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Paraphrasing Tool: Free Sentence Rephraser

Rephrase by ProWritingAid is a free online paraphrasing tool. Find the perfect way to express your thoughts quickly without having to spend time wracking your brain for the right words.

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Why ProWritingAid Offers the Best Paraphrasing Tool Online

Rephrasing is where you take an idea and find fresh language to express it. Rephrase by ProWritingAid offers a variety of rewriting suggestions so you can choose the one that gets your idea across perfectly.

Multiple ways to rephrase

You can shorten or expand your sentence, make it more formal or informal, add sensory detail, or improve fluency.

Find the right words faster

You may not have all the right words, but the paraphrasing tool does, and it can find them in an instant. Just highlight, click, Rephrase.

Strengthen your sentence

The rewording tool suggests changes to the structure and vocabulary of your text without removing key information.

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How Does Our Paraphrasing Tool Work?

Rephrase by ProWritingAid uses an advanced algorithm to provide quality rephrasing. Instead of replacing words with synonyms, the tool uses a combination of reworked vocabulary, sentence structure, and syntax to create fresh, new content. For the best paraphrased text, follow these easy steps:

Step 1. Check your text for errors

Rephrase by ProWritingAid works best when your existing text is error-free. ProWritingAid’s Realtime report highlights grammar, style, and spelling issues, which you can review to see suggestions and explanations. Quickly correct your writing errors so your paraphrased text will be clear.

Step 2. Highlight any sentence

Highlight the sentence you want to rephrase in a stronger, clearer way. You can use our paraphrase generator ten times per day with a free plan or get unlimited rephrases with a paid plan.

Step 3. Select a rephrase style

The paraphrasing tool has seven ways to rephrase your writing. Our sentence changer allows you to expand your sentence or shorten it, make it more formal or informal, add vivid details to your writing, or increase the overall fluency of your text.

Step 4. Run Rephrase by ProWritingAid

You’ll receive multiple suggestions to choose from when you run Rephrase on your highlighted text. Browse through the options to find the perfect sentence. You can then accept one of the options or ignore the suggestions—or you can use them as inspiration for your own rewrites!

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ProWritingAid has been a godsend for me. I am currently rewriting all of my eleven books using this program. I can't believe what I missed the first time around. This is the next best thing after a human editor. I love it!

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Who Can Benefit From ProWritingAid’s Paraphrasing Tool?

Anyone who wants help expressing their writing in a stronger and clearer way

Our free paraphrase tool can help you write logical, eloquent, and plagiarism-free assignments. Use Rephrase when you’re struggling to write a strong thesis statement, make your original ideas sound formal, or craft a poignant conclusion.

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Combine information from multiple sources to add credibility to your work. Avoid slipping into informal language. Easily present complex ideas in a digestible manner, showing how much you understand your research—all while avoiding plagiarism.

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Paraphrasing Tool FAQs

1. is paraphrasing the same as rewording.

Paraphrasing is when you rewrite text in a different form while still retaining the meaning of the original text.

Rewording is switching out words with synonyms, whereas paraphrasing changes the structure. Rewording is not sufficient for academic purposes.

2. Is this a sentence rephraser or does it work on paragraphs too?

Rephrase by ProWritingAid works on individual sentences. When you run the tool, you will be presented with multiple rephrases to choose from so you can find the perfect words quickly and easily.

3. What does our tool offer that others, such as QuillBot's paraphrase, don’t?

Our rewording tool is built into an even more powerful editing tool that analyzes your writing and shows you how to improve it. With over 20 tailored reports, you'll get access to suggestions about grammar, sentence structure, readability, and much more.

4. Does ProWritingAid have a plagiarism checker?

Yes! ProWritingAid’s plagiarism checker will check your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers, so you can be sure of its originality. Find out more about pricing for plagiarism checks here .

5. What's the difference between rephrase vs paraphrase?

Paraphrase and rephrase are often used interchangeably. They both involve rewriting a piece of text using different words. Our Rephrase tool takes your original text and suggests ways to reword and improve it.

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  • How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on April 8, 2022 by Courtney Gahan and Jack Caulfield. Revised on June 1, 2023.

Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words. Paraphrasing a source involves changing the wording while preserving the original meaning.

Paraphrasing is an alternative to  quoting (copying someone’s exact words and putting them in quotation marks ). In academic writing, it’s usually better to integrate sources by paraphrasing instead of quoting. It shows that you have understood the source, reads more smoothly, and keeps your own voice front and center.

Every time you paraphrase, it’s important to cite the source . Also take care not to use wording that is too similar to the original. Otherwise, you could be at risk of committing plagiarism .

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Table of contents

How to paraphrase in five easy steps, how to paraphrase correctly, examples of paraphrasing, how to cite a paraphrase, paraphrasing vs. quoting, paraphrasing vs. summarizing, avoiding plagiarism when you paraphrase, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about paraphrasing.

If you’re struggling to get to grips with the process of paraphrasing, check out our easy step-by-step guide in the video below.

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Putting an idea into your own words can be easier said than done. Let’s say you want to paraphrase the text below, about population decline in a particular species of sea snails.

Incorrect paraphrasing

You might make a first attempt to paraphrase it by swapping out a few words for  synonyms .

Like other sea creatures inhabiting the vicinity of highly populated coasts, horse conchs have lost substantial territory to advancement and contamination , including preferred breeding grounds along mud flats and seagrass beds. Their Gulf home is also heating up due to global warming , which scientists think further puts pressure on the creatures , predicated upon the harmful effects extra warmth has on other large mollusks (Barnett, 2022).

This attempt at paraphrasing doesn’t change the sentence structure or order of information, only some of the word choices. And the synonyms chosen are poor:

  • “Advancement and contamination” doesn’t really convey the same meaning as “development and pollution.”
  • Sometimes the changes make the tone less academic: “home” for “habitat” and “sea creatures” for “marine animals.”
  • Adding phrases like “inhabiting the vicinity of” and “puts pressure on” makes the text needlessly long-winded.
  • Global warming is related to climate change, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Because of this, the text reads awkwardly, is longer than it needs to be, and remains too close to the original phrasing. This means you risk being accused of plagiarism .

Correct paraphrasing

Let’s look at a more effective way of paraphrasing the same text.

Here, we’ve:

  • Only included the information that’s relevant to our argument (note that the paraphrase is shorter than the original)
  • Introduced the information with the signal phrase “Scientists believe that …”
  • Retained key terms like “development and pollution,” since changing them could alter the meaning
  • Structured sentences in our own way instead of copying the structure of the original
  • Started from a different point, presenting information in a different order

Because of this, we’re able to clearly convey the relevant information from the source without sticking too close to the original phrasing.

Explore the tabs below to see examples of paraphrasing in action.

  • Journal article
  • Newspaper article
  • Magazine article

Once you have your perfectly paraphrased text, you need to ensure you credit the original author. You’ll always paraphrase sources in the same way, but you’ll have to use a different type of in-text citation depending on what citation style you follow.

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It’s a good idea to paraphrase instead of quoting in most cases because:

  • Paraphrasing shows that you fully understand the meaning of a text
  • Your own voice remains dominant throughout your paper
  • Quotes reduce the readability of your text

But that doesn’t mean you should never quote. Quotes are appropriate when:

  • Giving a precise definition
  • Saying something about the author’s language or style (e.g., in a literary analysis paper)
  • Providing evidence in support of an argument
  • Critiquing or analyzing a specific claim

A paraphrase puts a specific passage into your own words. It’s typically a similar length to the original text, or slightly shorter.

When you boil a longer piece of writing down to the key points, so that the result is a lot shorter than the original, this is called summarizing .

Paraphrasing and quoting are important tools for presenting specific information from sources. But if the information you want to include is more general (e.g., the overarching argument of a whole article), summarizing is more appropriate.

When paraphrasing, you have to be careful to avoid accidental plagiarism .

This can happen if the paraphrase is too similar to the original quote, with phrases or whole sentences that are identical (and should therefore be in quotation marks). It can also happen if you fail to properly cite the source.

Paraphrasing tools are widely used by students, and can be especially useful for non-native speakers who may find academic writing particularly challenging. While these can be helpful for a bit of extra inspiration, use these tools sparingly, keeping academic integrity in mind.

To make sure you’ve properly paraphrased and cited all your sources, you could elect to run a plagiarism check before submitting your paper. And of course, always be sure to read your source material yourself and take the first stab at paraphrasing on your own.

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

  • ChatGPT vs human editor
  • ChatGPT citations
  • Is ChatGPT trustworthy?
  • Using ChatGPT for your studies
  • What is ChatGPT?
  • Chicago style
  • Critical thinking

 Plagiarism

  • Types of plagiarism
  • Self-plagiarism
  • Avoiding plagiarism
  • Academic integrity
  • Consequences of plagiarism
  • Common knowledge

To paraphrase effectively, don’t just take the original sentence and swap out some of the words for synonyms. Instead, try:

  • Reformulating the sentence (e.g., change active to passive , or start from a different point)
  • Combining information from multiple sentences into one
  • Leaving out information from the original that isn’t relevant to your point
  • Using synonyms where they don’t distort the meaning

The main point is to ensure you don’t just copy the structure of the original text, but instead reformulate the idea in your own words.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly cite the source . This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style .

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

  • Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
  • Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
  • Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words and properly cite the source .

To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

  • Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
  • You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
  • You’re presenting a precise definition
  • You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Gahan, C. & Caulfield, J. (2023, June 01). How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved March 9, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/working-with-sources/how-to-paraphrase/

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Paraphrasing – Techniques for Rephrasing, Rewording, and Rewriting.

Plagiarism | Plagiarism Checkers | Paraphrasing Techniques | Scholarly Paraphraser

Paraphrasing is the process of rewriting text into a different form but still retaining the core meaning of the text. Most people misunderstand the term paraphrasing and think it simply involves either rewording or rephrasing the text. Rewording is a simple process of swapping words with synonyms, whereas rephrasing involves changing the order of words in the text. In an academic context paraphrasing means conveying somebody else’s ideas or work in your own words in your essay paper.

When writing an academic paper or a research article, you should be very conscious about using text from other’s work and even your own previously published works. The use of text from other papers without proper referencing will constitute plagiarism , and the use of your own previous work will constitute self-plagiarism . If you are using text from your own articles then simple rewording and rephrasing will do, however, if you are using text from other’s work then the core idea should be rewritten in your own words.

In this blog, we discuss the importance of paraphrasing and highlight good paraphrasing techniques. We also discuss how academic paraphrasing tools and rewording tools can be used to rewrite your text. The blog concludes with a brief discussion on plagiarism checkers and how they can be used to avoid academic misconduct .

1. Paraphrasing Examples – Good and Bad Samples

Following are some examples of good and bad paraphrasing. The original text that is to be paraphrased is given below.  

Mammography is the most common screening technique used for breast cancer screening. However, the technique has many limitations. Original Text

In the example below, the text has been paraphrased by selectively rewording the text. The word ‘technique’ has been replaced by the word ‘method’, and the word ‘limitation’ has been replaced by the word ‘drawback’. Furthermore, no part of the text has been rephrased and rewritten.

Mammography is the most popular screening method used for breast cancer screening. However, the method has many drawbacks. Bad Paraphrasing

In the following example, the user has just taking the idea from the original text and rewritten using completely new language. This qualifies as good paraphrasing as it goes beyond simple rewording and rephrasing.

Mammography is considered the gold standard technique for detecting breast cancers. Despite its widespread usage, it suffers from numerous shortcomings. Good Paraphrasing

2. Good Paraphrasing Techniques

In most cases paraphrasing in academic text involves explaining somebody else’s work or technique in your paper. One way to do this would be to use ‘think aloud’ technique. This approach involves you explaining the technique aloud as you would to a colleague or a friend in everyday language and simultaneously typing it in a text editor or writing in a piece of paper.

When you look at the text, you will notice three things  (1) the choice of words will be much simpler than the original source; (2) the order of words and ideas would have been changed and (3) the text will be a bit shorter than the original as it is more of a summary now. In the  video below, the instructor explains how to paraphrase a piece of technical text using a practical example. 

3. Citing the Source

If you are using direct quotes from previously published documents. Then, the text should be enclosed in quotes followed by the reference.

“I have copied this text word to word from the source document and hence enclosing in quotes” (Author et al., 2013)

It is very important to cite the source wherever appropriate even if the text has been fully paraphrased. Following examples show how to give credits to the author even if the text has been completely rewritten by you.

According to Author et al. (2013), this method is …. Author et al. (2013) states that ….

4. Paraphrasing Software

There are many paraphrasing tools , article rewriters and rewording tools available that allow users to quickly rewrite large chunks of text to produce unique content for websites. These tools simply replace the words in the text with their synonyms and some tools reorder the words. These tools are not suitable for academic writing since students are required to understand the meaning of the text and then rewrite the text in their own words.

When dealing with scientific and academic documents, it is very important to use a paraphrasing tool that has been specifically designed for academic writing. Ref-n-write software comes with scholarly paraphrasing tools and proofreading features. The tool will automatically rewrite your text into scientific language and also fix grammatical errors in your text. The tool is being used by millions of academics and many universities worldwide. The tool also contains the world’s largest academic phrasebank and provides users with writing ideas in the form of phrase templates extracted from high-quality scientific documents. The students can use these phrase templates as guidance to reword and rewrite their text. Following is a screenshot from the REF-N-WRITE software that demonstrates the scholarly paraphrasing tool feature.

Screenshot of REF-N-WRITE academic paraphrasing feature

5. Plagiarism Checkers and Detectors

It is a good practice to run your academic essays and papers through plagiarism detection tools to check if your text is unique. There are many paid and free plagiarism checkers available. Most universities require essays to have less than 10% overlap with previous documents. However, it is good practice to use a plagiarism-checking tool during writing so that you can check for text overlap and fix the issues while writing rather than checking for plagiarism after finishing your work. This will save you a lot of time and effort.

Ref-n-write software comes with a plagiarism feature that will enable you to check for plagiarism while writing on the fly within Microsoft Word. A lot of students find it very handy. Ref-n-write is the only tool that checks for text overlap against local documents on your computer. It means that none of your text will be uploaded to the internet for checking purposes and everything stays on your computer. Following is a screenshot from the REF-N-WRITE software that demonstrates the plagiarism checking feature.

Screenshot of REF-N-WRITE plagiarism checking feature

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  • How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples

Published on 8 April 2022 by Courtney Gahan and Jack Caulfield. Revised on 15 May 2023.

Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words. Paraphrasing a source involves changing the wording while preserving the original meaning.

Paraphrasing is an alternative to  quoting (copying someone’s exact words and putting them in quotation marks ). In academic writing, it’s usually better to paraphrase instead of quoting. It shows that you have understood the source, reads more smoothly, and keeps your own voice front and center.

Every time you paraphrase, it’s important to cite the source . Also take care not to use wording that is too similar to the original. Otherwise, you could be at risk of committing plagiarism .

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Table of contents

How to paraphrase in five easy steps, how to paraphrase correctly, examples of paraphrasing, how to cite a paraphrase, paraphrasing vs quoting, paraphrasing vs summarising, avoiding plagiarism when you paraphrase, frequently asked questions about paraphrasing.

If you’re struggling to get to grips with the process of paraphrasing, check out our easy step-by-step guide in the video below.

The only proofreading tool specialized in correcting academic writing

The academic proofreading tool has been trained on 1000s of academic texts and by native English editors. Making it the most accurate and reliable proofreading tool for students.

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Putting an idea into your own words can be easier said than done. Let’s say you want to paraphrase the text below, about population decline in a particular species of sea snails.

Incorrect paraphrasing

You might make a first attempt to paraphrase it by swapping out a few words for  synonyms .

Like other sea creatures inhabiting the vicinity of highly populated coasts, horse conchs have lost substantial territory to advancement and contamination , including preferred breeding grounds along mud flats and seagrass beds. Their Gulf home is also heating up due to global warming , which scientists think further puts pressure on the creatures , predicated upon the harmful effects extra warmth has on other large mollusks (Barnett, 2022).

This attempt at paraphrasing doesn’t change the sentence structure or order of information, only some of the word choices. And the synonyms chosen are poor:

  • ‘Advancement and contamination’ doesn’t really convey the same meaning as ‘development and pollution’.
  • Sometimes the changes make the tone less academic: ‘home’ for ‘habitat’ and ‘sea creatures’ for ‘marine animals’.
  • Adding phrases like ‘inhabiting the vicinity of’ and ‘puts pressure on’ makes the text needlessly long-winded.
  • Global warming is related to climate change, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing.

Because of this, the text reads awkwardly, is longer than it needs to be, and remains too close to the original phrasing. This means you risk being accused of plagiarism .

Correct paraphrasing

Let’s look at a more effective way of paraphrasing the same text.

Here, we’ve:

  • Only included the information that’s relevant to our argument (note that the paraphrase is shorter than the original)
  • Retained key terms like ‘development and pollution’, since changing them could alter the meaning
  • Structured sentences in our own way instead of copying the structure of the original
  • Started from a different point, presenting information in a different order

Because of this, we’re able to clearly convey the relevant information from the source without sticking too close to the original phrasing.

Explore the tabs below to see examples of paraphrasing in action.

  • Journal article
  • Newspaper article
  • Magazine article

Once you have your perfectly paraphrased text, you need to ensure you credit the original author. You’ll always paraphrase sources in the same way, but you’ll have to use a different type of in-text citation depending on what citation style you follow.

Generate accurate citations with Scribbr

It’s a good idea to paraphrase instead of quoting in most cases because:

  • Paraphrasing shows that you fully understand the meaning of a text
  • Your own voice remains dominant throughout your paper
  • Quotes reduce the readability of your text

But that doesn’t mean you should never quote. Quotes are appropriate when:

  • Giving a precise definition
  • Saying something about the author’s language or style (e.g., in a literary analysis paper)
  • Providing evidence in support of an argument
  • Critiquing or analysing a specific claim

A paraphrase puts a specific passage into your own words. It’s typically a similar length to the original text, or slightly shorter.

When you boil a longer piece of writing down to the key points, so that the result is a lot shorter than the original, this is called summarising .

Paraphrasing and quoting are important tools for presenting specific information from sources. But if the information you want to include is more general (e.g., the overarching argument of a whole article), summarising is more appropriate.

When paraphrasing, you have to be careful to avoid accidental plagiarism .

Students frequently use paraphrasing tools , which can be especially helpful for non-native speakers who might have trouble with academic writing. While these can be useful for a little extra inspiration, use them sparingly while maintaining academic integrity.

This can happen if the paraphrase is too similar to the original quote, with phrases or whole sentences that are identical (and should therefore be in quotation marks). It can also happen if you fail to properly cite the source.

To make sure you’ve properly paraphrased and cited all your sources, you could elect to run a plagiarism check before submitting your paper.

To paraphrase effectively, don’t just take the original sentence and swap out some of the words for synonyms. Instead, try:

  • Reformulating the sentence (e.g., change active to passive , or start from a different point)
  • Combining information from multiple sentences into one
  • Leaving out information from the original that isn’t relevant to your point
  • Using synonyms where they don’t distort the meaning

The main point is to ensure you don’t just copy the structure of the original text, but instead reformulate the idea in your own words.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly reference the source . This means including an in-text referencing and a full reference , formatted according to your required citation style (e.g., Harvard , Vancouver ).

As well as referencing your source, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas into your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

  • Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
  • Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
  • Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely into your own words and properly reference the source .

To present information from other sources in academic writing , it’s best to paraphrase in most cases. This shows that you’ve understood the ideas you’re discussing and incorporates them into your text smoothly.

It’s appropriate to quote when:

  • Changing the phrasing would distort the meaning of the original text
  • You want to discuss the author’s language choices (e.g., in literary analysis )
  • You’re presenting a precise definition
  • You’re looking in depth at a specific claim

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the ‘Cite this Scribbr article’ button to automatically add the citation to our free Reference Generator.

Gahan, C. & Caulfield, J. (2023, May 15). How to Paraphrase | Step-by-Step Guide & Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved 8 March 2024, from https://www.scribbr.co.uk/working-sources/paraphrasing/

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Courtney Gahan

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Other students also liked, harvard in-text citation | a complete guide & examples, how to avoid plagiarism | tips on citing sources, apa referencing (7th ed.) quick guide | in-text citations & references.

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