Avoid plagiarism : Know the 5 most effective paraphrasing strategies

Today, no matter in which domain you want to perform research, plenty of information is easily available through online, books, articles, and many more. But the fact is that you cannot include the information directly in your thesis as it leads to an offensive crime, the plagiarism. Hence, it becomes a necessity to paraphrase the content in order to avoid plagiarism. 
Often scholars assume that paraphrasing is merely replacing the words by its synonyms. But in reality, this process is much more than utilising synonyms. Some of the characteristics of paraphrasing are: It is entirely in a scholar’s own words, is accurate & fair and is properly cited. 

Although the paraphrasing seem easy, it is not so straightforward task. As per the editors offering PhD thesis editing services in Malaysia, some of the techniques that must be followed while paraphrasing the content are: 

  1. Change the voice of the text - One effective technique is to modify the voice of the entire text. By changing the voice of the sentence ( passive voice to active or active voice to passive), you can restyle the general structure of your content and include your own words. However, playing with active and passive voice is not an easy task. You must have adequate knowledge regarding how and when to use it. Hence make sure you be thorough with this concept even before trying it in your thesis. 
  2. Incorporate introductory phrases with signaling terms - Signaling terms, for example, “they write,” “she believes that” enable you to smoothly incorporate the work of other studies and help the reader understand where your own idea ends and where the cited information begins. If you need a helping hand in including signaling terms, acquire assistance from professional editors delivering PhD thesis editing services in Malaysia. 
  3. Break the information into small chunks or combine them  - Although paraphrasing usually results in a word count roughly the same as that of an original quote, you can still play with the number of sentences to make modifications to the text. For instance, if the original content has one long sentence, then break it into two. If the original content has two sentences, combine them into one long sentence (however, make sure you don’t mess up with the meaning of the content).
  4. Modify the grammatical structure - Changing the structure of the grammar is a significant approach of paraphrasing. For example, while the central government has taken measures for the implementation of privatisation programmes, the progress has been much slower than expected. Upon paraphrasing this sentence, the end result would be, although the implementation of privatisation programmes has been a top priority of the central government, progress in this area has not been as rapid as anticipated. 
  5. Change the word form - Modifying the form of words includes replacing verbs, nouns, etc. with nouns, adjectives, etc. For e.g., Privatisation has failed due to several factors. Upon paraphrasing, the outcome would be, the failure of privatisation is due to many reasons. Here the verb has been replaced by a noun. 

Remember, although you have paraphrased the content, you are still required to cite it. If not, you will be simply taking credit for someone else’s work.

Category : Proofreading
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