Five Steps to an Effective Paraphrase

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Have you ever wondered how you can write in your own words, and still maintain the requirements of academic integrity? In this video, you will learn how to write an effective paraphrase using the five step method. What does it mean to paraphrase from sources in an academic paper? One way to think about this process is an academic conversation. In our day-to-day conversations, we often refer to things we have heard from others. For example, we might say something like, "Nav told me about a great concert in Vancouver on Saturday. Should we go together?". Or you might tell someone about a Twitter post from someone you follow. When you say from whom or from where you learned something, this is like informal citation - with a paraphrase. In academic culture, we do something similar. Writing an academic paper or report is like entering into a conversation. When we write something that we learned from another source, we often communicate it in our own words, while making it clear to the reader where we learned it from with citations and references. The first step to an effective paraphrasing process is to apply strategies to survey the big picture of an article. It might go without saying, but the first step to creating an effective paraphrase is to become familiar with the article or chapter you are paraphrasing as a whole. You can't grab pieces of information out of context. This can lead to misunderstanding the information. At minimum, you should skim your material to gain an understanding of the whole text. Ask questions like, "what is the focus of this article?" "How does this article relate to my research topic?" And, "What is the main thing that the articles of this article found?". Once you have answered these questions, you will be prepared to identify more specific pieces of information that are relevant to your paper. Now, imagine that you've found some information that will be useful for your paper. How do you go about creating an effective paraphrase? So, start with the original text that you want to paraphrase. The first step is to read it two or three times, until you understand the overall meaning. At this point, you'll also want to make sure that you look up any words that you don't understand. This is a key point to making sure you understand the author's original meaning very well. Underline any terms that you will need to keep because they are key terms that can't be replaced by any other words. Once you understand the meaning of the original well, your next step is to break up that original text - those few sentences, or that paragraph - into chunks of meaning. Give each of those chunks a number. On the screen now, you'll see an example of how one paragraph of a few sentences was divided into ten chunks of information. This helps you understand, even at a deeper level, what the text is saying, and what parts are important to include in your paraphrase. Now, on to step three. Without looking at the original, write a paraphrase in your own words. This is a very important step to making sure that the paraphrase is truly in your own structure, words, and voice, and that it doesn't include any segments that are copied from the original text. Imagine that you're explaining what you read to a friend. In step four, you'll do a meaning check and a structure check. This is where you check your draft paraphrase against the original. In the meaning check, you'll make sure that you've included the main ideas, and that you haven't accidentally changed the meaning in your paraphrase. Next, you'll do a structure and word check. This is where you make sure that you've changed the language, the sentence structure, and the idea arrangement significantly. Be sure that you've done several of the following things -- not just one. Have you changed the sentence structure? Changed the order of the words? Used synonyms for words that are not key words? Used different types of connecting words? Or changed the order of the ideas? Make sure that your paraphrase is truly different from the original. At this point, you will also want to rewrite and revise your paraphrase. Start with your draft. Change anything that needs to be changed, and make sure the wording, sentence structure, grammar and vocabulary are exactly as you want it to be. Now, you'll add your in-text citation that tells the reader where you found this information. The exact details of this are different, depending if you're using APA, MLA, or Chicago style. What you want to include is the author's name, the date it was published, and often the page. Now that you've reviewed the five steps, it's time for you to try and put it into action. At this point, I would encourage you to find something that you need to paraphrase for your assignment. Go back through the video and do each of the five steps. Pause at each step, and take time to try it, and see what kind of paraphrase you can develop. If you still have questions about creating effective paraphrases, make an appointment with a writing tutor at the Learning Centre. You can do this at tlc.kpu.ca

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Five Steps to an Effective Paraphrase

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