techniques of paraphrasing with examples

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Top Five Paraphrasing Techniques (video included)

When it comes to Writing Task 1 and 2, paraphrasing is an essential skill for every one of your introductions. Many students incorrectly copy the question into their writing, and as such, they get a lower score. 

Are you worried about paraphrasing? Read below for our top paraphrasing techniques and make paraphrasing an essential part of your study routine.

1. Use Synonyms

The most common technique, and maybe most important, is to find synonyms for keywords in the question. For this technique, take note of the important nouns and verbs in the question, and see in which synonyms might be appropriate to replace them. 

Example: The diagram below shows the process by which bricks are manufactured for the building industry.

Paraphrased Example: The diagram illustrates the way bricks are made for the building industry.

In the example above, you’ll notice that we found synonyms for three of the words to help us paraphrase the question.

2. Use a Different Word Form

Another way to paraphrase is to change the form of the words used in the question. It’s helpful to be aware of how word families work in English in order to do so. A common way to do this is to change the nouns to verbs, verbs to nouns, adjectives to nouns, etc.

Example: The line graph below shows the consumption of four kinds of meat in a European country from 1979 to 2004.

Paraphrased Example: The line graph below shows how one European country consumed four kinds of meat from 1979 to 2004.

Here you can see we changed the noun, consumption to its verb form, consumed .

3. Change from the Active to the Passive

Often, we can simply change the grammar structures in the question. Changing active voice to passive is a great way to help paraphrase a question.

Example: The real estate developers invested over $40 million USD into the development of a new senior living community.

Paraphrased Example: $40 million USD was invested in the development of a new senior living community.

Above you see we changed invested to was invested helping us paraphrase by changing the active to the passive.

4. Change the word order

For all this talk about synonyms, changing the word form, or changing grammatical structures, sometimes it’s easy enough to simply change where the words stand in a sentence.

Paraphrased Example: The line graph below shows how four different kinds of meat were consumed over a 25-year period in one European Country.

As you can see, I not only changed the word order, which had a dramatic effect on how the question is read, but I also changed the main verb from active to passive. This leads to our next top tip below.

5. Use a combination of techniques

Typically relying on one technique to paraphrase in your writing is doable, but it can be stressful and not very effective. To get the best results, try using at least two or three different techniques. Using synonyms combined with changing the grammar or word order can have a dramatic effect on your paraphrasing skills.