
Guidelines for a Successful Paragraph
§ A paraphrase must be accurate.
§ A paraphrase must be complete.
§ A paraphrase must be written in your own voice.
§ A paraphrase must make sense by itself.
Using Paraphrase in Your Essays
Paraphrasing helps your readers to gain a detailed understanding of sources that they may have never read, and indirectly, to accept your own thesis as valid. Two major reasons for using paraphrase in your essays:
§ To present ideas or evidence whenever there is no special reason for using a direct quotation
§ To give your readers an accurate and comprehensive account of ideas taken from a source-ideas that you intend to explain, interpret, or disagree with your essay
Important Example to Keep in Mind
(Taken from Purdue University Online Writing Lab:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_paraphr.html)
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.
A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).
An acceptable summary:
Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).
A plagiarized version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So, it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.
§ A paraphrase must be accurate.
§ A paraphrase must be complete.
§ A paraphrase must be written in your own voice.
§ A paraphrase must make sense by itself.
Using Paraphrase in Your Essays
Paraphrasing helps your readers to gain a detailed understanding of sources that they may have never read, and indirectly, to accept your own thesis as valid. Two major reasons for using paraphrase in your essays:
§ To present ideas or evidence whenever there is no special reason for using a direct quotation
§ To give your readers an accurate and comprehensive account of ideas taken from a source-ideas that you intend to explain, interpret, or disagree with your essay
Important Example to Keep in Mind
(Taken from Purdue University Online Writing Lab:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_paraphr.html)
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.
A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers, students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).
An acceptable summary:
Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47).
A plagiarized version:
Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So, it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.

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