Take note: it’s your own words.  That means, you do considerably more than merely replacing synonyms and rearranging sentences.  To ensure you do this without plagiarizing, set the original work aside and try to explain the idea off the top of your head.

Paraphrasing can work in some instances and be absolutely wrong in others.  Here are the situations where doing it can prove to be a good resort:

1. When you want to promote an author’s idea, but their work is either written poorly or in an antiquated manner.  This will happen a lot when you’re drawing passages from impromptu speeches or old materials.
2. When a quote isn’t special enough to insert on its own.  Some quotes do convey brilliant thoughts, but are just a bad fit for your own work.
3. When you want to support a particular point and a specific part of a material is especially relevant to it.
4. When you want to present an author’s point of view that is different from your own, so you can refute it.
5. When you want to present information that can be taken as fact.
6. When you want to comment on an idea or an example that an author uses.

As with all writing, your paraphrases should be written with the help of an English grammar checker.  If you’re going to let mistakes slip through, after all, you may as well just quote it.

When you do any form of writing that you claim ownership for, such as essays for school and articles for magazines, you’ll undoubtedly need to refer to some other people’s work.  While you can quote small pieces bits from their writing, doing the same for large chunks of text is basically just copying the entire thing.  Why not post the entire source material then and get it over with?  That’s when you need to paraphrase.

Paraphrasing Ain’t Easy

Paraphrasing can be easy when you have plenty of information to draw from.  A write-up on a product that has been featured by multiple media outlets, for instance, can be incredibly easy to paraphrase from an existing piece, using the other coverage as additional sources.  Once you are restricted to a single brief and succinct source, however, with just the minimal of information, that’s when things become difficult, even with the help of the best grammar checker in the world.

Paraphrasing Techniques

Use Adjunct Sources.  Use possible sources of information that may only be slightly related to change the way the meat of the content is delivered.

Restructuring. For multiple pieces of information, you can probably get away with paraphrasing by restructuring their presentation.  If the original listed them in itemized order, you can try filling it out in full paragraphs, with explanations, for instance.

Clarification.  If you’re writing for a very targeted audience, such as doctors or engineers, you can paraphrase with the special intent of appealing to them.  That means writing it with technical terms and applications that will make sense to the particular market you’re composing for.

Rewording

In order to be incorporated legitimately into your piece, however, all research materials will need to be paraphrased and reworded.  That means you will need to present each source information in your own words, rewriting it with the help of a good grammar checking software, instead of copying it in the original form.  Not doing so constitutes plagiarism and is considered intellectual property theft.

Some people paraphrase by copying verbatim then replacing words and phrases.  It’s a bad way of doing things because you end up limiting yourself to the original structure of the piece.  This leaves you little room to innovate, often resulting in either a poorly-written version or an near-exact copy, neither of which will gain you any favors with your readers.

A better technique is to read through the source, jot down the key details and proceed to write based on your understanding.  That way, the material is presented entirely in your own words, with all key details peppered among the sentences.

Where To Use Paraphrases

On your essays, paraphrasing will generally need to be employed in the sections where you write out your supporting statements.  Paraphrases are neither statements nor conclusions.  Instead, they serve to either support other evidence, back-up your arguments or help them develop.