How to Paraphrase A Step by Step Guide Using MS Word and Google Search

How to Paraphrase: A Step by Step Guide using MS Word and Google Search

Two terms are usually heard when discussing academic and non-academic report writing, and they are paraphrasing and plagiarism. It is essential to know that these two terms go hand in hand. This blog is not to define or explain what they are, but to guide you step by step and provide some hidden insights to ease your writing tension.

Before we move to the actual steps, you might be thinking "Why is paraphrasing a big deal?", "Why do I need to know how to paraphrase?"

Let me tell you; all your writeups must be in your own words and not just a copy and paste work from another person's work. If you do not paraphrase your writeup correctly, it will be considered as a plagiarised content of another person's work. Note that after paraphrasing someone's work, you will still have to reference the original author accordingly. Having a high plagiarism count, even if the content is referenced is an indication that you have merely copied and pasted other people's work without understanding them.

The steps involved in paraphrasing are:

Step 1: Read the paragraph to understand the meaning

Step 2: Highlight the keywords within the paragraph. It is essential to identify all the keywords because they should not be changed; otherwise, the idea or the original thoughts of the author could be lost. Hence, while paraphrasing, these keywords could only be moved around within the sentence (See the example below, keywords are highlighted in yellow)

Step 3: Note down the key concept and flow of the paragraph, then write the paragraph in your own words.  Now, how do you write in your own words? It sounds pretty straightforward, init? but not really, here are some tips

Tip 1: Use synonyms were possible; however, don't overuse them; also, be careful; some synonyms don't go well within a sentence. So check the flow of the sentence by reading it with the selected synonyms to ensure it is suitable. Are you thinking about how to get synonyms? Let me give you some insights.

Insight 1: Your MS word can give you a list of suggestions. Right-click on the word and select Synonyms as seen below.

Figure 1: Original Text

However, you might get no synonyms suggestion for some complex words (see the figure below), or you might not just be happy with the advice. What do you do?  Check the next insight.

Insight 2: Use any search engine, preferably Google, and type in the search box "Synonyms of [word]" and it will list several synonyms. Give extra attention when selecting a synonym because your sentence meaning can be changed entirely.

Now that you are done selecting suitable synonyms for some words. Remember, synonyms alone will not help you avoid plagiarism.

Tip 2: You can change re-arrange the structure of the text by: 

Insight 1: Changing the position of the in-text references (see red text)

Effectively managing customer service satisfaction and enhancing customer loyalty have been addressed by marketing practitioners and researchers (Blut et al., 2015; Rust and Chung, 2006; Zeithaml et al., 1996).

Rust and Chung, (2006), Blut et al., (2015) and Zeithaml et al., (1996) stated that marketing researchers and practitioners addressed how to improve customer loyalty and efficiently manage customer service satisfaction.

Insight 2: Re-arranging the sentences and paragraphs (see red text)

Customization, in particular, has become increasingly popular in comparison to standardization because customization allows consumers to specify the products that are suited to their desires (Jin et al., 2012). For example, Jin et al. (2012) demonstrate in their study how package-tour operators often tailor trips to fit travellers’ personal requirements. Standardization has been used to increase the comparability and credibility of economic evaluations and as a means of decreasing costs and increasing productivity (Krol et al., 2013).

According to Jin et al. (2010) customisation is widely used as against standardisation. Krol et al. (2013) stated that standardization has to be used to increase productivity and reduce cost. It also increases the credibility and comparability of economic evaluations. However, customization makes it possible for customers to select products that are of interest to them.  An example is how trips are tailored by package tour operators to fit their passengers’ expectations (Jin et al., 2012).

Tip 3: Compare the original paragraph with your newly written content to cross-check that they are not similar. Wow, I know this is time-consuming and exhausting if done manually. Here you go, MS Word to the rescue again.

Make sure you save the original paragraph and the newly written paragraph in separate word documents before performing the following steps.

Firstly: Go to the Review tab on MS Word and then select compare as seen in the figure below:

Then: Select the document that has the original paragraph by clicking on the left side folder button as shown in the figure below:

Afterwards: Select the document that has the newly written content by clicking on the right side folder button as shown in the figure below:

Finally: Press OK to view the comparison.

Here you go, look at the image below for the result.

What next?

If you have a lot of black words, then your writing is too similar. You need to start all over again.

If you have only a few black words as seen above, yes, I think you are good to proceed to the next content to paraphrase. If you have no black word at all, well, I can only say that you are a genius, one more tip to round it off.

Tip 4: Even though you have paraphrased the content, it might not be perfect yet. So do you have to proofread it?

Yes, you have to proofread it over again to ensure that the content is not disjointed. All the best with your paraphrasing. Feel free to drop a question

See Also:  Are Paraphrasing Tools Really Worth It? | A Quick Guide To IEEE Referencing In Microsoft Word | How to Search and Download Research Papers, Journals and Scientific Articles from Google Scholar for Free | A Quick and Complete Guide to Harvard Referencing