Paraphrasing words

Paraphrasing tips
The five steps to paraphrasing may seem straightforward, but writing an idea in a different way than the published version can be difficult. These are four tricks you can apply to help you do so.

1. 
   Start your first sentence at a different point from that of the original source
   
2. 
   Use synonyms (words that mean the same thing)
   
3. 
   Change the sentence structure (e.g. from active to passive voice)
   
4. 
   Break the information into separate sentences
   

We have applied these four tips to the example below.
Original quote:
“But the hearing was about more than Facebook; it exposed a critical turning point as the power, sophistication and potential exploitation of technology outpaces what users, regulators or even its creators expected or seem prepared to handle” (Roose & Kang, 2018, para. 11).
Paraphrased version:
The hearing made it apparent that the expectations of creators, regulators and users have been rapidly eclipsed by technology in general, not only Facebook. Such technologies now extend beyond what these parties are able to manage, due to their immense influence, potential for exploitation and sophistication (Roose & Kang, 2018, para. 11).
1. Start your first sentence at a different point from that of the original source
In the example, you can see that we started by introducing the context (the hearing) followed by the last part of the original sentence: the expectations of creators, regulators and users. In fact, the key pieces of information are mentioned in a completely different order.
2. Use as many synonyms as possible
Synonyms are words or phrases that means the same thing. Our example uses several synonyms:

• 
  “exposed a critical turning point” → “made it apparent”
  
• 
  “outpaces” → “rapidly eclipsed”
  
• 
  “power” → “immense influence”
  

If you’re struggling to think of synonyms, a thesaurus can be a useful tool. However, don’t overdo it! It’s perfectly acceptable and often necessary to use some of the same words as the original text. In this example, it would be unnecessarily confusing to use synonyms for words like “technology”.