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Learning
Strategy 2: Paraphrasing
Robert Harris
Version Date: December 11, 2011
A paraphrase is a restatement of an idea into your own words. You
turn a sentence you have read or heard into about the same number
of your own words. Different
words, same meaning. For example:
Original sentence: "The amount of pleasure and satisfaction we derive
from experience has as much to do with how the experience relates to
expectations as it does with the qualities of the experience itself."
--Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of
Choice
Paraphrase: How much you enjoy and are pleased with an experience
depends as much on what you expected from it beforehand as it does on
what you actually experienced. --adapted from Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice
Here we have 32 words paraphrased into 28 words, which is a similar
number. The central idea of a paraphrase is that it preserves all the
meaning and details (whereas a summary omits details and preserves only
the main ideas).
Paraphrasing Is an Aid to Learning
Paraphrasing is a valuable learning strategy for the following reasons:
- Active engagement with the material. The act of turning a
statement into your own words and writing them down (or typing them up)
engages your mind and body with the content. Writing or typing up
sentences involves kinesthetic (physical movement) interaction with the
material as well as mental. Paraphrasing causes you to think about the
ideas rather than just dumping them into your brain unexamined.
- Improved memory. Active engagement improves your memory of the
ideas. Even copying the idea down word for word increases retention,
whether or not you ever review your notes. But paraphrasing is even
more powerful for aiding memory.
- Improved understanding. In order to convert an idea into your own
words, you must think about it and understand what the writer or
speaker is telling you. You can copy the exact words robotically
without even thinking and therefore with less understanding. And
without understanding, you are likely to forget the information sooner
because your brain didn't connect it to anything else.
- Make the idea your own. Using your own writing style, your own
vocabulary, and your own thinking adds the idea to your regular mental
inventory. When someone asks, "What was the point of the book?" you are
more likely to answer in your natural style rather than in the possibly
elaborate vocabulary and phrasing of the book.
Paraphrasing Allows You to Organize Ideas
You can use paraphrasing to
- Put the ideas in a different order. IF the writer discusses
things in an order different from the one you find most useful for your
study, rearrange them in your paraphrase to emphasize what is important.
- Simplify the language. This is perhaps the most useful benefit of
paraphrasing. Some writers use overly elaborate sentence structures or
too much jargon or unnecessarily abstract vocabulary.
- Clarify the ideas. Some writing is simply difficult to
understand. Many great thinkers lack the ability to express themselves
as clearly as we would hope. Paraphrasing is your opportunity to
translate difficult writing into clearer writing.
How to Paraphrase
The formula for paraphrasing is:
- Read the sentence or passage over and over until you really
understand it.
- Write out the meaning, either in outline form or conversational
style
- Locate the main ideas and arrange the order you want to present
them
- Write the paraphrase from your rearranged outline
- Check to see that you have preserved the meaning and included all
the ideas
- Edit as needed
- Add a citation to give the source credit. (You can't make an idea
your own simply by changing it into your own words. You still need to
cite the source of the idea.)
Examples of Paraphrases
Original Sentence: "It turns out to be very difficult, for instance, to
unlearn or ignore bad information--even when we know it is wrong or
should be ignored." --Joseph T. Hallinan, Why We Make Mistakes
Get
Why We Make Mistakes from Amazon.com
Paraphrase: Even when we are told that some information is wrong and
should be disregarded, we still find it hard to forget it or avoid it.
--adapted from Joseph T. Hallinan,
Why We Make Mistakes
Original Sentence: "Leaders empower employees through consistent
information sharing and increased decision-making responsibility and
autonomy." --Paul Marciano, Carrots
and Sticks Don't Work
Paraphrase: When leaders regularly share information, give
decision-making authority, and allow autonomy, they empower their
employees. --adapted from Paul Marciano, Carrots and Sticks Don't Work
Original Sentence: "Learning occurs best when new information is
incorporated gradually into to the memory store rather that when it is
jammed in all at once. --John Medina, Brain
Rules
Paraphrase: The best way to learn something it is to study it a little
at a time instead of trying to memorize it all at the same time.
--adapted from John Medina, Brain
Rules
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About the author:
Robert
Harris is a writer
and educator with more than 25 years of teaching experience at the
college
and university level. RHarris at virtualsalt.com