Paraphrasing Put it in Your Own Words! © 2012HappyEdugator

What is paraphrasing? Identify the point of the passage. Emphasize the most essential details; leave out unnecessary details. Restate what you read in your own words.. Your paraphrased version should be much shorter than the original text. © 2012HappyEdugator

Step 1 to great paraphrasing: Reread the passage to understand the meaning. © 2012HappyEdugator

Step 2 Identify unfamiliar words. Find their meaning. Use a dictionary if necessary. Replace unfamiliar words with words you know. © 2012HappyEdugator

Step 3 Restate the information in your own words. Look for main ideas. Emphasize the key ideas using your own words. Use a thesaurus if you can’t think of a synonym. © 2012HappyEdugator

Step 4 After you have written the main ideas down in your own words, read over your work to see if it makes sense! © 2012HappyEdugator

When is paraphrasing important? When you are studying: Paraphrasing helps you understand what you read. It helps you to take effective notes. When you are writing a report: Paraphrasing helps you to avoid plagiarizing. © 2012HappyEdugator

Paraphrasing Practice How To Paraphrase: Read the following excerpt from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Reread it a second time for understanding…note any words that are important to the meaning. There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. But the fish said, 'Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!' 'Oh, ho!' said the man, 'you need not make so many words about the matter; I will have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon as you please!' Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him on the wave. When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. 'Did not you ask it for anything?' said the wife, 'we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.' © 2012HappyEdugator

Paraphrasing Practice Look for any unknown words. Then pick out main words and ideas that are important. Then use those words or their synonyms to write your paraphrase. There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. But the fish said, 'Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!' 'Oh, ho!' said the man, 'you need not make so many words about the matter; I will have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon as you please!' Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him on the wave. When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. 'Did not you ask it for anything?' said the wife, 'we live very wretchedly here, in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug little cottage.' © 2012HappyEdugator

Paraphrasing Practice Now it is your turn! Paraphrase the following excerpt from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself beneath it and cried: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair to me.' Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it. After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found. © 2012HappyEdugator

Paraphrasing Practice Now try a nonfiction article. Paraphrase the following excerpt from Wikipedia.org. The Brothers Grimm (German: Brüder Grimm ), Jacob (January 4, 1785 – September 20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 – December 16, 1859), were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who together collected folklore. They are among the most well- known storytellers of European folk tales, and their work popularized such stories as "Cinderella", "The Frog Prince”, "Hansel and Gretel“, "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin“, and "Snow White”. Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales, was published in The brothers spent their formative years first in the German town of Hanau and then in Steinau. Their father's death in 1796, about a decade into their lives, caused great poverty for the family and affected the brothers for many years. They attended the University of Marburg where historian and jurist Friedrich von Savigny spurred their interest in philology and Germanic studies—a field in which they are now considered pioneers—and at the same time developed a curiosity for folklore, which grew into a lifelong dedication to collecting German folk tales. © 2012HappyEdugator