Quotation vs. Paraphrasing: Which is Best?

The need to paraphrase the words of other writers is becoming increasingly common today, particularly within universities and academic communities for research purposes.

Due to this, paraphrasing services, as well as other writing services such as proofreading services, are now regularly being offered to assist in the preparation and completion of documents. Using a proofreading service can reduce the time it takes to prepare a document like a literature review.

Sometimes, paraphrasing can be a very powerful tool to improve the readability and informativeness of your document. Also, paraphrasing – paired with accurate referencing – is usually essential to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

However, cases often arise when quoting another writer directly, rather than paraphrasing their words, is a much more suitable option. For example, in a literary analysis of a poem by William Shakespeare, direct quotation rather than paraphrasing is natural.

 

What is a direct quotation?

Direct quotation is when you incorporate another writer’s exact words into your own piece of text.

A direct quotation is indicated by a pair of quotation marks, opening at the beginning of the quotation and ending after the final word in the quoted text.

Rules exist that govern the use of quotation marks. If you expect to use many direct quotations in your writing in the future (e.g., if you are applying to become a literature student), it is important to become familiar with these. For example, some rules include:

·         Quote length: Length quotes can be cut down using ellipses

·         Quote context: For quotes with unclear context, words can be added in square brackets

·         Quotes within quotes: Use single quotes within double quotes

 

What is paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing, often known as indirect quotation, is when you incorporate another writer’s ideas and information into your own piece of text, but you rewrite the original text, changing the order of its words and phrases.

As such, paraphrasing amounts to a rephrasing of an original text. This involves not using the exact wording of the original – as in direct quotation – and instead summarizing and recasting the meaning of the original with new words.

Whenever you use indirect quotation, it is important to use proper citations. If you forget to do this, you will be accused of plagiarism, which could lead to a severe reputational hit.

 

Deciding between direct and indirect quotation

Writers commonly struggle with the question of when to paraphrase over using direct quotation.

There are a few situations where the best choice is obvious. For example, in literary analysis, or if the source you are referencing has striking language that you want to emphasise, it is definitely better to use a direct quotation rather than an indirect quotation.

However, other cases are less clear. Therefore, a good general rule to follow is to paraphrase the source when you only need to summarise its ideas or information.

How to Prepare Yourself to Write Well

There are many quick-and-easy tricks to improve your writing quickly, including using professional proofreading services and performing sentence-level editing and document formatting.

At the same time, hiring experts in professional proofreading can teach you how to improve as a writer, offering you a chance to see how a trained professional would have written a particular phrase or sentence.

However, preparing yourself to write well can also lead to dramatic benefits. Although this indirect approach may take longer compared to using quick-and-easy editing tricks (e.g., remove redundant expressions), it is well worth applying.

This article highlights some of the key tips that can help you to prepare effectively before writing, making the writing experience as quick and productive as possible.

 

1. Get a good night’s sleep

Especially if you’ve been working on a long proofreading or writing project with your client, you will eventually lose objectivity.

Given that proofreading and editing depend on an objective mind, a useful way to bring about that state of mind is to get a good night’s sleep.

 

2. Keep a list of errors

If you keep a list of all the errors you commonly make (e.g., in a Google Doc), you’ll be able to use this and bring it to bear whenever you begin a new writing project.

For example, I often confuse the words “its” and “it’s”, but because I have my list on Google Docs easy to hand, I never get them wrong in any of my published writing.

 

3. Know your tools

If you are working in the field of proofreading or writing, it is important to know about the tools that are available to make life easier.

Spellcheckers are a crucial tool for proofreaders and writers, and they play an indispensable role when preparing a manuscript for publication.

Tools such as style guides, such as the Chicago Manual of Style, are also important to exploit when preparing documents. Style guides are especially useful on large writing projects.

 

4. Don’t get distracted

Whether you’re preparing to proofread a document or researching a new topic, it’s important not to get distracted. This will limit your productivity and, as is essential for proofreading, prevent you from noticing small details and inconsistencies.

 

5. Check other people’s work

According to Steven Pinker, author of The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, one of the best ways to get better as a writer, editor, and proofreader is by digesting high-quality written documents.

Knowing about style guides and using spellcheckers are important, but it is also crucial to be an experienced reader who is familiar with different writing styles, tones, and audiences. Checking your friends’ work, as well as reading widely, can help you develop in these areas.

How to Improve a Bad Piece of Writing Quickly

If you have a deadline coming up, using editing services is an affordable way to get peace of mind and improve your document. The purpose of an editing service is to help your readers digest your content – whether it is an essay, a blog article, or a book – in an easy and convenient way.

When you write a first draft of the document, it tends to be low quality in various ways. For example, the structure of the document may be poor, or the document may contain unnecessary repetition. For this reason, creating a second, third, and fourth draft of your text, ideally with the help of a professional editor, can refine it and make it publishable.

If you’d prefer not to use a professional proofreading service to improve your document, or if you’re simply curious about how experienced editors enhance your writing, this article covers some of the key tricks of the trade. Whatever type of document you have, you can quickly apply these tips to improve it.

 

1. Use varied sentence lengths

One of the hallmarks of poor writing – even text that is grammatically fine – is monotony. In academic writing, this can even be a problem, and it is important to address it during the document editing phase.

With this in mind, it is important to remember that you can minimise monotony in your document, and also increase reader engagement, if you mix up your sentence lengths.

 

2. Don’t overuse jargon

In academic writing, the use of jargon may be unavoidable. This is especially the case in technical fields, where documents often become bogged down by acronyms and terminologies.

If you’re not writing to an audience that deals with the jargon in their day-to-day affairs, it’s worth avoiding it. This can help your text appeal better to a general audience.

 

3. Favor strong over weak nouns

A strong noun (“pit bull”) compared to a weak noun (“dog”) carries a significantly greater impact in terms of imagery.

For this reason, if the document you’re working on suffers from a lack of description, replacing strong nouns with weak nouns can have a substantial effect in improving the writing.

In editing services for books and poems, changes made to the writing in areas such as this can have a dramatic and positive impact on the work.

 

4. Target the punctuation

As you check over your piece of text, make sure to go once through while focusing only on punctuation. Punctuation is frequently overlooked today, and many people are unfamiliar with the basic rules of grammar. For this reason, devoting some time to punctuation is worthwhile. 

How to Become a Great Proofreader

Proofreading services are growing in demand in today’s society, and they play an important role in business, academia, and student life. For this reason, finding a route into a career as a proofreader can allow you to provide services to these clients, and could prove fruitful as a professional avenue.

Providing a proofreading service to a client is not a straightforward task, and both training and experience are needed to be able to carry out the duties of a proofreader effectively. This article discusses the qualifications and experience that can help you become a great proofreader.

 

Qualifications for proofreading

Holding a qualification is not a requirement to become a proofreader with most employers. However, employers usually prefer candidates if they hold university degrees.

It is also common for proofreaders to need at least some familiarity with specialist practices and software, which can be gained through proofreading courses or relevant work experience.

Examples of specialist practices and software used in proofreading include:

·         Microsoft Office

·         Google Workspace

·         Use of style guides

 

Work experience for proofreading

The best professional proofreading services are provided when an experienced proofreader checks over a document. The types of experience that are most valuable in order to become a good proofreader include the following:

·         Paid or unpaid internships in publishing houses

·         Positions as editorial assistants

·         Positions in digital marketing companies

 

Tips for preparing for a proofreading job application

If you apply for a position at a company to work as a proofreader, then you’ll normally have to complete a recruitment test. This typically involves providing a short sample of proofreading service, which a member of their team will evaluate.

These tips will help you through the main steps of the proofreading job application:

·         Remove errors from your cover letter and CV

·         Highlight relevant skills in your application

·         If they’ll take your call, enquire with the company and mention your skills

 

Tips for proofreading tests

It’s first important to know what skills a proofreader should have. These include:

·         Good written skills

·         Native level in English language

·         Computer literacy

·         Organisation skills

·         Attention to detail

If you have most or all of the above skills, your performance on your potential employer’s proofreading tests should be fine.

However, there are a few practical processes in proofreading that it’s also worth knowing about. If you apply these when you complete your recruitment test, you’ll do much better:

·         Read your sentences from the end to the beginning

·         Keep a checklist of things to proofread

·         Don’t read words – read syllables

 

Macro-level tips

Becoming a great proofreader is worthwhile and can be very rewarding. Many people think proofreaders are likely to live bookish lives, but working as a proofreader often allows you to learn many new things and interact with people all over the world.

To perform well in proofreading tasks, there are a few macro-level elements to pay attention to that help you bring your client’s documents up to shape before addressing the micro-level details. These include the following:

·         Check consistency and flow of the author’s work

·         Research into the author’s subject area

·         Communicate closely with the author

Avoiding Plagiarism: The Rle of Paraphrasing

Plagiarism is a significant offense in academic life, journalism, and even politics, often leading to severe reputational damage. Through paraphrasing, and even paraphrasing services, it is possible to reduce your risk of being accused of plagiarism by 100%.

In a paraphrasing service, the basic idea is for a trained and knowledgeable professional to rewrite a piece of text (e.g., an academic essay or a book chapter) using synonyms, a different structure, and a different ordering of words and ideas, all the while keeping the same meaning.

The role of paraphrasing services in avoiding plagiarism is strong. For example, although clear attribution of the ideas of others can ensure you will avoid accusations of plagiarism in your written work, effective and systematic paraphrasing can help you achieve this more conveniently.

 

How to guard against plagiarism

The first step to ensure you avoid plagiarism in your writing is to understand how and why plagiarism occurs.

In short, an author is said to have plagiarised another author when they improperly document the use of the author’s ideas.

With this in mind, you can guard against plagiarism effectively, reducing your risk of plagiarism by up to 100%, by knowing what you need to document.

A list of the key items to document is given below:

·         Exact words and phrases

·         Ideas and information

Whenever you use any of the above items from another author, it’s critical to indicate this using an in-text reference. If you’re unsure about what referencing style you should use, consult with your publisher or – if you’re a student – your university.

 

When to paraphrase rather than quote

If it’s more appropriate to use a direct quote instead of paraphrasing, you can save money on a proofreading service by avoiding the need to use it altogether.

The two situations in which you should paraphrase rather than quoting are:

·         When you can express the idea and information of the original text in fewer words than it contains

·         When what you are interested in from the original text is its ideas rather than the specific words and phrases used to communicate the ideas

For example, if you are performing literary analysis, many occasions will arise where it is inappropriate for your to paraphrase a piece of text (e.g., a poem or an excerpt from a work of prose).

Likewise, if you are writing an academic essay or journal article, situations will occur in which paraphrasing the work of another author is a better choice than directly quoting them.