What is a parafrase?

Paraphrasing is the process of taking content written by another author, and rewording it in your own words. Similar to summarizing, it requires a full understanding of the text in order to reformulate it effectively. It is often used when writing a piece of content that is derived from an existing source, such as an article or someone else's work.

When paraphrasing, you must change the words and the sentence structure so that it does not appear plagiarized, resulting in non-plagiarized text. Paraphrasing can also help to restructure content for clarity, ensuring that your reader understands every point without any need for further research. As part of sound academic practice, all sources should be properly cited if any part of the original text has been directly quoted or used with minimal changes. Without proper citation and acknowledgement, this could be seen as plagiarism.

Paraphrasing can be difficult for many people, whether it's due to limited language skills or time constraints when completing a project. Otherwise known as 'word spinning', it essentially requires you to condense a large amount of information into smaller chunks which are easy to read and understand. However, if done correctly and carefully, paraphrasing can help to improve your writing while also displaying good academic practice.

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