What is Paraphrasing?
Paraphrasing is generally defined as "retelling something in your own words." But what does this really mean? In a nutshell, paraphrasing means taking a section of original text and rewriting it the way you would have written it, usually summarizing ideas or points of an argument. It doesn't mean just rearranging the words or cutting out sections. You still need to cite the passages that you paraphrased to show where the facts and ideas you used came from. You also need to take care not to "[misinterpret] or [distort] ... the meaning of the original."26
Take a look at this original passage:
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Public outrage at the death of Sherlock Holmes in "The Final Problem," published in the December 1893 [issue] of The Strand magazine, was immediate. Women wept, men wore crepe mourning bands in their hats, and in a letter to Arthur Conan Doyle, a reader addressed him as "You Brute!" (Tibbetts, 184). |
 Sherlock Holmes as he appeared in The Strand. |
