Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: a handbook for Supervisors

Paraphrasing and summary writing
A further important strategy that second-language writers need to develop
for summary writing is good paraphrasing skills. As Bailey (2003: 21) points
out, effective paraphrasing is vital in academic writing for, among other
things, avoiding the risk of plagiarism. A good paraphrase, in his words, ‘is
significantly different from the wording of the original, without altering the
meaning at all’. Bailey suggests three key techniques students can use to do
this. These are changing the word, changing the word class, and changing the word
order. These techniques are summarized in Table 7.6.
Writing the background chapters
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Table 7.5 Linguistic strategies for commenting on previous research
Strategy
Function
Examples
Hedges
to withhold the writer’s
might/perhaps/
full commitment to a 
possible/about
proposition
Boosters
to emphasize force or the
in fact/definitely/it is 
writer’s certainty in a 
clear that
proposition
Attitude markers
to express the writer’s 
unfortunately/
attitude towards a
I agree/surprisingly
proposition
Engagement markers
to explicitly refer to or 
consider/note that/you
build a relationship with
can see that
the reader
Self-mentions
to make explicit reference 
I/we/my/our
to the researcher/s
Source: based on Hyland 2004a