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Plagiarism and Academic Integrity: Paraphrasing

Thanks to Jenica Ibarra at St. Petersburg College Libraries for providing the template for this guide!

Paraphrasing

To properly paraphrase, you must change 2 things from the original source:

  1. The language of the original source.
  2. The structure of the original sentence(s).

You must also still include the author(s), page number(s) (for MLA), and date (for APA).

Let's look at a couple of examples:

Our first sample text is from the article "Impacts of Regulatory Reform on Intercity Bus Service in the United States," by Clinton V. Oster, Jr. and C. Kurt Zorn, which was published in volume 25, issue 3, of the journal Transportation Journal, in 1986.

Prior to the mid-1970s, the major modes of intercity transportation, with the exception of the automobile, were subject to federal economic regulation.

Correct paraphrasing (MLA):

 

Here is another way you could paraphrase this sentence - this time, we will cite is APA:

 

The second sample text is from the article "That Guy's A Batterer!: A Scarlet Letter Approach To Domestic Violence In The Information Age," by Elaine M. Chiu, published in volume 44, issue 2 of the journal Family Law Quarterly, in 2010.

Despite the remarkable reliance of the Internet as a source of information, we have yet to fully take advantage of it in our movement against domestic violence. The movement has been around for a long time now, and it has had an enormous impact on the ways we view domestic violence. Nevertheless, domestic violence continues to occur at worrisome levels and to be a serious problem for our communities. As a result, the movement against domestic violence has reached a stage where its members are hotly debating the success of the changes they have implemented. There is significant disagreement and conflict over whether reforms over the past thirty-five years are working or whether the movement needs to find new approaches.

Correct paraphrasing (MLA):

 

Here is another way you could paraphrase this passage - this time, we will cite is APA:

  

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