The short answer
To paraphrase without plagiarizing, do two things: express the source’s idea in wording and sentence structure that are your own, and cite the source. Both are required. A well-cited sentence that copies the author’s structure is still too close, and a beautifully reworded sentence with no citation is still someone else’s idea presented as yours.
The practical method is simple and a little uncomfortable: understand the passage, put it away, and write from what you understood. If you paraphrase with the source open, you will follow its sentences.
Paraphrase, quote or summary?
All three use a source and all three need a citation. They differ in whose words appear and how much.
| Type | What it is | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Quote | The author’s exact words, in quotation marks. | The wording itself matters: a definition, a striking phrase, a text you are analyzing. |
| Paraphrase | One specific point, in your words, at about the same length. | You need the detail of the idea but not the author’s wording. This is most of the time. |
| Summary | The main point of a longer passage or a whole work, much shorter. | You need the overall finding or argument, not the detail. |
How to paraphrase in five steps
These steps follow the same logic as the Purdue OWL advice on paraphrasing: understand first, write without looking, then check.
- Read until you understand it. If you cannot explain the passage to a classmate, you are not ready to paraphrase it. Look up terms you do not know.
- Put the source away. Close the tab or turn the page over. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that works.
- Write the idea from memory, as you would explain it to someone. Start the sentence from a different place than the author did, and connect it to your own argument.
- Compare with the original. Check two things: that the meaning is accurate, and that you have not carried over the author’s phrases or sentence pattern. Put any distinctive phrase you want to keep in quotation marks.
- Cite it straight away. Add the in-text citation before you move on, and record the page so you can find the passage again.
Technical terms and names do not need to change. “Photosynthesis” stays “photosynthesis”. What has to be yours is everything around them.
A worked example
The source passage below was written for this guide, with an invented author, so you can see the same idea handled three ways.
Original
“Students who space their study sessions over several days remember more than students who study the same total number of hours in a single sitting, because each return to the material forces the brain to retrieve it again.” (Rivera, 2022, p. 14)
Too close: plagiarism, even with a citation
Learners who spread their study sessions across multiple days recall more than learners who study the same total amount of hours in one sitting, since each return to the content makes the brain retrieve it again (Rivera, 2022).
This is the original sentence with synonyms dropped in: “students” became “learners”, “remember” became “recall”. The order of ideas, the sentence pattern and several phrases are unchanged. This is often called patchwriting, and a citation does not fix it, because the citation says the idea is Rivera’s while the missing quotation marks say the wording is yours.
Too far: inaccurate
Rivera (2022) shows that studying for fewer hours leads to better grades.
The wording is original, but the meaning has changed. The source compares how the same hours are distributed and says nothing about fewer hours or grades. Misreporting a source is its own problem.
Acceptable paraphrase
Cramming is less effective than it feels. Rivera (2022) found that when total study time is held constant, splitting it across several days improves recall, and attributes the gain to the repeated effort of retrieving the material.
The structure is new, the idea is intact, the author is credited, and the sentence now does a job in the writer’s own argument.
When a paraphrase is still plagiarism
- There is no citation. New wording does not make the idea yours.
- Only the words changed. Swapping synonyms or reordering two clauses keeps the author’s sentence. See mosaic plagiarism in our guide to the types of plagiarism.
- Borrowed phrases are not marked. A distinctive phrase from the source needs quotation marks, even inside a paraphrase.
- The whole paragraph is one source, restated. Paraphrasing an author’s paragraph sentence by sentence reproduces their line of reasoning. Summarize it instead, and add your own point.
- It is a translation. Translating a passage from another language and presenting it as your own writing is plagiarism of the idea. Cite the original.
Most of these happen by accident, usually from note-taking that mixes copied text with your own notes. Our guide on how to avoid plagiarism covers habits that prevent it.
How to cite a paraphrase
A paraphrase gets an in-text citation every time, and the source goes in your reference list. No quotation marks are used, because the words are yours.
| Style | In-text citation for a paraphrase |
|---|---|
| APA 7 | (Rivera, 2022) or Rivera (2022) found that… A page number is optional. |
| MLA 9 | (Rivera 14), with the page number. |
| Chicago | A footnote with the page number, or (Rivera 2022, 14) in author-date. |
When one paraphrase runs over several sentences, the APA Style guidance on paraphrasing says to cite the source in the first sentence, and that you need not repeat the citation while it stays clear that you are still describing the same work. Cite again when you start a new paragraph or bring in another source.
Paraphrasing tools and AI
Tools that reword text for you are everywhere, and it is tempting to think they solve this problem. They do not, for three reasons.
- The citation is still missing. A tool changes the wording. It does not add the source, and the idea still belongs to the author.
- The meaning can drift. Automatic rewording swaps words without knowing which ones carry the claim. You are responsible for what the sentence now says.
- It may count as AI use. Many course policies treat AI rewording like any other AI writing. Detection aside, that makes it a question of permission. Turnitin, for example, states in its AI writing detection FAQ that its English detector also looks for likely AI-generated text that was modified with an AI paraphrasing tool. See does Turnitin detect AI?
There is also a simpler reason to do it yourself. Paraphrasing is how you find out whether you understood the source. A tool skips the part of the work the assignment exists to test. If your course allows AI tools, disclose how you used them; see is using AI plagiarism?
Check your paraphrases before you submit
A plagiarism check is a good last step, because it shows you where your wording still overlaps with a source. The Plagiarism Checker Plus plagiarism checker highlights matching passages and links each one to the source it matched. The first check is free without an account, up to 1,000 words, and a free account includes 3,000 words a month. The text needs at least 30 words, and it is never used to train AI models.
For each highlighted passage, decide which of three things it is:
- A quote you forgot to mark. Add quotation marks and a citation.
- A paraphrase that stayed too close. Go back to step two: put the source away and rewrite it from what you understood.
- A common phrase or a technical term. Nothing to fix. Not every match is a problem.
A clean report does not prove a paraphrase is acceptable, since a checker cannot see a missing citation on a well-reworded idea. Read the report with that in mind; our guide on how to interpret a plagiarism report explains what the percentage does and does not tell you.