Is Paraphrasing Plagiarism: Paraphrase without Plagiarizing
Paraphrasing is putting information into your own words without changing the original meaning. Looking at the unfamiliar words used by the writer, checking your paraphrase, and comparing it with the original text ensures that you have done it correctly.
We consulted a number of our essay writing experts who work on hundreds of customers to get good grades, and they gave us a lot of insights that we share below.
Some of the tasks that they have excelled in involve paraphrasing. You can order their services if you want them to paraphrase an essay for you and get the best results and grades. But let us consider if the paraphrased text is considered plagiarized or not.
Is Paraphrasing Considered Plagiarism?
The answer to this question is both yes and no. Paraphrasing can be regarded as the act of taking the original text and rewriting it in such a way that the new text is unique but retains a similar meaning to the original text.
On the other hand, plagiarism can be defined as the act of taking another writer’s ideas or work and passing them off as your own.
After understanding that issue, let us now know whether paraphrasing is considered to be a type of plagiarism or not.
Practically, paraphrasing is considered plagiarism if you present another author’s content without giving them credit by citing or referencing the source. This is because plagiarism is representing someone’s information as yours. However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you give credit to the source of the information you have paraphrased.
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Instances when Paraphrasing becomes Plagiarism
From the definition of paraphrasing and plagiarism, you can now understand why the answer to the question is yes and no. The flowing sections will explore the instances when paraphrasing becomes plagiarism.
1. If you have Not Cited the source
Paraphrasing can become plagiarism if you have not cited the source where you took the information from. Remember, it is plagiarism if you cite incorrectly or you do not cite at all.
As aforementioned, paraphrasing is the act of rewriting someone’s text in such a way that it retains the original meaning while plagiarism is taking another person’s work or ideas as your own.
Therefore, if you have paraphrased and you have not acknowledged the author of the original text, then it means that you have taken their work and passed them off as your own.
You have not included an in-text citation to acknowledge that the work or ideas are not your own.
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2. When there are No References
If you do not include full references on the last page of your essay or paper on top of the in-text citations within your body paragraphs, then the paraphrasing becomes plagiarism.
3. When you give Incorrect citations
The same case applies to incorrect citations. If you have paraphrased some text and you include incorrect citations or wrong citations, then you will have plagiarized your paper.
It is therefore important to learn how to cite sources correctly in the required format such as APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian, Harvard, and so on.
4. No supporting points or opinion
There are some instances where you may be tempted to paraphrase text without supporting it using valid points or opinions. You must support everything using points and/or opinions to avoid plagiarism.
5. If you picked someone’s paper
This is the ultimate red flag of plagiarism. If you pick someone’s paper and pass it off as your own, then you will have completely stolen another person’s intellectual property, which is a serious academic offense.
It is good to note that picking someone’s paper may be bad for your grades, and can also be illegal plagiarism if it is proven that you gained financially or had an undue advantage.
Instances when paraphrasing is not plagiarism
1. Sources are cited and referenced
If you paraphrase someone’s work and correctly cite and reference the author and source of the information, then your paper will not be plagiarized.
This is because you will have acknowledged that the information was not yours and it belongs to specific authors.
2. You have included personal points alongside sources
This is important to support the paraphrased points or ideas. You are expounding on the points hence demonstrating your understanding of the source of information and topic of your paper.
Do not forget to cite and reference your paraphrases. This is another way that Turnitin will detect paraphrased plagiarism if you do not cite the source.
3. When you have conducted original research
This is the ultimate method of avoiding plagiarism. Here, you will not need to paraphrase anything because it is your original research.
Furthermore, if you include outside sources, you will most probably include citations and references because you have conducted original research.
How to Paraphrase without Plagiarizing
When paraphrasing is not done the right way it is easy to identify it as cheating. When one presents a paraphrased work without actually acknowledging the original owner of the work, it can be said that one has cheated.
Referencing needs to be correct and following the right procedure. Some of the referencing methods that can be used include APA, MLA, and the Chicago method. These make your paper acknowledge the work of the original writer and prevent plagiarism.
Citing using footnotes to avoid plagiarism includes adding a superscript number at the end of a sentence that includes information from the source.
This number should correspond to a footnote where you include the name of the author, the title of their work, the date of publication, and all other information that may be relevant.
What you include here depends on the type of citation style you are using. Citing styles include Chicago A, OSCOLA, ACS, Turabian, AMA, NLM, and many others
For your content not to be termed as a copy of other people’s work, in-text citations are important. It should be done correctly to avoid plagiarism.
An in-text citation can be used not only when paraphrasing but also when referring to, quoting, or summarizing another source. There must be a corresponding entry in your reference list for every in-text citation in your paper.
In-text citation in APA uses the author’s name, year of publication, page numbers, and paragraph numbers where pages are absent when citing. Examples include: (David, 2010), (David, 2010, p. 36, and or (David, 1020, para. 8).
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Steps How to paraphrase effectively
Paraphrasing is one of the essay hacks that we discussed in our essay cheat sheet guide. In fact, if effectively done, paraphrasing creates an original paper. Follow the following steps;
- First, you have to read the content you want to paraphrase and understand it fully. Know what it is all about and everything it talks about.
- Secondly, note the key points. These are the points that if you will omit them from your work, then the meaning will be lost completely.
- Thirdly after completing the first and the second steps, you must be able to write your version of the text without looking at the original one.
- Lastly, compare and contrast your work with the original work. This will help you identify phrases that are still similar and change them. This helps you to paraphrase well so as to avoid any detection of plagiarism.
Check out more tips from our guide on how to paraphrase in APA or in MLA to get the specific details of how to do it and cite well using the two formatting or referencing styles.
Why is Paraphrasing Difficult
Paraphrasing has never been easy. if you need a paper done and you have no time to paraphrase, just buy a paper online. It is safe to buy essays if you get them from a credible website like ours.
Paraphrasing is a hard task and needs patience and resilience so as to do the right thing. Basically, paraphrasing is hard because it requires:
- Reading the whole content regardless of the size
- Mastering the main points of the content.
- You must have good language command and grammar.
- One must show know many synonyms and antonyms and their meaning too.
- You should write your version of the content.
- One must compare what you have written to the original to determine whether there are any identifiable similarities. Confirm if correct quotations and citations are used too.
- Your paraphrased content must not contrast the meaning of the original content.
Such challenges are the ones that make people do a bad job in rewriting content or their work. It is what informed people to use paraphrasing tools to plagiarize content and create it new. However, the use of paraphrasing tools is cheating because it is just a spin of text using bots.
The 4 R’s of Paraphrasing
The four R’s of paraphrasing include Reword, Rearrange, Realize, and Recheck. Rewording deals with identifying words that can be replaced by synonyms.
Rearranging deals with identifying words, phrases, and sentences that you can move around without changing the meaning of a text. Realize deals with identifying words and phrases that can’t be changed.
These include names, dates, and titles, which, if slightly changed, can alter the meaning of a text. Recheck deals with assessing whether you included all important information in your work and whether it makes sense.
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Can plagiarism software detect paraphrasing?
Turnitin can detect and compare submitted papers with every page accessible on the internet, its database of already submitted student papers, and commercial pages from books and journals, and newspapers.
If you manage to escape all these, then none of your work will ever be flagged as plagiarized by the Turnitin originality reports. Paraphrasing is a good way to beat plagiarism scanners. Algorithms that are employed by Turnitin, for example, do not detect paraphrasing.
They mostly detect similar sentence structures, grammatical patterns, and phrases. If content from paraphrasing will not be similar to any content in the Turnitin database, then it is unlikely to be flagged as plagiarized.
Why do we have to Paraphrase
Writing content in your own words without reference to the original is important because It reduces instances of plagiarism. Even the work that is being cited is absorbed by the writer. Paraphrased work is hardly identified as plagiarism, even when plagiarism-checking software is used.
In addition, it promotes credibility. When the writers are citing or quoting any work, they must acknowledge the writers of the original content writers. This helps avoid any copyright infringement. Paraphrasing keeps writers from copying and pasting content.
This cleans up the written content. Help writers retain the flow of content even though they differentiate their writing style from the original style.
Jessica Kasen is experienced in academic writing and academic assistance. She is well versed in academia and has a master’s degree in education. Kasen consults with us in helping students improve their grades. She also oversights the quality of work done by our writers.
