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Free Paraphrasing Tool

Paraphrase text effortlessly with AI Sparks, a powerful paraphraser by ProWritingAid.

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Why choose our paraphrasing tool?

Choose how to paraphrase.

Expand text, enhance readability, or even add descriptive detail.

Paraphrase in the click of a button. If you’re not satisfied with the result, simply try again.

Strengthen your text

Enhance the structure and vocabulary of your text without removing key information.

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Power up your writing with ProWritingAid

Our paraphrasing tool reworks vocabulary, sentence structure, and syntax to create new, high-quality content that resonates with your readers.

Find the best way to express your ideas with AI Sparks, a powerful paraphraser. Explore options to enhance readability, expand text, change tense, or even add descriptive detail.

Correct grammar and spelling

Whether you’re working on a quick email or a full-length novel, ProWritingAid catches grammar and spelling errors as you write so no pesky mistakes slip through.

Evaluate your writing

Assess your writing with 25+ reports, including established readability tests, sentence structure analysis, overused words, and more.

Ideate with AI

Experiment with AI Sparks Continue to find fresh ideas to continue your writing. Add new lines of dialogue, find an interesting analogy, formulate a counterargument, and more.

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I am continually impressed with the positive input this program offers me every time I sit down to write. My skills have improved immensely since I bought it and heartily recommend it to anyone who wants to have more confidence in their own writing.

Ginger Wakem

I’ve tried every free and paid writing/editing/grammar extension out there and this by far is the best one my team and I have found. It’s fast, accurate and really helps improve your writing beyond simple grammar suggestions.

Joel Widmer

ProWritingAid has been a resource in my writer toolkit for many years. The program helps me to craft and clarify my stories for a better reader experience. Your editor will thank you for making their job easier.

Siera London

Works wherever you do

Use our paraphrasing tool to get writing suggestions across all the apps you use.

Paraphrasing Tool FAQs

What is prowritingaid.

ProWritingAid is a grammar checker, paraphraser, and writing coach all in one helpful tool.

By signing up for a ProWritingAid account, you gain access to various features. These include advanced grammar and spelling checks, style suggestions, AI capabilities for rewriting text and generating ideas, as well as over 25 other reports to help you improve and polish your writing.

Is ProWritingAid free?

A free account allows you to edit and run reports on up to 500 words. It also gives you three AI Sparks per day, which is needed to paraphrase text. If you want more, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan .

How do I access the paraphraser in-app?

Highlight the text you want to paraphrase, then click “ Sparks. ” Next, choose how you want to paraphrase. You can expand text, improve readability, change tense, or even add descriptive detail using the Sensory mode.

What software integrations does ProWritingAid offer?

ProWritingAid seamlessly integrates with MS Word, Google Docs, Scrivener, Atticus, Vellum, and more. We also offer browser extensions (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge), so you can work almost anywhere online.

Does ProWritingAid have a plagiarism checker?

Yes! ProWritingAid’s plagiarism checker will check your work against over a billion web pages, published works, and academic papers, so you can be sure of its originality. Find out more about pricing for plagiarism checks here .

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Perfect your writing with Rewrite

Instantly paraphrase emails, articles, messages and more to deliver high-quality written work with confidence.

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Enhance your writing without spending time on improvements and iterations..

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A must-have | Life-changing | Just incredible

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Wordtune is the best in my opinion, when it comes to rewriting content.

It's like having 10 friends all willing to suggest alternatives to a sentence I'm writing, and I can pick the best one without hurting anyone's feelings.  :-)

Though my writing's pretty cogent, I'm always running it through Wordtune to find inspiration and better ways to express myself.

Can't live without wordtune, as someone who writes a-lot of sales related copy wordtune helps me personalize and gives me ideas on how to rewrite words or sentences.

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Paraphrasing Tool

Enhance text clarity and understanding using an AI-driven paraphrasing tool. Perfect for students and professionals, this tool rewrites, edits, and adjusts tone for improved comprehension.

Rephrase sentences, paragraphs, essays, and articles effortlessly with our powerful paraphraser. Prevent plagiarism in blogs, research papers, and more using cutting-edge technology

It works effectively to rewrite the content in a way that removes plagiarism , maintains readability, and makes the content considerably more appealing.

Leverage any of its four paraphrasing modes to rewrite the content as required. It enables you to rewrite the content using the standard, fluency, creative, or smarter paraphrasing modes, each of which resonates with a distinct writing style.

Using groundbreaking AI technology , our paraphrasing tool lets you rewrite the content with the utmost accuracy. It neither changes the context nor compromises the content quality. No matter which type of content you are working on, you can run it through our paraphrasing tool and perfect it by all means.

The users including writers, bloggers, researchers, students, and any layperson can get the best out of our online plagiarism remover for free. It facilitates quick paraphrasing of 1000 words in one attempt.

MAKE YOUR CONTENT UNIQUE, ENGAGING, AND EASY TO READ

Use Paraphrasing.io to rewrite your content in original and improved wording that stands out from the rest. Change the choice of words and the way words are combined to construct sentences, achieving uniqueness and creativity in writing. Rewrite your content to ensure that it is free from potential writing errors and perfectly crafted to meet the target audience's needs.

Remove the Plagiarism

Eliminate duplicate phrases, clauses, and sentences to make the content unique

Improve Content Quality

Correct grammar, punctuation, spelling, and diction errors to enhance the readability score

Modify Writing Style

Modify the choice of words to change the tone and rewrite the content in different writing styles

Paraphrasing.io, the best sentence rephraser, thoroughly analyzes the given content to understand the context and then rewrite it with an intention to:

User-friendly Interface

Anyone can easily find, access, and use this tool to paraphrase the content from a beginner to an expert.

Improved Functionality

This tool uses advanced AI algorithms to ensure that the content is paraphrased without errors and delays.

Error-Free Results

This paraphrasing tool skillfully rewrites the content as it works effectively in terms of accuracy and efficiency.

Multiple Rewriting Modes

Four different rewriting modes are available, which lets you change the tone and style of the writing without changing the context.

Multi Languages Support

There are 15 different languages available, any of which you can choose to rewrite the content as required.

Safety and Privacy

The content is paraphrased with absolute precision and automatically removed from the tool's database upon reloading.

Free Unlimited Access

Users worldwide can access and use this paraphrasing tool without any premium fee and limit.

Optimize the Content

Maintain readability, uniqueness, and creativity in content to make it search-engine-friendly.

How paraphrase online can enhance your writing?

Whoever creates content is well aware of the fact that uniqueness has great importance in writing. This is because duplicate content is not accepted anywhere. Even if a few phrases or sentences are similar to previously published content, it is considered plagiarism. To paraphrase online, you can easily remove plagiarism from the content.

Must be unique words

The content must be created using unique words, whether for the web or any academic assignment. Anyhow, it isn’t easy to write unique content. It is error-prone and time-consuming.

Readability and creativity

Take into account some more essential factors in writing: readability and creativity. The words you choose and how you combine them must be easy-to-read and creative enough to hook and engage the readers. Unfortunately, there can be various writing errors, such as misused and misspelled words in your writing. These writing issues can ruin your content quality, leaving no chance for a high ranking or score.

Unique and appealing

The students, researchers, and content writers can use an online paraphrasing tool to rewrite any content and make it 100% unique and appealing. The online rephrase tool uses advanced “artificial intelligence” algorithms to rewrite a piece of content to make it free from plagiarism and writing errors.

Multiple rewriting modes

For instance, you can use our word paraphraser then. It will take only a second to provide you with a unique and improved version of your content. There are multiple rewriting modes available, any of which you can leverage to change your content's writing style and make it much more captivating for the target audience.

How does our free paraphrasing tool work?

Our free online rephrasing tool is based on artificial intelligence algorithms that help in attaining uniqueness in less time with accuracy. Paraphrasing.io is considered as an AI-based free rewording tool that makes content unique by replacing the words with synonyms while keeping the content quality high. Editpad contributed to the development of this great paraphrasing tool.

Who can provide excellent services ?

There are so many online paraphrase companies that offer help with many writing types of assignments and a host of others that it can be hard to know which to choose. documents, texts, articles - when it comes to paraphrase this, you need a professional such as we have that offers to refresh the given paper using a vast amount of experience in their fields of expertise.

Software and inexperienced writers will paraphrase text and swap individual terms for their synonyms. Not only is that likely to still be seen content piracy as the structure and order of wordings as are still the same but it will often not maintain the original meaning and will often use phrases that are out of context and will make the text meaningless as best.

Why should you consider paraphrasing.io ?

This paraphrasing tool provides various reasons and features by which we can easily differentiate this tool from any other online rephrase tool.

The reasons why you need to choose this sentence rephraser are listed below.

How to use Paraphrase Tool?

To use best paraphrasing tool follow the 4 simple steps given below:

• You can choose from 15 different languages: en id da de es fr it pl pt ro sv vi cs ru th ja ko
• Paste/write it into the text box or upload file in txt, doc, and docx format
• Modes `Regular`, `Formal`, `Creative`, and `Academic` to modify concerning.
• Click "Start Paraphrasing" button to rephrase and get an error-free, unique version of the content

• 🔓 Unlock this mode to make your paraphrasing Fluency - Go Pro
• 🔓 Unlock this mode to make your paraphrasing Creative - Go Pro
• 🔓 Unlock this mode to make your paraphrasing Smarter - Go Pro
• 🔓 Unlock this mode to make your paraphrasing Improver - Go Pro
• 🔓 Unlock this mode to make your paraphrasing Academic - Go Pro
• 🔓 Unlock this mode to make your paraphrasing Shorten - Go Pro
• 🔓 Unlock this mode for random paraphrase words- Go Pro

Paraphrasing tool

The paraphrasing tool (paraphraser) is a sentence changer generator that can rephrase sentences, paragraphs, articles, and essays.

This sentence rephraser helps students and writers to avoid plagiarism while writing blogs and research papers with state-of-the-art technology.

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is expressing ideas and information in your own words and mentioning their source. ( By University of New South Wales )

Why our paraphrasing tool?

Our paraphrasing tool helps to rewrite plagiarism-free content 😊. It can change sentence structure without changing the context of the topic.

Our rewording tool is 100% free and easy to use. Editpad AI reworder helps you reword assignments, sentences, paragraphs, and essays with one click.

How does Paraphrase Tool work?

The paraphraser provides a simple interface.

To use paraphrase tool, follow the below steps:

Features of Paraphrasing Tool Free

Some of the features of this rephrase tool are:

Files Uploading

You can upload a file directly from your computer in the following formats:

You can also upload a file directly from Google Drive with just a single click.

Plagiarism-Free Content

The final output from our rephrasing tool would be completely plagiarism-free.

If not sure about plagiarism in text, you can check it on the  plagiarism checker .

Download Report

Our free rephrasing tool provides an option to download the final report in Docx and Txt format.

Free and Secure

The paraphrase generator is completely free and 100% safe to use for all kinds of rewriting purposes.

Accurate and reliable rephrasing of text

Our tool rephrase text accurately and keep the same meaning and context as the original text. 

10 Different paraphrasing modes:

To provide the best results, we have developed four different modes 😏 Smooth : It paraphrases text that flows well, is grammatically correct, and is easy to read. This type of paraphrasing is often used in academic or professional writing.  Best for students to make assignments and presentations.

😉 Reworder : This mode works as a rewording tool that can help you reword your text or words with their best synonyms that are new, trendy, and engaging.

🤠  Formal : Formal paraphrasing is complex and time-consuming because it requires a deep understanding of the original text, so we have developed a separate mode for it.

😃 Fluency : It can be used to build a strong connection between sentences to improve the readability and clarity of the text.

🤩 Creative : Creative is another unique mode used to diversify the content structure to make it appear more creative.

😎 Smart : This mode is highly accurate and reliable. It allows users to fine-tune the output. It rewrites text using advanced algorithms and natural language processing techniques.

🧐 Improver : This mode will paraphrase and improve your content. Removes grammar mistakes, changes sentence structure and good word choice for better readability. Best for teachers to create study notes.

👨‍🎓 Academic : This mode is specially built for students to rephrase their assignments in an academic tone.

📝 Shorten : It is designed to provide a brief statement of the main points of your text concisely to convey the message in a short and summarized way.

🙃 Randomizer : In this mode, you can rephrase your text with different passages with the same meaning multiple times.

Easy-to-use interface

With our super easy-to-use interface, you can reword content within seconds. 

Uses of Online Paraphrasing Tool

Paraphrasing content manually is not an easy task. It takes both time and effort to do this. Therefore, using the paraphrase online tool can save a lot of time and effort.

Other uses are:

• It helps students to submit plagiarism-free assignments and academic work
• Quickly paraphrase the content
• It helps to learn new sentence structures
• It reduces the chances of plagiarism in the paraphrased content
• 100% free paraphrasing tool

Who uses Paraphrasing Tool?

This sentence rephraser is not the requirement of every writer but it is widely used by:

It is hard to come up with engaging content. This rewording tool helps to write articles on the same topic in unique ways. 

Editpad Online Paraphrase tool helps bloggers to rephrase text in a way that is more easily readable by a general audience.

Freelance Writers

Freelance writers have to write high-quality and original content now and then. It helps them complete content tasks.  Use sentence rephraser to save time in the writing process and spend more time on other important tasks such as research, editing and proofreading.

It allows students to paraphrase essays, assignments, and lengthy writing homework. Our tool helps students to avoid plagiarism and to improve their writing skills.

Using editpad paraphrasing tool students can express their ideas in a better writing style.

Pro tip: Do not forget to check assignments and papers for plagiarism . 

Researchers

Researchers need paraphrasers to prevent plagiarism in their research work and to improve readability. They can also use our tool to quickly summarize large content to identify key points. just want to summarize your text? Try our text summarizer . 

CopyWriters

Copywriters can use our rephrase tool to refresh old content and give it a new angle. Rephraser is super helpful when you have to write bulk content under tight deadlines. Present the same information in a new and unique way.

As a webmaster, you have to always keep content quality, SEO quality, and usability at best. And we are here for you to help.

• Quality content : With a paraphrasing tool, webmasters can ensure that the content on their website is unique and free of plagiarism.
• SEO : To optimize the website for different keywords, you can paraphrase online same text multiple times. 
• User-friendly content : Make your content more readable and easily understandable for website users by rephrasing it. Our tool not only improves the content quality but also removes basic grammar errors. You can use Editpad's grammar checker tool to correct all grammatical mistakes.  

Digital Marketers  

Create your next best-quality Social Media Posts using our paraphraser. Digital marketers can generate different ideas for Email Campaigns and advertisements. 

Which is the most effective paraphrasing tool?

Rephrasing tool by Editpad is the most effective paraphrasing tool. It provides four different modes as per your need. Advanced algorithms, lightning-fast speed, and state-of-art technology make our tool the best of all. 

Is using a paraphrasing tool illegal?

Using a paraphrasing tool is not illegal. The outputs are unique and they are not an exact replication of the original content.

Can I use paraphrasing tool for legal writing?

Yes, you can use a paraphrasing tool for legal writing. However, if you want to quote someone or use someone else’s words, you have to give the proper citation.   

Does paraphrasing tool count as plagiarism?

No, using a paraphrasing tool does not count as committing plagiarism. Plagiarism means copying content directly whereas using a paraphrasing tool involves changing the wording.  

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Paraphrasing Tool

Paraphrasing Tool in partnership with QuillBot. Paraphrase everywhere with the free Chrome Extension .

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Avoid plagiarism in your paraphrased text

What's a paraphrasing tool?

This AI-powered paraphraser lets you rewrite text in your own words. Use it to  paraphrase articles, essays, and other pieces of text. You can also use it to rephrase sentences and find synonyms for individual words. And the best part? It’s all 100% free!

What's paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing involves expressing someone else’s ideas or thoughts in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. Paraphrasing tools can help you quickly reword text by replacing certain words with synonyms or restructuring sentences. They can also make your text more concise, clear, and suitable for a specific audience. Paraphrasing is an essential skill in academic writing and professional communication.

Why use this paraphrasing tool?

• Save time: Gone are the days when you had to reword sentences yourself; now you can rewrite an individual sentence or a complete text with one click.
• Improve your writing: Your writing will always be clear and easy to understand. Automatically ensure consistent language throughout. 
• Preserve original meaning: Paraphrase without fear of losing the point of your text.
• No annoying ads: We care about the user experience, so we don’t run any ads.
• Accurate: Reliable and grammatically correct paraphrasing.
• No sign-up required: We don’t need your data for you to use our paraphrasing tool.
• Super simple to use: A simple interface even your grandma could use.
• It’s 100% free: No hidden costs, just unlimited use of a free paraphrasing tool.

People are in love with our paraphrasing tool

Features of the paraphrasing tool

Rephrase individual sentences

With the Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool, you can easily reformulate individual sentences.

• Write varied headlines
• Rephrase the subject line of an email
• Create unique image captions

Paraphrase a whole text

Our paraphraser can also help with longer passages (up to 125 words per input). Upload your document or copy your text into the input field.

With one click, you can reformulate the entire text.

Find synonyms with ease

Simply click on any word to open the interactive thesaurus.

• Choose from a list of suggested synonyms
• Find the synonym with the most appropriate meaning
• Replace the word with a single click

Paraphrase in two ways

• Standard: Offers a compromise between modifying and preserving the meaning of the original text
• Fluency: Improves language and corrects grammatical mistakes

Upload different types of documents

Upload any Microsoft Word document, Google Doc, or PDF into the paraphrasing tool.

Download or copy your results

After you’re done, you can easily download or copy your text to use somewhere else.

Powered by AI

The paraphrasing tool uses natural language processing to rewrite any text you give it. This way, you can paraphrase any text within seconds.

How does this paraphrasing tool work?

1. put your text into the paraphraser, 2. select your method of paraphrasing, 3. select the quantity of synonyms you want, 4. edit your text where needed, who can use this paraphrasing tool.

Paraphrasing tools can help students to understand texts and improve the quality of their writing. 

Create original lesson plans, presentations, or other educational materials.

Researchers

Explain complex concepts or ideas to a wider audience. 

Journalists

Quickly and easily rephrase text to avoid repetitive language.

Copywriters

By using a paraphrasing tool, you can quickly and easily rework existing content to create something new and unique.

Bloggers can rewrite existing content to make it their own.

Writers who need to rewrite content, such as adapting an article for a different context or writing content for a different audience.

A paraphrasing tool lets you quickly rewrite your original content for each medium, ensuring you reach the right audience on each platform.

The all-purpose paraphrasing tool

The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool is the perfect assistant in a variety of contexts.

Brainstorming

Writer’s block? Use our paraphraser to get some inspiration.

Professional communication

Produce creative headings for your blog posts or PowerPoint slides.

Academic writing

Paraphrase sources smoothly in your thesis or research paper.

Social media

Craft memorable captions and content for your social media posts.

Paraphrase text online, for free

The Scribbr Paraphrasing Tool lets you rewrite as many sentences as you want—for free.

Write with 100% confidence 👉

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Frequently asked questions

The act of putting someone else’s ideas or words into your own words is called paraphrasing, rephrasing, or rewording. Even though they are often used interchangeably, the terms can mean slightly different things:

Paraphrasing   is restating someone else’s ideas or words in your own words while retaining their meaning. Paraphrasing changes sentence structure, word choice, and sentence length to convey the same meaning.

Rephrasing   may involve more substantial changes to the original text, including changing the order of sentences or the overall structure of the text.

Rewording   is changing individual words in a text without changing its meaning or structure, often using synonyms.

It can. One of the two methods of paraphrasing is called “Fluency.” This will improve the language and fix grammatical errors in the text you’re paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing and using a paraphrasing tool aren’t cheating. It’s a great tool for saving time and coming up with new ways to express yourself in writing.  However, always be sure to credit your sources.  Avoid plagiarism.  

If you don’t properly reference text paraphrased from another source, you’re plagiarising. If you use someone else’s text and paraphrase it, you need to credit the original source. You can do that by using citations. There are different styles, like APA, MLA, Harvard, and Chicago. Find more information about referencing sources  here.

Paraphrasing   without crediting the original author   is a   form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly referencing the source . This means including an   in-text citation   and a full reference, formatted according to your required   citation style.

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism   means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own.   Paraphrasing   means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing   is   plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing   is   plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should   quote   it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not   plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words   and   properly referencing the source .

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How to paraphrase (including examples)

Jessica Malnik

Paraphrasing has gotten a bad reputation due to its association with plagiarism . However, when used correctly, paraphrasing has the potential to elevate your writing and give you a better understanding of the research.

In this post, we’ll discuss what paraphrasing is, why we do it, and 6 steps to walk you through the process. We’ll also share what not to do with paraphrasing, along with some examples.

Paraphrasing definition and rules

Paraphrasing is simply a way of summarizing someone else’s content in your own words. When you paraphrase, you keep the meaning or intent of the original work without copying it word for word. However, paraphrasing can quickly become a form of plagiarism if done incorrectly. This is why it’s crucial to follow the rules of paraphrasing.

When borrowing the ideas from someone else’s content, there’s one important rule to follow: you must correctly cite your source. This can be done in a number of ways depending on the style guide you use. 

Source citing is different for MLA and APA formatting and style guides. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with the citation formats for whichever one you follow. However, in some cases, simply hyperlinking the source will be sufficient.

Why do we paraphrase?

There are a number of reasons that professional writers and students alike choose to paraphrase content. Here are just a few of the common reasons that a writer would choose to paraphrase instead of including a quote or summarization.

Process information better 

One benefit of paraphrasing is that it helps you process the author’s ideas. When you have to rewrite the material in your own words, it makes you really think about the context and how it fits into your piece. If you want to really understand the material you’re citing, try rewriting it. If you were to quote the same information, you would miss out on the benefit of analyzing the source material.

For example, if you are writing a research paper all about Shakespeare’s influence on modern-day literature, you don’t want to just use a ton of direct quotes, instead by paraphrasing original passages, it can help you comprehend and analyze the material better.  

Improve your credibility with readers

You can also improve your credibility by association with the sources you decide to paraphrase. 

When you rewrite the material, you create a connection between your content and the knowledge from the source. 

Your audience will have a better understanding of the direction of your piece if you’re paraphrasing a reputable source with established authority on the subject.

Present data in an interesting way

If you’re referencing a data-heavy webpage or study, then paraphrasing is an engaging way to present the information in your own writing style. 

This allows you to tell a story with the source material instead of simply citing numbers or graphs.

Show that you understand the source

Another reason for paraphrasing that’s particularly important in academic writing is to demonstrate that you’ve read and comprehended the source material. 

For example, if all of you are doing is copying and pasting the original words of a textbook, you aren’t really learning anything new. When you summarize the material in your own words, it helps you to understand the material faster.  

How to paraphrase in 6 steps

Paraphrasing is simple when you break it down into a series of steps. 

Here are the 6 steps you can use to paraphrase your sources:

1. Choose a reputable source

First, you need to pick a credible source to paraphrase. A credible source will likely have ideas and concepts that are worth repeating. Be sure to research the author’s name and publisher’s credentials and endorsements (if applicable).

You’ll also want to check the date of the publication as well to make sure it’s current enough to include in your writing.

2. Read and re-read the source material

You want to be sure that you understand the context and information in the original source before you can begin to rework it into your own words. Read through it as many times as you need so you’re sure that you grasp the meaning.

3. Take some notes 

Once you have an understanding of the passage, you’ll want to jot down your initial thoughts. 

What are the key concepts in the source material? 

What are the most interesting parts? 

For this part, it helps to break up the content into different sections. This step will give you a sort of mini-outline before you proceed with rephrasing the material.

4. Write a rough draft

Write your version of the content without looking at the original source material. This part is important. 

With the source hidden, you’ll be less likely to pull phrasing and structure from the original. You are welcome to reference your notes, though. This will help you write the content in your own words without leaning on the source but still hit the key points you want to cover.

5. Compare and revise

Once you have your initial draft written, you should look at it side by side with the original source. Adjust as needed to ensure your version is written in a way that’s unique to your voice. 

This is a good time to break out a thesaurus if you notice you have used too many of the same words as the original source.

6. Cite your source

Whether you use MLA, APA, Chicago, or another style guide, now is the time to give proper credit to the original author or source. When posting content online, you may only need to hyperlink to the original source.

Keep in mind that the paraphrased text will not change depending on the citation style that you follow. It will just change how it’s cited.

What you shouldn’t do when paraphrasing

Now that you understand the process of paraphrasing and can follow the steps, it’s important that you know what to avoid. When paraphrasing, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Do NOT write while you’re still researching

You might be tempted to start writing during the research phase. However, this sets you up to miss information or restate the copy too closely to the source material. Be sure to do your research first, take notes, and then start writing the piece.

2. Do NOT skip the citations

When you pull a small amount of information from a paraphrased source, you may think you don’t need to cite it. However, any idea or copy that’s taken from another source is considered plagiarism if you don’t give it credit, even if it is only a little bit of information.

Paraphrasing examples

Here are some examples to help you understand what paraphrasing looks like when done correctly and incorrectly

Excerpt from LinkedIn’s Official Blog:

“When reaching out to connect with someone, share a personalized message telling the person why you would like to connect. If it’s someone you haven’t been in touch with in a while, mention a detail to jog that person’s memory for how you met, reinforce a mutual interest and kickstart a conversation.”

Here’s another example. This one is from the U.S. Department of Education:

“ The U.S. Department of Education does not accredit educational institutions and/or programs. However, the Department provides oversight over the postsecondary accreditation system through its review of all federally-recognized accrediting agencies. The Department holds accrediting agencies accountable by ensuring that they enforce their accreditation standards effectively. ”

Here’s one more example to show you how to paraphrase using a quote from Mark Twain as the source material:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.”

Paraphrasing can be a beneficial tool for any writer. It can give you credibility and a deeper understanding of the topic. However, to successfully use paraphrasing, you must be careful to properly cite your sources and effectively put the material into your own words each time.

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May Habib CEO, Writer.com

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