Writing a Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is the process of rewriting material to simplify it. Why would you want to write a paraphrase of a text? First, paraphrasing is a useful skill for focusing a reader’s attention on the meaning or concepts contained in the text. It helps you understand what an author is saying, and recording your paraphrase in your notes makes it easier to reference when you are wanting to use it in an essay.

When you are composing your essay, a good paraphrase communicates the meaning of your source text clearly to its intended audience, giving an accurate rendering of the ideas of the original. It can be incorporated gracefully into a student’s research writing—with appropriate credit given to the text’s author.

When you paraphrase, substitute your words for the author’s wording and rearrange word order, changing sentence structure as freely as you can while retaining the sense of the original. This will help you avoid unconscious plagiarism. Avoid using a thesaurus to find these synonyms, as the words you find there may be more difficult than the original wording, or they may just not fit the context you are creating with your wording. Remember that when you are writing essays, use of specific information or ideas that you obtain from an author must be documented, even if you do not quote his or her exact wording.

As an example of paraphrasing, look at the opening stanza of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “God’s Grandeur":

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

A paraphrase of these might render these lines as follows:

God’s glory shines through all the natural world. It glows like the brilliant reflection off thin sheets of gold or silver; it gathers together like the oil pressed from olives. Why then do humans fail to take heed of God’s presence and guidance?

Notice that the literal level of meaning has been expressed, but Hopkins’ rhythms and poetic images have been eliminated or weakened. If you want to retain these qualities, choose to quote the lines rather than paraphrase them. The paraphrase is also slightly longer than the original, forty-two words instead of Hopkins’ thirty-eight words. This is fairly common for paraphrases to be longer than their source, and for their wording to be less striking and imagistic. In this case, a paraphrase might help you understand the poem, but you are likely to quote the stanza when you use it in a literary analysis essay.

Biblical Translations and Paraphrases

All modern versions of the English Bible range from those that try to accurately present the earliest Hebrew and Greek texts in relatively close, word for word order, to those that attempt an idea equivalency, more colloquial wording. Some excellent translations that employ these methods are The New Testament, translated by David Bentley Hart, The New King James, The Revised Standard Version, The New English Bible, The New American Standard Bible, The New American Bible, The New International Version, and The Jerusalem Bible. Here is an example of I Corinthians 4:8-10 in Robert Young’s literal translation, which attempts to copy, as much as possible, the original word order and the original sense of the words:

Already ye are having been filled, already ye were rich, apart from us ye did reign, and I would also ye did reign, that we also with you may reign together, for I think that God did set forth us the apostles last—as appointed to death, because a spectacle we became to the world, and messengers, and men; we are fools because of Christ, and ye wise in Christ; we are ailing, and ye strong; ye glorious, and we dishonoured. (Young’s Literal Translation)

Versions that present the text in a much freer, colloquial, manner are more rightly called “paraphrases” than translations, for they often do not work directly from the Hebrew and Greek texts. Examples of these are The Living Bible and The Message. The same verses from I Corinthians appear like this in the paraphrased version The Message by Eugene Peterson:

You already have all you need. You already have more access to God than you can handle. Without bringing either Apollos or me into it, you’re sitting on top of the world—at least God’s world—and we’re right there, sitting alongside you!

It seems to me that God has put us who bear his Message on stage in a theater in which no one wants to buy a ticket. We’re something everyone stands around and stares at, like an accident in the street. We’re the Messiah’s misfits. You might be sure of yourselves, but we live in the midst of frailties and uncertainties. You might be well thought of by others, but we’re mostly kicked around. Much of the time we don’t have enough to eat, we wear patched and threadbare clothes, we get doors slammed in our faces, and we pick up odd jobs anywhere we can to eke out a living. (The Message)

Note the strengths and weaknesses of each method. Give examples of awkward phrasing in the English phrasing of the more literal translation and of loose colloquial phrasing in the paraphrase.

Writing Paraphrases

You may be asked to write paraphrases of certain brief selections. Your paraphrase will usually be the same length or slightly longer than the original. Remember to substitute simpler words for more difficult words; then rearrange the elements of the sentence. You may also alter the sentence order. To avoid too closely following the original wording, you should try to restate the concepts in your own vocabulary. Be careful if you use a thesaurus for this exercise, as you are likely to choose more complex words or inaccurate words.

Using words in a context always shades their meaning, so a word that is listed in the thesaurus as a synonym might be inappropriate in your paraphrase. If you change the wording into your own vocabulary and then change the order of the sentence elements, or even the paragraph elements, you will be able to achieve your aim of clearly restating the author’s ideas without committing plagiarism. As you write your paraphrases, keep in mind the purpose of your work. You are not trying to inflate the author’s diction, but you are trying to re-present it accurately in diction your audience will clearly understand. With a specific audience in mind, a friend, a class, a group of children, for example, you will be focused on the particular wording for the most effective communication. In your academic writing, you use paraphrase to good effect when you replace many direct quotations in your essays. Remember, though, that all ideas contributed by a source need to be acknowledged by a citation, even if you have paraphrased them. The OWL at Purdue is an excellent reference site.

Psalm 23: A Practice Paraphrase Exercise

Directions--Paraphrase this Biblical passage by this following 3-step process: (1) cross out and replace unusual or harder words, such as “maketh,” (2) reword the sentences to be easier or more typical of modern English, (3) remove the verse numbers so you can put the entire passage into one paragraph instead of one sentence per line.

1. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

(King James Version (KJV) by Public Domain).

Assignment

Writing a Paraphrase

Following what your teacher has presented and what you’ve read in this chapter about paraphrases, you’ll be using one of the following poems to practice paraphrasing. The following selections of poetry provide you with good exercises for understanding the work’s content and for paraphrasing them, which includes changing the genre from poetry to prose and putting the poem in your own words. Be sure to read each poem for its accurate, literal meaning and render that in your own style and diction. Avoid interpreting for symbolic meanings, adding for your own comments, or trying to create a “poetic” style or form. Later in the semester you’ll be using other formats for your interpretations and evaluative comments; however, anything other than the original is inappropriate in a paraphrase. You must simply express the literal level of the work, the content, to someone who may not know the poem itself.

Paraphrasing skills aid in research paper preparation and have many uses in academics and business. Even though this assignment has you paraphrasing poems, most of your paraphrasing for academic reading and writing will call on you to paraphrase prose works. Works in this ebook that present ideas in expository prose include C.S. Lewis’ “What Are We to Make of Jesus Christ” or “Theology,” Dorothy L. Sayers’ “The Dogma Is the Drama,” John Henry Newman’s “The Idea of a University,” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Your paraphrase MUST . . .

substitute original words of piece with appropriate synonyms*
alter word order (syntax) and sentence structure at least somewhat
retain the meaning of the original
make it the same length of the original
write title of a prepared paraphrase this way: A Paraphrase of . . .

*Be careful with a thesaurus. Do not assume you can simply “plug in” any synonym of a word. Words have various shades of meaning; make sure the words you choose as substitutes truly reflect the author’s intended meaning. This is not easy to do. It is permissible to use a couple of the original words if absolutely no synonym seems to be available.

Note: If paraphrasing a poem, put it in prose (sentence and paragraph format), not in verse as it appears in the poem. Use complete sentences, not sentence fragments.

Suggested Selections to Paraphrase (downloads)

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Holy Sonnet XIV” by John Donne
“Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
“As Kingfishers Catch Fire” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
“On My First Son” by Ben Jonson
“Sonnet 73” by William Shakespeare
“The Collar” by George Herbert
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke
“Who Am I?” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“The Kingfisher” by Mary Oliver
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden

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Assignment

Writing a Paraphrase