some yellow stuff smeared all around its face. Thus, John solved the mystery of the missing butter."

So, as we mentioned earlier, paraphrasing can be done simply and sparingly, or it can be done drastically.

One of the primary and basic ways of paraphrasing is to simply change some words in the provided content with their synonyms. This is, we reiterate, a very basic level of paraphrasing, and it is often very easy to see through it.

So, for this first exercise, we are going to be doing only that level of paraphrasing as a way to illustrate how it looks like.

Here is what the above paragraph looks like when paraphrased:

Paraphrased Paragraph:

"John could not locate the butter in the refrigerator. He went to purchase some from the shop. On coming back, he observed his cat sitting on the ground, licking its lips. There was some yellow material smeared all around its face. Hence, John solved the mystery of the missing butter."

While we are on this discussion, it will also be salubrious to understand that when changing words with their synonyms for the purpose of paraphrasing, you have to be careful that you pick those that don’t mess up the context and intent of the lines.

Paraphrasing Exercise # 2:

Moving on, let’s look at another paraphrasing exercise. Here is the paragraph that we will be using for this one:

"John’s cat got lost in the forest. He went looking for it in the night time. He heard some movement in one of the bushes. He put his hand in and felt the fur. He pulled the thing out, thinking it to be his cat. After coming home, he realized it was an angry raccoon."

We mentioned in the last exercise that the basic level of paraphrasing is to change some of the words in the given text with their synonyms. And we also mentioned how that sort of paraphrasing can be easily detected.

So, for writers who want to paraphrase something in such a way that it does not resemble its original form a lot, there’s a step further that they can go, and that is to change the sentence structures + phrases.

Essentially, by changing the phrases used in the content as well as the arrangement of the sentences, the overall look of the paraphrased piece looks very different. If someone wants to go even ahead of that, they can shuffle the sentence  order  as well.

Considering this type of ‘extensive’ paraphrasing, here is the answer to the paragraph given above:

"John’s cat went missing in the forest. He went to search for it when it was dark. He discerned some movement in the hedge. After putting his hand inside it, he felt some fur. Thinking that it was his cat, he pulled the animal out. It was only after coming home that he realized that it was a frustrated raccoon."

Read more: How And Why to Paraphrase Your Content?

Summarizing Exercises (with Answers)

Now that we have looked at the paraphrasing exercises, let’s move on to look at some for summarizing.

Just as we’ve looked at two types of paraphrasing above, we’ll also look at two different types of summarizing.

Actually, it’ll be better if we explain those two types before getting to the exercises.

Basically, there are  two types of summaries . One of them is called  extractive  and the other is called  abstractive .

In extractive summarization, the summary of a piece of content is generated merely by taking out some sentences from it and joining them together. This is usually the type of summaries that you get from automated tools.

When extractive summaries are created, there is no effort to understand the actual meaning and context of the text. Rather, the purpose is only to take some lines from it and join them together in such a way that they make sense.

On the other hand, abstractive summaries are those that are written using a completely new and different set of words, phrases and sentences than the content (that is being summarized). As opposed to extractive summarization, abstractive summarization involves understanding the meaning and context of the text, and then creating a completely new summary that features all those concepts and ideas.

Summarizing Exercise # 1 (Extractive)

In order to demonstrate and explain extractive summarization, we’re going to first write a paragraph here and then provide its summary afterwards:

Sample paragraph:

"John’s car broke down. He stopped by the road side and screamed at people to stop and help him. But no one stopped for him. He continued howling and howling for hours. People kept driving by. After getting tired, he picked up a sheet and wrapped it around himself. Then, he started spinning on his spot. He grew dizzy. He kept spinning and spinning until he fell asleep."

Now, since we have to use the “extractive” summarization technique here, we’ll create the summary using the lines and sentences used in the content itself.

"John’s car broke down. But no one stopped for him. Then, he started spinning on the spot. He kept spinning and spinning until he fell asleep."

Summarizing Exercise # 2 (Abstractive)

For this exercise, we will use the same para that we did above. However, the technique used for the summarization will be different.

Since we will be using the abstractive technique here, the summary will be created using different words and phrases as the original.

"John’s vehicle went phut. But, no one stopped their car to help him. After he was tired, he made himself dizzy by spinning and then went to sleep."

So, that’s about it.

If you were a little confused about paraphrasing and summarization techniques, hopefully you’re a little more confident about them now.

These skills can come in handy for writers in a lot of different situations. If you don’t have the hang of them already, you should try and get it as quick as you can.

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Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is finding another way to say something when you don't know how to say it.

Paraphrasing is not only an essential skill for all speakers but also key to learners developing communicative ability beyond their existing knowledge of language.

Example The learner is describing a photograph of a glider and doesn't know the word, so paraphrases by saying ‘an airplane that uses the wind'.

In the classroom One way to practise paraphrasing is through word games. For example, in a definition game learners have to provide paraphrases, so that others can guess the original word. This can be done in written form in crossword activities as well.

Further links: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/heroes-villains-pride-prejudice-0 https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/windrush-generation https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/green-great https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/creativity-language-classroom  

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The Fine Art of Underscheduling

The parents who are saying no to extracurriculars..

During the darkest depths of COVID, my husband and I had the same conversation over and over. I predicted the iron grip of Activities Culture would loosen after lockdown, and parents would become more intentional about protecting family time against overscheduling. My husband took the other side, hard. “Everything will snap right back like a rubber band,” he said, and four years later, there’s no question about who was right. Things didn’t just “snap back.” It’s like we all got launched out of a catapult, as the activity/sports industrial complex roared back into life, sweeping away game nights and family grocery shopping in its inexorable gears. If anything, logistics feel more stressful now than they did before COVID, as families play catch-up after the isolation of the pandemic. But something has to give.

No parent I have spoken to says this is the system they want, where families split up on the weekends to shuttle kids to different games and orchestrate a complex ballet of carpools to activities and practices after school during the week. Instead, it feels more like a runaway train no one knows how to get off. But lately, I have noticed a change. They may be the tip of the spear, or just a small group of outliers, but some families are simply saying: Enough.

The youth sports industry in the U.S. has exploded over the past two decades, becoming an economic juggernaut now worth at least $ 19 billion —larger than the annual revenues of the NBA or NFL. Club and travel teams are economically incentivized to start recruiting kids younger, and according to a 2022 study by the Aspen Institute, families spend an average of $883 for every sport a child plays. More than 50 percent of children play sports in the U.S., and 40 percent of those kids play one sport year-round. As Linda Flanagan, author of Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania are Ruining Kids Sports—and Why it Matters , has reported , having a competitive athlete in the family can cause strain on parents and siblings , as well as the athlete . Access to sports has also become an equity issue, as expensive club teams and travel sports replace more affordable and less time-intensive recreational leagues, not to mention the unstructured, child-led pickup games kids used to play. But the problem here is not just about sports, qua sports; it’s more about the grind. According to a study published this year in the Economics of Education Review , overscheduling extracurriculars of all kinds is linked to depression and anxiety in youth.

Alongside of this, the college counseling industry— valued at $2.9 billion —is amplifying the message from colleges that teens must “brand” themselves starting freshman year of high school, making the stakes even higher when it comes to extracurriculars. As Sarah Bernstein, a college essay advisor, wrote in a cracklingly funny and extremely depressing recent essay in the New York Times, the idea that teenagers can have the space to try new things—or simply do less—in high school starts to feel like a risky bet to parents.

Gail Cornwall, a San Francisco–based journalist who focuses on education and child development, talked to me about the dilemma parents face. Cornwall, who is raising five children in a blended family, is one of the people I mean when I say that I’ve noticed that some parents are pulling back. She has been intentional about protecting her family’s time—choosing activities that are walkable or accessible via public transportation; giving her kids unstructured afternoons at the playground; and supporting her two high school–age girls when they decided to quit their respective sports this spring.

The challenge is this approach flies in the face of so many of the messages parents are getting about admissions to selective colleges. At a recent event hosted by her 17-year-old daughter’s high school, “the college counselor was talking about kids’ essays, saying that teens should tie their passions and interests to what they want to major in,” she says. “To be pre-med, these teens are expected to already have volunteered in a hospital or a lab. It’s all part of the professionalization of adolescence.” While Cornwall acknowledges that so much of the résumé-building that now starts (in some places) in elementary school is driven by parental anxiety, she adds: “We also aren’t making this shit up.”

“You hear that your child not only has to have perfect grades and perfect scores, but also has to be ‘pointy,’ to stick out in an extremely specialized way,” one Bay Area mother, who has a daughter in college and a son who will apply next year, told me. “Everyone is gunning for these super selective colleges, but the truth is, 80 to 90 percent of these kids are not going to get in. If families knew that from the start, we could spare ourselves a whole lot of weekend tournaments and after-school carpools to this or that, and instead just have a much nicer eight years together before our kids leave home.” Her son has drafted a very pragmatic list of colleges to apply to, and they are trying not to get as sucked in this time.

It’s fashionable now to blame overanxious, achievement-focused parents for everything, but our college admissions process has become so brutally uncertain , the stress of it reverberates well beyond ride-or-die Ivy Leaguers. And when you look at the messaging parents receive from high school and college counselors, the overscheduling obsession—with its focus on sports specialization or creating a musical, artistic, or philanthropic phenom—starts to make sense. Maybe, as Cornwall explains, parents are making rational decisions based on the ridiculous fact that a teenager who has started their own nonprofit is more attractive to a group of hypothetical admissions officers than a kid who has been babysitting regularly since they were 14. (Personally, I’d take the babysitter 10 times out of 10.)

But just like we may finally be waking up from our long slumber about how godawful phones and social media are for kids , families are starting to push back against overscheduling. Two mothers I know recently pulled their elementary school–aged kids from club sports, one holding fast to her decision even when the coach warned her not to “close any doors.” When Cornwall posted on X about how proud she was of her daughters for quitting their high school sports teams—a sentence that has been uttered by no one in America, ever—she received support, not the usual “bad mother” vitriol. Small groups of parents are banding together to create spaces for unstructured free play. To paraphrase Matilda, the scent of rebellion is in the air.

Activities Culture is not, on its face, a bad thing—we all know art and music and running around outside are positive for kids. But you don’t need a whole bunch of classes to do that when kids are young. When kids are just getting started with sports and lessons, many people sign up because of social pressure among parents, and the fact that a family life full of extracurriculars feels like the norm. Even when stress over college is years in the future, there is still a very palpable sense that being a “good” parent means giving your child an opportunity to take ballet, or piano, or play sports. And participation in scheduled activities can feel like it’s signaling the intensity and commitment of your parenting, and maybe even a certain position in life, given the uncomfortable fact that travel sports and extracurriculars take a ton of time and money, often shutting out less affluent families who may not have flexible work schedules. Given all of this, the first step off the treadmill might be to flock to the people who believe what you believe.

“I don’t know if it’s coincidental or if I migrate toward parents with a similar philosophy, but the parents I spend time with don’t overschedule their kids with activities,” says Jessica Gomez, a mother of a 6-year-old who lives with her family in metro Detroit. “The kids in our neighborhood are still young, so the parents watch them as they play outside, and it’s created a bond for all of us.” Gomez says her son is creative, and that having a packed schedule can hinder that. “I have felt pressure at times; I’ll see his classmates taking violin or piano lessons and think, I should get him into that. But it’s only something I’m willing to explore when another activity has ended.”

Gomez is holding the line, but that pressure is a real thing. A single mom who lives in the Boston area with her two daughters, ages 4 and 1, told me she is the only parent in her daughter’s class who doesn’t do activities, both because the logistics feel too thorny and because her daughter hasn’t asked . “Sometimes I do feel bad that we haven’t participated in ballet, ceramics, or soccer,” she says, but as a professional artist, she knows her kids are also getting a lot of stimulation at home. Another mom who works full time outside the home says, “I judge my friends for having their elementary school kids in so many activities, but also worry that they’re judging me for not doing that.”

Even for parents who resist overscheduling, it can be hard to find a middle road, because sports and activities ramp up so quickly. Having a few fellow travelers helps. Cornwall explains how she and a small group of parents in her daughter’s third-grade class all opted out of the club sports route, keeping their kids in the less-intensive rec sports track. “There’s a group of kids in her grade who are all really athletic, and the parents have kept them out of club sports so they can do rec sports together,” she says. “And the kids who aren’t as good are also playing on the team; they haven’t been boxed out.” It also allows kids to try a bunch of sports, instead of focusing on one.

But club sports are businesses that need revenue year-round, so the push to specialize starts early. “When people pressure your child to specialize at a young age, they are in the money game,” says Scott Lancaster , co-author, along with Luis Fernando Llosa and Kim John Payne, of Beyond Winning: Smart Parenting in a Toxic Sports Environment . “They’re just out for your money. It’s not in the best interest of the athletes or the teams.” Not only do the practice schedules and repetitive drills that come with club sports often result in injury and burnout, these authors explain, but early specialization crowds out time for unstructured play and exposure to other sports, which build the kind of creativity, flexibility, and skills that are essential to becoming a good athlete. (Lancaster, Llosa and Payne also founded Whole Child Sports, whose mission is to raise awareness about the challenges in youth sports and offer parents and coaches solutions.)

Payne, who also wrote the book Simplicity Parenting , argues that if you can hold off on organized sports until age 11 or 12, it allows your child “that whole learning window for creativity, resilience, negotiation, the things they learn during unstructured play.” Starting competitive sports early can interrupt the social-emotional learning development that comes from play, he explains, and they don’t even pay off the way most families think they will. “For children who start competitive sports before age 13, the dropout rate is 70 percent,” says Lancaster.

That doesn’t mean kids shouldn’t touch a ball before middle school. Before his five children were in middle school, Llosa, his wife Mary, and other parents formed a loose group of seven or eight families who let their kids play sports together in Manhattan’s Central Park, with no formal coaching or supervision, “just a parent on a bench keeping an eye out.” While it was a little extra work on the front end, “it gave the kids the ability and opportunity to argue, to figure out how the games were going to work.” While I am loath to suggest more work for overburdened parents, Payne argues that this idea of a rotating neighborhood play group is a lot more time-efficient than schlepping kids to endless games and practices.

Perhaps this is the time to mention that I loved sports growing up, and played lots of them. I also loved singing, piano, and writing a novel in No. 2 pencil that borrowed heavily from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe . Learning to be on a team, exposure to the arts—these are great things for kids. The issue is with how early extracurriculars ramp up, crowding out the downtime needed for free play and creativity, and how quickly they are packaged as résumé-builders instead of messy, joyful exploration. One mother of two who lives in Westchester, New York, told me that while she likes the rigor, consistency, and physical outlet that travel sports provide for her kids, “they say creativity requires downtime to let your mind wander, and that has been in very short supply for years.”

But another challenge for parents these days is that technology has transformed that precious downtime. When my brother and I were home as kids, we were reading and making couch-pillow forts; we weren’t scrolling TikTok. Screens have basically killed the childhood art of puttering, and forced a starker calculus upon parents, who would rather have their kids in a structured activity than glued to their phones or iPads. “There’s a wave building up of parents who are prizing their children away from screens and sticking them right in sports,” says Payne. “But there’s middle ground there—scrimmages, sandlot games, other activities. I’m trying to encourage more parents not to go directly to competitive sports.”

There are other reasons it’s so hard to jump off the train once it starts moving. “I hate to say bragging rights matter,” the mom who lives in Westchester told me. “But the social status hierarchies of middle school are a real thing. As much as I want to pretend I don’t care, I know it means a lot to my kids to have the travel sports anointment.”

Leena Feeley, a junior who attends high school in San Francisco (and one of the daughters in Gail Cornwall’s blended family), also notes how important sports are at her school, saying how proud she was when she made varsity softball her sophomore year. “But I didn’t enjoy it anymore because I’d been playing essentially my whole life,” she says. “I was under the impression that I needed to keep playing for colleges, and that was the only thing keeping me there, until I thought, Why am I 16 and committing hours and hours to something I don’t enjoy? ” She quit this year and is now spending some of that freed up time writing, getting her homework done earlier, and focusing on a service club she leads at school.

It’s a brave choice, the kind I would hope colleges actually want to see. “You really do feel the pressure to specialize from college,” says Feeley. “There are kids who aren’t really applying as themselves, they’re just applying with what they’ve forced themselves to commit to. It’s not really who they are.”

I hope when it’s time for my kids to start applying to high school and college, I can remember this. Because while we are drowning in logistics like every other American family, compared to other parents I know, we aren’t even that busy! No travel athletes live in our house. My 9-year-old daughter flat-out told me after kindergarten that soccer cut too much into her leisure time, and my 11-year-old son quit after first grade, saying it was too competitive. Four years later, he’s dipping a toe back in with Little League, and enjoying it. We are parents on the outer rim of youth sports. And while there’s a cost to that—we aren’t part of the playdates and plans made on the sidelines; we don’t experience the camaraderie of a team—it’s made space for other things.

My kids play the ukulele and the drums. They make stop-motion movies with elaborate plots. They walk the dog. My daughter participates in a theater program run by a director who’s a cross between Greta Gerwig and a magician. Her plays roll crisply off the assembly line every few months and yet require only weekly rehearsals, not the four- or five-day-a-week commitments that are now common. And sure, sometimes the wizard forgets his lines, or the head of a dummy flies off during an action sequence, but the show goes on, all the more delightful for not being perfect and professionalized.

It’s sad, but as I was reporting this piece, I couldn’t help wondering if one of the reasons my daughter loves acting so much is because her theater program is a nonprofit. I know, after years of covering parenting and education, that I should not feel so surprised and angry that so much of the Age of Overscheduling is powered by naked economics, but I am. Parents want to do their best by their kids, and we have an entire cottage industry that’s profiting off of that, while leaving families who can’t afford travel sports or college consultants out in the cold.

But we do not have to buy in. We do not have to buy in! I understand that no parent wants to feel like they are choosing between their family’s well-being and the playoff games and dance recitals that have become the hallmarks of childhood in America, let alone their kid’s shot at a good college. But there are good schools, like Arizona State University, that have gone the other direction, accepting almost all applicants. And given the risk of burnout and anxiety that overscheduling brings, the formula that’s being relentlessly peddled to parents isn’t even, arguably, the formula that “works” to produce a thriving kid.

So I’m going to suggest a radical idea. Do what’s truly going to make your family happy. If that is competitive sports, like it is for many families I know, that is wonderful. If you are a family who wants to keep to the middle road of rec sports or sandlot games, fight for that as long as you can. And if your kid wants to sit home making houses for stuffed mice out of cardboard, that’s fantastic too. There’s a college essay in there somewhere.