When preparing papers that lack quality, students do not rush to write a new one. They search for solutions to improve the existing text. Paraphrasing and rewriting allow achieving needed results. While dealing with content transformation, these approaches are quite different. To know which one suits you the most, it is important to know why you may need to change the paper.
Reasons for Text Transformations
When students search “how to paraphrase and rewrite my essay” on the internet, something is wrong with the text. The most popular reason is plagiarism. Even when professors say not to copy from existing works, your paper may not have the needed originality.
For that purpose, paraphrasing can help. Substituting phrases with synonyms and changing them can improve text uniqueness. It is simple and fast, as you do not replace everything in the text but just focus on problematic places.
However, in case the whole paper requires major changes, rewriting is a solution. You write text again but using completely different words and notions. Such text transformation method requires much more time but allows removing plagiarism too.
Another reason for changing paper is low quality. Poor readability of sentences, various mistakes, illogical structure, and revealing topic not enough can lead to paper improvements. Both paraphrasing and rewriting allow solving these issues. Therefore, to use these methods correctly, you should know more about them.
Paraphrasing
While dealing with already written texts, paraphrasing allows gathering the main ideas and expressing them in your way. Students describe the same information but differently. New content becomes more original depending on the depths of text transformation.
Tutors can assign paraphrasing tasks too. They develop analytical and comprehension skills. You must correctly understand the source material and define key points to present information again. Additionally, students expand their vocabulary. Numerous words have plenty of meanings that provide flexibility.
Rewriting
Meanwhile, rewriting focuses rather on deleting the initial text and writing a new one. The key is to preserve the original meaning with the same message. It is very similar to paraphrasing. However, there is still a difference.
Rewriting aims to keep all the information from the initial text, while paraphrasing may omit unimportant points. It requires much more time, as you just cannot skip some paragraphs. While dealing with scientific papers, rewriting is what most students tend to use.
The Process of Text Rewriting & Paraphrasing
At the very beginning, you must read the original paper. It can take more time as you must completely understand every piece of information. While encountering some difficult notions, take time to clarify them on the internet. Only then can you proceed.
During the reading process, take notes on every important point. Do not keep text ideas in mind, as you will definitely forget them when it comes to writing. Even if you are unsure if some thoughts possess that much value, still note them. The more records you have, the easier it will be.
The next step is writing new text without looking into the initial one. Just follow your notes and use your own words to describe ideas. It can be difficult to decide on a proper beginning. However, just start the paper differently than the original. Later, writing becomes easier as you get used to it.
After that, you should compare the first and second texts. Take time to find similarities. Alternatively, use free online tools, which highlight pieces that look the same. That allows spotting problematic places fast and improving them until reaching no similarities.
The final step is proofreading. Every text writing and transformation process requires editing. Pay attention to punctuation, grammar, and syntax. They commonly have issues to fix. Make sure that word choice is correct too. Many phrases change meaning depending on context.
Ways to Improve Texts Effectively
Whenever you rewrite or paraphrase the text, use synonyms. It can be obvious but still worth mentioning. You not only replace words with matching substitutions but also improve the active vocabulary. Online thesauruses greatly help with finding proper synonyms fast. Another option is to use different word forms. It is not a very flexible option but remains effective. English allows changing nouns to different parts of language and vice versa. That decreases text similarity and helps to remove plagiarism.
It can be difficult to remove or transform some sentences completely. However, you can change the word order. It will require using different prepositions, and the readability will change too. Do not change just sole words separately. Always consider a sentence and paragraph as the whole unit. Then you will effectively improve text with both rewriting and paraphrasing.
