Techniques for Paraphrasing

When you write a paraphrase, you restate other’s ideas in your own words. That is, you write the meaning
of the author’s ideas. You use some of the author’s key terms, but you use many of your own words and
sentence structures. You include in‐text citation, including the author’s last name and year of publication.

WHAT ARE SOME TECHNIQUES WRITERS USE TO PARAPHRASE EFFECTIVELY?

Following are some techniques you can use to help you paraphrase. An effective paraphrase includes more
than one of these techniques. If you use only one of these techniques when paraphrasing, you have not
paraphrased effectively.
1. Change a word from one part of speech to another
Original: Medical professor John Swanson says that global changes are influencing the
spread of disease.
Paraphrase: According to John Swanson, a professor of medicine, changes across the
globe are causing diseases to spread (James, 2004).
2. Use Synonyms
Original: The U.S. government declared that the AIDS crisis poses a national security
threat. The announcement followed an intelligence report that found high rates of HIV
infection could lead to widespread political destabilization.
Paraphrase: The government of the United States announced that AIDS could harm
the nation's security. The government warned the population after an important
governmental study concluded that political problems could result from large
numbers of people infected with HIV (Snell, 2005).
3. Change numbers and percentages to different forms
Original: Minority groups in the United States have been hit hardest by the epidemic.
African Americans, who make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for 46
percent of the AIDS cases diagnosed in 1998.
Paraphrase: The AIDS epidemic has mostly affected minorities in the United States.
For example, in 1998, less than 15 percent of the total population was African, but
almost half of the people diagnosed with AIDS in the United States that year were
African America (Jenson, 2000).
4. Change word order (e.g., change from active to passive voice and move modifiers to
different positions. Note: The passive voice is generally used in academic writing
when the agent is unknown or redundant, should be concealed, introduces new
information (thematic) or to provide objectivity (i.e., scientific voice).
Original: Angier (2001) reported that malaria kills more than one million people
annually, the overwhelming majority of them children in sub‐Saharan Africa.
 Paraphrase: Every year, more than a million people are killed by malaria, and most of
the victims are children who live in sub‐Saharan Africa (Angier, 2001).
5. Use different definition structures
Original: Lyme disease is an inflammatory disease caused by a bacterium transmitted by
ticks (small bloodsucking arachnids that attach themselves to larger animals). The
disease is usually characterized by a rash followed by flu‐like symptoms, including
fever, joint pain, and headache.
Paraphrase: Lyme disease‐a disease that causes swelling and redness‐is caused by a
bacterium carried by a small arachnid known as a tick. The ticks attach to and suck the
blood of animals and humans, transferring some of the Lyme disease bacteria into their
hosts and causing symptoms similar to the flu (Wald, 2005).
6. Use different attribution signals
Original: “That’s because there are so many different ways the diseases could have
arrived,” veterinarian Mark Walters declared in his recent book, Six Modern Plagues.
Paraphrase: According to Mark Walters, a veterinarian who wrote Six Modern Plagues,
the disease could have arrived in numerous ways (Peterson, 2004).
7. Change the sentence structure, and use different connecting words
Original: Although only about one‐tenth of the world’s population lives there, sub ‐
Saharan Africa remains the hardest hit region, accounting for 72 percent of the people
infected with HIV during 2000.
Paraphrase: Approximately 10 percent of the world’s population resides in sub‐
Saharan Africa. However, this area of the world has the highest percentage of AIDS‐
related illnesses. In fact, in 2000, almost three‐ fourths of the population had the HIV
virus (Bunting, 2004).
8. Do not change key terms or proper nouns
Original: In the northeastern United States, people are building homes on the edge of
woods, where ticks that carry Lyme disease hitch rides on deer. In addition, in Africa,
hunters bring back the meat of animals that scientists think may transmit Ebola, a usually
fatal disease that causes massive hemorrhaging in its victims.
Paraphrase: In the United States, residential areas are being built near wooded areas in
the northeast. These areas are also the homes of ticks carrying Lyme disease. Also,
according to scientists, hunters in Africa kill animals that may carry the Ebola virus (a
fatal virus that causes massive hemorrhaging) (Yaya, 2004).
 Practice

A. Match the underlined expressions in the following text with their synonymous
expressions below.

Car manufacturing robots (1) give automotive companies a competitive advantage.

They can work side-by-side with human workers, improving their output and consistency and
allowing them to (2) support more in-line processes in a single work space. During
manufacturing car assembly plants exclusively use these robots for welding and painting. They
can also deploy the entire supply chain cycle. Neither do they drop parts or handle them in a
way that causes damage. Highly repeatable, (3) they never tire or get distracted, and every
job is performed with extreme precision. Equipped with vision system, these car manufacturing
robots can detect variation in incoming materials and adapt their programmed paths to suit.
This, in turn, (4) increase customer satisfaction and lowers warranty costs. What’s more,
running robots through breaks and shift changeovers (5) yields additional output from
production lines when compared to manually attended lines. That's why manufacturers
are interested in adopting automotive in their industry.

1. Robots perform versatile jobs. ( )

2. Robots are always active and never get exhausted ( )
3. Robots are very beneficial for car manufacturing companies. ( )
4. Robots allow more products. ( )
5. Customers will be pleased of they get. ( )

B. Match the underlined expressions in the following text with their synonymous
expressions below.
(1) Environmental engineering is an incredibly broad field which is (2)focused on
using scientific principles to improve environmental conditions. Numerous fields
can be pursued within the larger framework of environmental engineering, including
biology, environmental law, public health, and nuclear engineering. As a general rule,
environmental engineering requires a bachelor's degree at a minimum, and many
employers prefer to see (3) graduate level work from their candidates as well. As the
sciences have evolved, so has environmental engineering; today, environmental
engineers work (4)in a wide variety of settings to improve the condition of the
environment. Consequently, (5)Preventative measures include things like waste
management, pollution controls, and resource allocations which are designed to ensure
that supplies of clean water endure.

1. aims at making the state of the environment better through science. ( )

2. precautions taken to stop a serious situation.
( )
3. it is also desirable that applicants would have work experience after graduation. (
)
4. a number of different environments. (
)
 5. environmental engineering includes various areas.
( )

C. Paraphrase the following paragraphs.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical
analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to
perform the calculations required to simulate the free-stream flow of the fluid, and the interaction of the
fluid (liquids and gases) with surfaces defined by boundary conditions. With high-speed supercomputers,
better solutions can be achieved, and are often required to solve the largest and most complex problems.

______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________

A barcode is a square or rectangular image consisting of a series of parallel black lines and white spaces of
varying widths that can be read by a scanner. Barcodes are applied to products as a means of quick
identification. They are used in retail stores as part of the purchase process, in warehouses to track
inventory, and on invoices to assist in accounting, among many other uses.

______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________