It may sound counter-intuitive, but paraphrasing is one of the most important types of writing possible. Why? Because it can significantly improve the skills of a writer. If a writer wants to improve his writing and thinking ability, he should understand how to paraphrase effectively. So today, let us discuss what paraphrasing is and the importance of paraphrasing in daily writing. So without further ado, let us dive in.
What is Paraphrasing in Academic Writing?
Paraphrasing or rephrasing is a technique of changing the wording and ideas of an existing document without changing its original meaning. Whether it is academic writing or any other kind of writing, the definition of paraphrasing remains the same.
Importance of Paraphrasing in Daily Writing:
Now, let’s discuss the importance of paraphrasing in daily writing through its benefits.
1.Assists in understanding a topic better:
The first and most obvious advantage of paraphrasing is that it shows the understanding of a student or writer of a topic.
As experts recommend thoroughly reading a passage before trying to paraphrase it, thorough reading helps the students and writers acquire the central theme of a passage better. Thus, paraphrasing can increase a candidate’s understanding of a topic.
2.Helps in summarizing the main idea of a passage:
The second advantage of paraphrasing in daily writing relates to the previous one because it also focuses on the central theme of a topic or passage.
Writers and students use the skill of paraphrasing to help them remember or summarize the main idea of a passage or quote, which they can use again in their writing. So, students and writers can learn to summarize a topic or passage irrespective of its complexity.
3.Improves the vocabulary:
Although paraphrasing is a manual task, writers and students nowadays depend on the paraphrasing tool solutions because of their quick results. Such tools first detect the context of the text through NLP (Natural Language Processing) or NLU (Natural Language Understanding) techniques. Then, they use their advanced AI (Artificial Intelligence) algorithms to paraphrase the text according to the detected context.
During paraphrasing, AI-based paraphrasing tools mostly rely on the synonyms-replacement technique to paraphrase something. So, if a writer pays attention to the paraphrasing mechanism of AI-based paraphrasers, he can improve his vocabulary with the help of such tools.
4.Improves the flow and delivery of content:
As mentioned earlier, an AI-based paraphraser has a knack for automatically detecting the dull parts of the content and enhancing them with high-end and fancy wording. So, by the paraphrasing mechanism of AI-based paraphrasing tools, writers can improve the content delivery and flow of their content according to the detected context.
Thus, paraphrasing through AI-based tools can help in the better content flow.
5. Assists in understanding the concept of passive and active voices:
Changing the voice of sentences is one of the ways to paraphrase something. So, if a writer uses this strategy to rephrase something, he will get better at changing the voice of sentences.
Thus, a sentence rephraser can helps the students and writers improve their passive to active or active to passive voice conversion skills.
6.Helps in preventing plagiarism:
When it comes to avoiding plagiarism, paraphrasing is a universal technique. So, another obvious advantage of paraphrasing is it helps in avoiding plagiarism.
Paraphrasing can help to prevent plagiarism in several ways. Some most common ways are:
- Most writers change the voice of sentences to paraphrase something and avoid plagiarism.
- Similarly, some writers recommend using a different initial point for a passage to paraphrase it, which is another handy way to prevent plagiarism.
Thus, a rephraser can help the students and writers avoid plagiarism claims.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
1.How can understanding paraphrasing help you in your daily life?
When a writer or student paraphrases something, he uses his own words to describe something. But before describing something in his own words, he understands the concept of the original idea thoroughly. Thus, paraphrasing increases the critical thinking ability of a person and improves his writing skills.
2.What are the five reasons for paraphrasing?
According to the above guide, the five reasons to paraphrase something are:
- A correct piece of paraphrased content helps in avoiding the claims of plagiarism.
- Paraphrasing increases the understanding of a topic.
- Paraphrasing creates a better sentence flow and improves the delivery tone of the content.
- Paraphrasing enhances the vocabulary of a writer or student.
Paraphrasing develops the ability in students to frequently change the sentence voices from active to passive or vice versa.
3.Why is paraphrasing an important reading and writing skill?
As discussed earlier, paraphrasing means understanding the concept of a text in a more detailed way. So, with paraphrasing, candidates can easily understand the complex details of a topic and the connection between its pain points. Such things will come in handy in both reading and writing.
Conclusion:
Paraphrasing is a heavily emphasized skill. In fact, it is a crucial skill for professional writers, editors and teachers. It is essential to develop the ability to paraphrase because if something a student doesn’t understand or doesn’t particularly care much about comes up in class, he will at least be able to cover that material with some degree of competence. Paraphrasing lets the writers and students get out of their heads and into their writing.
