Most people are familiar with the approaches of paraphrasing something successfully. But they are unaware of its applications. And if you are one of those people, this blog post is for you.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss how to use paraphrase in an essay with the help of three different examples. But before describing the various applications of paraphrasing in essay writing, we’ll briefly talk about the concept of paraphrasing.
Thus, without any further delay, let’s delve into this discussion. Shall we?
What Is Paraphrasing?
Cambridge Dictionary defines the word ‘paraphrasing’ as:
“To repeat something written or spoken using different words, often in a humorous form or in a simpler and shorter form that makes the original meaning clearer (Dictionary).”
According to the above definition, we can understand that when you restate someone else’s ideas in your own words, that’s paraphrasing. But to fulfill the paraphrasing meaning, you must keep the original meaning of the rephrased text the same. Otherwise, your paraphrasing will not be successful.
3 Different Ways to Implement Paraphrasing in Essays
After understanding the concept of paraphrasing, it’s time to discuss the different legal ways of implementing it while writing an essay. So, without wasting any further time, let’s begin.
- Write the Abstract Portion of an Essay
Sweetland Center for Writing discusses the concept of the word ‘abstract’ in the following way:
“An abstract is a short summary of your completed research. It is intended to describe your work without going into great detail. Abstracts should be self-contained and concise, explaining your work as briefly and clearly as possible. (Writing)”
According to the above concept, an abstract aims to address the primary purpose of a writing piece by convincingly stating its key points.
It must be original and entail everything required to make sense without additional sources. Therefore, an abstract mustn’t look like an extracted form of text.
But how can paraphrasing help in writing an abstract? Let’s find out.
As we’ve discussed in the definition of paraphrasing, it rephrases the main ideas or arguments briefly without changing the original meaning.
So, with the help of paraphrasing, you can discuss your essay’s critical points and purpose in a new and fresh manner. However, let’s understand this statement through an example.
Here, we’ll consider an example of the following sample passage:
After paraphrasing the above sample, we’ve written its abstract in the following way:
As you can see in the paraphrased form, the text looks original and describes every key idea from the sample passage. So, that’s how you can use paraphrasing to write an abstract for your essay.
- Simplify and Clarify the Content
The word ‘simplify’ means reducing the complexity of something to clarify it. And as the definition of paraphrasing indicates, it involves rewording an existing idea to clarify the original text’s meaning.
Therefore, the second way of employing paraphrasing in essays is to clarify the meaning of complex arguments. But let’s consider an example to understand the practical implementation of this statement.
For this example, we’ve taken a sample of complex sentences:
As you can see, the above sentences represent the effects of advanced technology through complex wording. But we’ll reduce this complexity via paraphrasing. So, here are the results we’ve got after paraphrasing the above-specified complex sentences.
Paraphrased Form: Due to the rise of advanced technology, more people now have access to the internet. This has changed the way people talk, get information, and interact with each other.
The ‘Paraphrased Form’ explains the same concept simply and concisely, as it only focuses on the essential bits and pieces. So, that’s how you can implement this rephrasing strategy in your essay.
Thus, simplifying the text will make the information easier to absorb, eventually making the content suitable for a broad audience.
- Diversify the Content’s Vocabulary
Writing content in simple language undoubtedly eliminates confusion and makes the information easier to understand.
But using simple language doesn’t mean that the content contains repetition, as the recurrence of words can ruin the content quality. So, to diversify the vocabulary of your content, you can also use paraphrasing.
Using mixed yet uncomplex terminologies is an effective technique for paraphrasing the content. So, you can implement this strategy by identifying specific words in the original content and replacing them with suitable synonyms.
However, if varied vocabulary is not your cup of tea, you can also use a Thesaurus. Anyway, let’s practically see how to use paraphrasing and diversify the repeated vocabulary of your essay.
Here, we’ll take a sample of two phrases with repeated vocabulary:
Now, we’ll paraphrase the above sample.
As the above image indicates, the paraphrased form doesn’t contain any repetition, yet it represents the same idea. So, this technique is another handy method of implementing paraphrasing in essay writing.
Thus, diversifying the vocabulary will help you avoid repetition, eventually making your writing more engaging and effective.
How to Paraphrase the Text?
We’ve talked so much about how paraphrasing can do this and that. But since this guide describes the ways of implementing paraphrasing examples in an essay, it is essential to discuss the ‘how’ part of paraphrasing. Therefore, here are some quick tips you can use to get started with paraphrasing.
- Paraphrasing is only possible with a proper understanding of the source text. Therefore, tip number 1 is to read the source text carefully until you gather its original meaning.
- Once you’ve understood the original meaning, you can write the source text in your words. But the key is to write the paraphrased form from your understanding of the original material. Therefore, you mustn’t look at the original material while writing the rephrased form. Doing so will help you avoid plagiarism.
- If you have trouble writing the paraphrased information in your words, you can also use the cutting-edge technology-based best paraphrasing tools. If you OPT to paraphrase online, you can get results quickly.
- Make sure to acknowledge the rightful owner of the source text by providing a proper citation.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, paraphrasing is one of the most popular techniques used in writing. But it has several applications. For instance, you can paraphrase to reduce repetition, bring brevity, write an overview, or avoid plagiarism. However, if you want to learn the practical implementation of these applications, we recommend reading the above discussion.
In the above discussion, we have discussed the three applications of paraphrasing in essay writing. But to make it easier, we have included an example with each application. So, read the above discussion and enhance the quality of your essay through paraphrasing.
APA References
Dictionary, C. PARAPHRASE | English meaning – Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge Dictionary. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/paraphrase
Writing, S. C. f. (August 2013). What Exactly is an Abstract? Sweetland Center for Writing. https://lsa.umich.edu/sweetland/undergraduates/writing-guides/what-exactly-is-an-abstract-.html