Paraphrasing

Preparing to Paraphrase

 Understanding is key to proper paraphrasing

"From the horse's mouth, Parthenon Frieze, June 2012", by Stellos ZACHARIAS, CC

 As writers we’ve all been schooled (or scolded) to “put things in our own words.” But this dictate is sort of like the “common knowledge” concept covered in the previous post. Paraphrasing that “pops” and escapes plagiarism isn’t as self-explanatory as we might initially think.

The Melania Trump speech debacle gives us some insight into the thorny patch of paraphrasing – like trying to reword some long-standing cultural ideals and catch phrases.

During a CNN program hosted by Wolf Blitzer, Republican National Committee Communications Director Sean Spicer might have made matters worse by seeming to trivialize Melania’s word choice when he compared her statements with those made by an animated “My Little Pony” character. Or, he may have had a point, no matter how thinly it was stretched…

"Melania Trump said, 'The strength of your dreams and willingness to work for them,' [and] Twilight Sparkle from 'My Little Pony' said, 'This is your dream. Anything you can do in your dreams you can do now.’ I mean, if we want to take a bunch of phrases and run them through Google and say, 'Hey, who else has said them?' I could come up with a list in five minutes. And that’s what this is."

America, America…what other words for thee?

Point is, when you think about mottos, catch phrases, and sweeping generalizations about America, especially “The American Dream,” how many different approaches are there in rehashing and rewording? The declaration to “work hard” is what it is, and when we read it or hear it, there’s the gloss and the comfort and maybe the pride of having heard it since infancy.

 A Christian Science Monitor article by John J. Pitney reminds us that “cribbing quotes” is nothing new to the political sphere. Hillary was likewise accused…by Sean Spicer…of having “borrowed” an American trope during her Democratic National Convention speech. But it turns out the phrase she used – “America is great because America is good” – isn’t even clearly attributed to Alexis De Tocqueville’s work “Democracy in America.”

Paraphrasing: Doing it, and Doing it well

 Does “in our own words” simply mean swapping out adjectives? Changing the sentence structure of the source we’re paraphrasing from? Both?

The Purdue Online Writing Lab covers the basics of what paraphrasing is:

• ·         your own rendition of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.

• ·         one legitimate way (when accompanied by accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.

• ·         a more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Purdue stresses that paraphrasing is an essential activity in demonstrating a deeper comprehension of the subject at hand, and eliminates the overuse of lengthy quotes. While some media call for more quotes than others, excessive inclusion of quotes will leave the story feeling strung together without a sense of reflection or place.

Purdue recommends following the “6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing”:

1. Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
2. Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
3. Jot down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later how you envision using this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
4. Check your rendition with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
5. Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed exactly from the source.
6. Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to incorporate the material into your paper.

Oh, or you could just use the free online paraphrasing tool. Of course they have one of those! Goparaphrase.com works much like the plagiarism “checker” tools I highlighted in previous posts. There’s an empty text box for you to dump your copied and pasted Pulitzer ready words into, just as before, but the difference is, this tool will do the thinking/work for you. It claims to be an “article rewriting/text spinning tool.” Just what the world needs, more spin right? I would never seriously recommend this, but it might prove entertaining.

In the end, it’s which horse’s mouth the information is spewing forth from of that matters. I encourage everyone to follow the oft funny political debate about who misappropriated who on Twitter at: #FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes and Spicer’s feed.