|LEO: Literacy Education Online|
A paraphrase is an indirect quotation. It must be documented because it relates in your own words and style the thoughts you have borrowed from another person. Paraphrases are more flexible than quotations. They fit more smoothly into your text, and you can express your own interpretations as you paraphrase.
Paraphrasing is used for the following reasons:
"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal . . . ."
Eighty-seven years before, our ancestors founded in North America a new country, thought of in freedom and based on the principle that all people are born with the same rights.
Our ancestors thought of freedom when they founded a new country in North America eighty-seven years ago. They based their thinking on the principle that all people are born with the same rights.
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This page was written by Kelly A. Larson for the Write Place, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota, and may be copied for educational purposes only. If you copy this document, please include our copyright notice and the name of the writer; if you revise it, please add your name to the list of writers.
Last update: 5 March 2004