1 Work with a partner. Match the texts to the sources. Then share your answers with another pair. Discuss how you were able to figure out the answers

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is a challenging but valuable skill. Summarizing someone else's writing effectively shows that you have an accurate understanding of that material. Paraphrasing lets you use information from other sources, but still produce an original work.

Furthermore, if you paraphrase well, you are helping your readers understand the most

important points of the issue without letting them be distracted by too many unnecessary

details.

Beginning writers often try to paraphrase by using a dictionary or a thesaurus and finding

synonyms for the key nouns and verbs. However; this method almost always results in a weak paraphrase, and by some definitions, can still be plagiarism'

The most effective way to paraphrase is to change the syntax of the sentence. Ask yourself,

"What does the sentence really mean? What is the main idea? What is another way to say the

same thing?"

Look at the examples of weak and strong paraphrases.

Original:

"To be or not to be, that is the question." (William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Weak:

Being or not being, that is the query, from Hamlet by William shakespeare.

Shakespeare's Hamlet asks the question to be or not to be.

These are weak paraphrases because they are too close to the original. Furthermore, an

instructor who read either of those paraphrases would suspect that the student writer did not

actually understand the quotation.

Strong:

Shakespeare's Hamlet questions whether it would be better for him to live or to die,

In the famous speech from Hamlet, Shakespeare shows a man struggling with the difficulties of living, yet unsure if death would bring relief or further problems of a different nature.