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Introduction to library research in the arts: Paraphrase ideas

An introduction to research concepts and techniques for University of Redlands students in fine, literary and performing arts, developed as an Open Educational Resource (OER)

Learning objective

  • Create a paraphrase of a passage of scholarly text.

How to paraphrase

Once you've found sources on your topic, you represent the ideas in your written or spoken work through either direct quotation or paraphrasing.
This excerpt from The Craft of Research explains how to use quotation and paraphrasing to effectively avoid plagiarizing your sources.

Let's examine paraphrasing more closely.

Paraphrasing is presenting a source's ideas in an original way that meets the needs of your own argument.

This tutorial from Guelph University Libraries explains how paraphrasing involves changing the source's words as well as the sentence structure.

Activity: Writing a paraphrase

Read the attached text and try writing an original paraphrase.

Key point

  • To write a paraphrase, first understand the original passage and then restate the ideas in your own words using a different sentence structure.