Why is Paraphrasing Such a Big Deal at University?

If you’re an academic, a graduate, or student currently enrolled at a university or college, you’ll know all about the joys, difficulties, and complexities of paraphrasing. What you may not know is that paraphrasing services provided by professional paraphrasers and document rewriters are available on-demand to help you with this tricky task.

The purpose of a paraphrasing service (or rewriting service) is to help you articulate a passage of text in your own words (i.e., rather than using the words in the original text) without losing or changing any of the original meaning. If you’ve ever been assigned a paraphrasing task in an academic context, you will be familiar with the extensive investment of time and effort required to do this to a high standard. For this reason, using Proofreading services can prove invaluable in terms of their time-saving and even its sanity-preserving effects.

You may be wondering, as a student or even as a professional academic, why it is that paraphrasing and rewriting skills are emphasized so strongly in the academic setting. After all, wouldn’t it simply be easier to use a direct quotation? Furthermore, if another author has already taken the time to express a thought or argument very concisely, eloquently, or powerfully, what’s wrong with reusing their words to make the same point in another context?

In many cases, there is absolutely nothing wrong with directly quoting another author. However, it must be added here that this is only permissible practice – both practically and ethically – if a clear attribution is made to the original author. After all, if you had spent a great deal of time on a particular task that you were passionate about, only to find that somebody else illegitimately took credit for it, you would not feel happy about it.

So, if directly quoting other authors – which is a common practice in academic works – is acceptable, why do most universities make their students develop paraphrasing skills? And why do many professors within universities dock marks from students who fail to paraphrase and, instead, rely heavily on direct quotation?

There are several reasons why this is the case, the most prominent of which is the belief among many university officials and university educators that developing paraphrasing skills is an essential part of a well-rounded education. Many educators perceive that if a student can express another author’s ideas in their own words, this is evidence of their adequate understanding of those ideas. On the other hand, if the student simply quotes the author, it is difficult to tell whether they have even read the quote let alone understood it.

All in all, paraphrasing is certainly a big deal for students at universities and colleges around the world. Furthermore, if you develop the capability to paraphrase the words of other authors with confidence, you will find yourself with a much stronger command of language, and you will also likely learn a substantial amount. If you’re unsure about how to go about paraphrasing a text, though, working with or talking to a professional paraphraser can be a valuable learning experience.