Paraphrasing
Restating a source's idea in your own words and sentence structure while still citing the original author.
Paraphrasing means expressing another author's idea in your own words and your own sentence structure, accompanied by a citation to the original source. A genuine paraphrase reflects understanding: it condenses, reframes, or integrates the idea into your argument rather than swapping a few words for synonyms. Changing scattered words while keeping the source's structure is called patchwriting and is generally treated as plagiarism even when a citation is present.
In a thesis, paraphrasing is how most of the literature review gets written, since long chains of quotations read poorly and suggest limited engagement. Effective practice is to read a passage, close the source, write the idea from memory in your own voice, then check accuracy and add the citation. This keeps your prose consistent and demonstrates the critical understanding examiners look for.
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