Is Paraphrasing a Good Strategy to Avoid Plagiarism in a Paper?

Plagiarism is a common practice that is rooted in using information and perspectives developed by other people and presenting them as your own statements. In fact, any idea, phrase, or story that has been copied from another source without stating where it came from constitutes plagiarism. This is an ethical and legal issue that often occurs in academia, journalism, art, and more. While citing sources is the best way to avoid plagiarism, other approaches to managing information are needed. As such, many people use paraphrasing as a strategy to fight plagiarism. The efficiency of this strategy depends on the understanding of the original source, good choice of words, relevant context, and other factors that should be considered to avoid plagiarising other people’s work.

Paraphrasing is:

• Description of important ideas and notions shared by other people, presented in a new form and context.
• A legitimate and effective way (when citations and references are included) to use information from a source.
• A more detailed description of ideas in comparison with a summary that usually focuses on a single point.

Paraphrasing is important and efficient because:

• It enables a person to add details and be descriptive instead of simply quoting information from a source.
• It decreases the temptation to use too many quotes when writing a text and developing a topic.
• It enables an individual to understand the original source better in the process of successful paraphrasing.

When Does Paraphrasing Become Plagiarism?

When writing an essay, research paper, or working on any other projects, a question may arise: Are there any criteria for determining whether paraphrasing is acceptable or not?

A paraphrase is only a good tool when you use your own words and understanding to express an idea that has been described before. The process requires understanding, interpreting, and expressing statements in a new light, making the core idea a part of your perspective. While this practice is commonly acceptable, especially in academic and professional writing, it should be done right. As such, a paraphrase does not work if the final text resembles the original sources as a result of only rearranging sentence structures or using a few synonyms. It is still plagiarism. Paraphrasing should be about changing the manner in which the idea is expressed.

To ensure your paraphrasing is up to the mark, it is best to use the following questions as criteria and see whether there is plagiarism:

• Is the original statement expressed differently and in a new context? A paraphrased part should be distinct from the original text. Its goal is to reflect your interpretation.
• Is the source referenced in a text? The author should be indicated even when their ideas are paraphrased to avoid plagiarism and maintain ethical principles in writing.
• Was the idea understood correctly? It is a bad practice to take statements and interpret them wrong without acknowledging the author’s point right. Make sure you fully comprehend the author’ message before paraphrasing.

Before submitting the final draft and while writing it, using tools like UniqeCheck.com can help check a paper for plagiarism and assess whether paraphrasing was effective. This tool can identify plagiarized content and make it easier to improve working with different sources to achieve plagiarism-free writing.

Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing as a Way to Fight Plagiarism

People may confuse approaches to fighting plagiarism and wonder about the differences between paraphrasing and summarizing. The main distinction is related to a focus on details, goals, and the results of these strategies. Understanding when and how to use each method helps to develop original papers.

Paraphrasing should be used when there is a need to keep the details and often the structure of the content. Quality content rewriting accurately represents the original material’s main points and supporting evidence, without mimicking sentence structure or phrasing. Proper citations must still be provided to credit the source, even if you change the original text entirely. This approach should not be confused with summarising as it stresses the most essential points. A summary of a source may omit most of the evidence and background information to show the “big picture.” Paraphrasing and summarizing can be effective tools to uphold integrity and prevent plagiarism as long as they are used correctly. There are several crucial aspects that should be considered when using information from other sources.

How to Paraphrase for the Best Results?

Best practices for paraphrasing include a focus on thorough work with the original source. The following steps guide you toward developing a text that conveys the essential points and remains free from unintentional plagiarism.

6 Steps to Paraphrasing:

1. Reread the intended part of an article, book, or another source to gain a full understanding of its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside to develop a note card that captures the main ideas with examples and descriptions.
3. Add a few words below the paraphrased part to make sure that you remember later why the source is relevant and important for a discussed subject.
4. Check the changed part with the original to make sure that a message is clear and captures all the essential information.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology that is mentioned by the author.
6. Provide detailed information about the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily when incorporating the material into your paper.

By following these six steps, you ensure that your paraphrasing process is productive and ethically sound. Done correctly, the approach helps to avoid plagiarism while strengthening your arguments.

Does a paraphrasing tool help you to avoid plagiarism?

For those who struggle with changing texts, using different structures and words, there are many plagiarism prevention tools available online. However, they are not as reliable as some may believe and can create more problems for users. They are not as thorough as human writers because AI often replaces words with synonyms while leaving the texts recognizable. By neglecting to introduce changes to the structure and style, AI-based paraphrasing tools do not avoid plagiarism. Notably, these tools can use incorrect words. For example:

Original: “In certain ecosystems, apex predators play a critical role in regulating species populations.”
Faulty Paraphrase: “In some habitats, the biggest animals are essential in balancing the local creatures.”
What Went Wrong?

• “Biggest animals” is not necessarily synonymous with “apex predators” (e.g., some apex predators aren’t the largest in size).
• The phrase “balancing the local creatures” is vague and reduces the scientific precision of “regulating species populations.”

When a user relies on paraphrasing tools they can produce nonsense and fail their tasks completely. Therefore, it is always better to do work independently and enjoy the best results.