How to paraphrase

1. Welcome!: Okay. I'm sure you've heard the word plagiarism before and have been warned about how easy it is to fall into this trap. Let me assure you that this is something that is easily avoided if you know how Hello, I'm Wendy. In addition to numerous essays and assignments over the years. I've also written a full length research report, a master's dissertation, and a PhD thesis. I've presented numerous academic writing workshops and have consulted with thousands of under and post graduate college and university students seeking assistance with their academic writing. So whether you're a learner who wants to improve your grades, a college or university student who wants to excel in your academic essays and assignments, a teacher in need of a refresher or an academic scholar who simply wants to improve the quality of your writing. This class is for you. This class offers you step by step instructions on how to paraphrase text in order to avoid plagiarism. During this class, I'll talk about the nature of paraphrasing and why it is so important in academic writing. I'll also share with you some very common tools and strategies or techniques that you can use to paraphrase text effectively. For your class project, you'll be given a range of texts to paraphrase using all of the knowledge and skills gained throughout this class. You'll also have the opportunity to share your work and to get feedback from me if you so wish. I'm really excited to show you just how easy it is to paraphrase and to avoid plagiarism. So what are you waiting for? Click on the next video and let's get started. 2. The nature of paraphrasing and why it is important: In this video, we look at paraphrasing and why it is necessary in academic writing. Now, you may be wondering what paraphrasing is. Well, to put it simply, paraphrasing means, or in this case, rewriting, what someone else has said in your own words without changing or distorting the meaning of the original text. Now, you may also be wondering why it is necessary to paraphrase in the first place. The reason for this is that paraphrasing effectively will help you to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism involves copying and pasting another person's ideas or work, and then misrepresenting these as your own. Plagiarism is a criminal offense since it is a form of theft, in this case, of intellectual property and is therefore punishable by law. When engaging in academic writing or any type of writing for that matter. It's important to be aware of the fact that plagiarism can have very serious consequences, such as your degree or qualification being withdrawn, by your educational institution, prosecution, by the plagiarized scholar or author, failing your paper, being subject to a disciplinary hearing and being banned from further study or publishing your work. Another reason that paraphrasing is important, especially if you are a student, is that it not only enables you to better process and retain the information in the source text, but it also allows you to demonstrate that you have understood what you have read. Furthermore, it allows you to showcase your own writing skills and to produce an original text that isy of recognition and respect by the academic community. It also forces you to read and your knowledge base pertaining to your particular field of study. In this way, you will also be able to develop your own insights with regard to the topic or subject area and to make a much more meaningful contribution to the existing body of knowledge. 3. Strategies for paraphrasing effectively: You may be thinking that paraphrasing is something that is easier said than done. While it is true, that paraphrasing does, in fact, require more time and effort than simply copying and pasting another's ideas or work. It is a easier to do people believe, especially when using the various strategies that are available to you. This video will walk you through each of these strategies and demonstrate how to use them in practice. I'll also show you both good and bad ways of using each strategy to paraphrase the original or source text. Many people mistakenly believe that when paraphrasing, it is enough to simply modify the original text by means of synonyms or by replacing words or phrases with ones that have similar meanings. Unfortunately, however, this is bad academic practice and can come across as lazy or sloppy. Let's take a look at how this approach works in practice. Have a look at my original text in the first block in which I've identified some words and phrases that I'd like to find synonyms for when paraphrasing this sentence. In my paraphrased version, I've written the synonyms in blue. Here, you can see that although some of the words and phrases have been replaced with ones that have similar meanings, it is still far too similar to the original version and is therefore a poor example of paraphrasing. More importantly, this is a clear example of plagiarism, which can lead to serious consequences. My second attempt, on the other hand, is a much better paraphrase of the original source text, since it says exactly the same thing, but using very different words. While synonyms can definitely be used in conjunction with other paraphrasing strategies, you should remain mindful of the fact that using synonyms can drastically change the meaning of the message you are trying to convey if you don't select them carefully. Once you've written your paraphrase, you should check it carefully to ensure that the intended meaning is still being conveyed. In this example, you can see that I've used the strategy of combining sentences. Whereas my original text consists of two separate sentences. My paraphrased text has combined these to form a single sentence. Here, I have inserted the conjunction which highlighted in blue as a way of joining the two sentences, and I have removed the word it, which appears at the start of the second sentence in my original text. However, making changes such as these does not qualify this as a legitimate paraphrase. As apart from these two very minor changes, the two versions are still identical. Therefore, you would need to use other strategies as well in order to ensure that you have not plagiarized the source text. The second version is much better since I've not only combined the key ideas from the two sentences in the original text into a single sentence or thought, but I've also used relevant synonyms and changed the sentence construction. If you read my paraphrased version carefully, you'll notice that it says exactly the same thing as the two sentences in the original text, but in a more concise way. Thus, this is a good example of a paraphrase. Another effective way of paraphrasing is by changing the word order or sentence construction. Here, you can see that I've moved the phrase conditions of worth highlighted in blue, which appears earlier on in the original text to the end of the sentence, in my paraphrased version. Still, when comparing my paraphrased version with the original, you can see that they are far too similar. Thus, this is not a good example of paraphrasing effectively. You'll also notice that I've moved the term self concept and the phrase problems in our lives to earlier positions in the restructured sentence. However, I'd like to remind you that merely changing the word order or sentence construction is not enough to produce a legitimate paraphrase and that you'll need to employ a combination of approaches in order to avoid repetition and plagiarism. Changing active voice to passive voice or vice versa is another useful tool when paraphrasing. Here, you can see that in my original sentence, the conditions of worth are depicted as playing a more active role in shaping our self concept and creating problems in our lives, and therefore receive greater emphasis in the sentence. By contrast, the paraphrased version places more emphasis on our self concept and the problems in our lives, since the conditions of worth, which now appear later in the sentence, are now given a more passive role. Remember that while this is a very effective strategy, it should not be used in isolation, but rather in combination with other strategies in order to paraphrase effectively. For instance, you'll notice that when comparing these two sentences, they are practically identical apart from the fact that one is an active sentence and the other a passive sentence. Again, this does not qualify as a legitimate paraphrase. Have a look at my revised paraphrase. To improve upon my first attempt, I have now used passive voice in conjunction with a range of carefully selected synonyms. Again, you'll see that both the original text and the paraphrased version make identical points, but in very different ways. Another effective strategy that can be used when paraphrasing involves changing the word form of various words. For instance, you could change nouns to adjectives or to verbs, or adverbs and vice versa. Look at the various words that I've highlighted in my original and paraphrased texts. In order to change the original text, I've changed thoughts, feelings, behavior, and judgment, all of which are nouns in the original text to think feel, behave and judging in the paraphrased text, all of which are now verbs. In addition, I've changed the word freeing, which is a to freedom, which is a noun. Now again, while this approach can be used very effectively, it can't be the only strategy that you use to paraphrase the text. You would need to employ a range of other strategies or techniques as well in order to avoid pm. A