Plagarism and paraphrasing test

Avoid borrowing language.

Any language borrowed from the original passage needs quotation marks.

Cover the essential information.

Be sure to hit all the main points. Explain difficult material. Paraphrasing can be used to make hard to understand passages easy to understand.

Comprehend the full meaning of the information.

Be sure to thoroughly understand the original passage before you attempt to paraphrase. You want to restate the idea while conveying the same meaning.

Use a thesaurus.

However, avoid just replacing one word with another. Use your own grammatical structure. If you use the author's original grammatical structure, it is plagiarism if it is not properly cited. Be careful when you use a thesaurus; there can be small differences between words. You might think they mean they the same thing, but they may not.

Six Steps to Effective Paraphrasing

Six 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.

Write your own passage first.

reread the original passage after you paraphrase to check for accuracy.