When to Paraphrase
An essay consisting entirely of summarized material tends to be very general. You will also need to focus on specific ideas presented in a single text. This is where paraphrasing is helpful. Use paraphrasing when you want to emphasize the ideas presented in a single, short text, but when you don't want or need to give a direct quotation. If the information is more important than the actual words used, paraphrase the original. It is usually better to paraphrase than to quote directly since quotations are often difficult to integrate smoothly. If you paraphrase, your essay will flow better and your ideas will be clearer.
You should paraphrase only a short paragraph or a few sentences. You cannot paraphrase several pages of text; if you attempt to do this, your essay will simply be a re-statement of the idea of one author. Your own voice will have been lost, and you will be dangerously close to plagiarism. If you have developed the habit of putting your reading notes into your own words, you will find paraphrasing for an essay much easier.
How to Paraphrase
Where most students err in terms of unintentional plagiarism is not in failing to acknowledge ideas, but in paraphrasing incorrectly. Many novice researchers assume that if paraphrasing means putting a passage "in your own words," this can be accomplished by simply substituting synonyms for key terms. Stealing syntax, or sentence structure, is as significant an offence as stealing an idea because, as you know from your own writing experience, trying to phrase a point exactly is a difficult art. Proper paraphrasing depends on thorough comprehension of material, not on a thesaurus.
For example, consider this passage:
"The problem with the evidence cited by Finucane for women fighting during the Third Crusade is that it all comes from Muslim sources, who had their own reasons for depicting Christian women fighting."1
An improper paraphrase might read:
The difficulty with the accounts of women fighting in the Third Crusade is that it comes entirely from Muslim sources, who had their own motives for describing Christian women fighting.
This paraphrase keeps the same basic syntax (i.e. sentence structure) as the original and simply changes key words.
A proper paraphrase might look something like the following:
All the evidence for women fighting on the Third Crusade comes from Muslim sources. These sources are problematic since their authors may have had ulterior motives for altering or exaggerating their accounts.
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1Helen Nicholson, "Women on the Third Crusade," Journal of Medieval History, 23, no.4 (1997): 336