Using others’ work to increase the worth of your research paper is a common act. Researchers must cite the previous publications for proving their point. Likewise, the already published literature findings help researchers in checking the validity of ongoing research. Quoting others’ work as a whole will need lots of space. This is because it will add much irrelevant information.
Further, data duplication is another frequent problem that is often related to direct quotations. In order to solve these problems, the best possible solution is that of paraphrasing. Paraphrasing does not only save the researcher from direct quote related issues. But it also provides ways to cite others’ work without committing plagiarism.
Paraphrasing is the solution to many problems. Hence, this article will look at some tips for paraphrasing the research paper effectively. First, we will discuss the core purpose of paraphrasing–plagiarism avoidance. Then, we will discuss some tips to effectively ensure this. So let’s get started;
Avoid plagiarism
Paraphrasing is the best way of removing plagiarism manually. Including others’ work without increasing the similarity index is a capability that every researcher needs to have. So according to paraphrasing rules, the writer should only pick a few points from a research paper as evidence. After locating the relevant facts from others’ research papers, you can add a justifying problem statement, and a comprehensive evaluation. This tip will not only reduce plagiarism, but also make the content unique. In this way, you can come closer to understanding the true purpose of paraphrasing.
The correct way to copy-paste other authors’ work is a ‘direct quotation’, with proper citation. Suppose if the instructors are unwilling, or forbid you to use quotations, what should you do? In this situation, you should use the fact with the source reference, not exactly the text. Here, it would help to reflect your own writing style instead of rearranging someone else’s words. In an effort to avoid plagiarism, the online plagiarism checking tool may help you too.
Read the original text
The most helpful tip for producing a quality research paper is having good reading skills. The more you understand the original writer’s vision, the better paraphrasing you can perform. So the researcher should read, or identify points that may prove useful from the text. If the points you selected can support the arguments, make a list, and connect them.
Start locating a new beginning for your sentence:
Students often fail to give a fresh start to their sentences. This results in a poorly structured, or high similarity index in the rephrased sentence. This is because they pay more attention to last part of the sentence. In this tip, we suggest students that think of a sequence regarding good opening words. This will help in increasing the worth of their writing. The eye-catching opening words will reshape the facts from previous work for you.
Add synonyms:
Adding synonyms of the key terms in original facts is an old trick for dodging similarity checking tools. And there’s no doubt that it works. Yet this does not happen every time. Many times it creates a mess because of which the letter becomes difficult to handle. It’s not obvious that the synonym you added to the original text will impart a correct sense.
While reading the text with synonyms’ incorporations, the reader can often hint at this paraphrasing trick. Remember, the best trick is the one that the reader would not catch. In short, you can add synonyms to the original text. But you can do this only one, or two times within the 1000 words context. This is because adding too many synonyms will decrease the overall readability of your work. We can conclude that this tip works, but its application is limited compared to others.
Change the sentence structure:
Among all, this tip will work the best. The best possible way tip for paraphrasing a passage is to change the sentence structure. Further, among the sentence structuring tips, active to passive conversion, or passive to active conversation both are effective. Consider the following examples within this context;
- Azadirachta indica, a medicinal plant, can enhance peripheral nerve injuries.
In this sentence, the medicinal plant Azadirachta indica is the subject. The above sentence is the active voice as here the object is followed by the subject. If you want to rephrase the sentence, you can convert it into passive voice.
- Peripheral nerve injuries can be recovered by taking a medicinal plant like the Azadirachta indica.
In this way, you can rephrase the line by changing the sentence structure. Like, active-passive conversion, you can also use other tips for changing the sentence structure. Likewise, the writer can also paraphrase by changing its tenses.
- You can convert a simple sentence into compound sentences.
- You can divide a long sentence into more than one sentence. In other cases, for paraphrasing, you can also unite the short sentences that are too short.
Play with the word count:
Generally, the word count remains the same as we paraphrase the sentence. But you can make your sentences longer, or shorter as per your needs. The union, or separation of multiple ideas in the original paragraphs give space for recreations. However, it is better if you divide your work into different sections so that it may provide better impact and better structure to the context or body of your research paper. In short, the division of opinions, addition, or subtractions of words, or rearrangement of work so forth are a few available options for paraphrasing.
Paraphrasing versus summarisation:
Some students at the beginning think that paraphrasing, and summarisation are similar. For those, a point to note is that they both resemble in only one aspect. For both these techniques, the art is to gather points from a long, already written text, and that’s it. Further, for paraphrasing, this gathered point will help you in acknowledging others’ work. In contrast, summarisation aims to facilitate the readers by presenting the highlights. One specifically targets the reader’s comfort level while the other is working for authors.
