#Write in your own words app how to

They must match the source document word for word and must be attributed to the original author. Quotations must be identical to the original, using a narrow segment of the source. These three ways of incorporating other writers' work into your own writing differ according to the closeness of your writing to the source writing. What are the differences among quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing? This handout compares and contrasts the three terms, gives some pointers, and includes a short excerpt that you can use to practice these skills. This handout is intended to help you become more comfortable with the uses of and distinctions among quotations, paraphrases, and summaries. Writing Letters of Recommendation for Students.But just like driving or riding a bicycle, there’s a learning journey beforehand and students should feel supported through that process.īecause in the end, believing in yourself helps you to be more original. Ultimately, the goal is to be able to do this automatically and do this all on our own. This is the best kind of feedback, one that actually helps, telling us specifically what we need to improve right then and there as we learn. And stop worrying about committing plagiarism by accident and getting an F or worse. There are tools like Draft Coach that can provide feedback in real-time that helps guide us towards proper citation so that we can focus on writing a better paper. It’s way more effective for that information to arise while we’re writing. But it’s hard to learn something a month in advance, and then have to recall it within the process of writing. Sometimes our instructors give us a list that tells us all the different ways plagiarism can manifest. In sum, cite your source when you paraphrase.Īnother way to avoid paraphrasing plagiarism is with real-time feedback. If your text is too close to the original work, consider quoting and citing the source.Cite the source when you are repeating the idea of another person’s work.So what are some effective ways to learn to avoid paraphrasing plagiarism? Paraphrasing is summarizing the idea of another person-and when we use that idea to build our own, we then produce original work.

#Write in your own words app how to

First, let’s discuss how to tell the difference between our own words and paraphrasing. It’s important to cite our sources, whether they’re quoted or paraphrased, to avoid plagiarism. For instance, we can use the above idea from and build on it to form an original idea: When we have our own original ideas, then those are our own and there is no need to cite sources.

When your writing is built upon their ideas, it’s important to highlight your sources (, 2018).īecause we didn’t build on the idea, but repeated it, we attributed the source. It is important not only to cite quotations in the form of other people’s words but also to give credit to the ideas of others. Here is an example of paraphrasing and an appropriate in-text APA citation for the above quote: It’s about both giving credit to other people’s work that your writing is built upon and highlighting where your information came from” (, 2018). In a prior post on paraphrasing, we wrote, “Citation isn’t simply about giving credit for other people’s words. What on earth is the difference? Isn’t taking the ideas of another person and putting them into your own words a way to avoid plagiarism? Answer: Not when it’s someone else’s idea. They’re literally words from another person (easily accomplished via copy and paste) and they should be credited to someone else.īut teachers also tell students to “use the ideas of others in your own words,” which is also defined as paraphrasing. Students are told to “put ideas into your own words” in order to avoid plagiarism. Let’s bring up one example- like distinguishing paraphrasing and plagiarism from original work. It’s not easy figuring out whether or not you’ve got it right, all while you’re trying to learn and avoid getting in trouble when you didn’t intend to plagiarize. While copying and pasting another person’s work and presenting it as your own idea can be a pretty clear example of plagiarism, there are a lot of nuances to academic misconduct, too. We learn with guidance and correction-and it’s even better when we receive that feedback in the moment and multiple times. We don’t learn to drive right away, either. The vast majority of us don’t learn to ride a bicycle the first time we get on a bike. It’s hard to get anything right the first time.