How Can Paraphrasing Be Ethically Employed in Research Writing?

How Can Paraphrasing Be Ethically Employed in Research Writing?

Paraphrasing is one of the most effective ways to improve research writing. However, when it comes to implementing paraphrasing in research writing, you must consider some ethical aspects. And if you want to know those ethical considerations, this blog post is for you.

Here, we’ll discuss the ethical ways of implementing paraphrasing in research writing. But first, we’ll briefly share the concept of paraphrasing. So, without any further delay, let’s delve into this discussion.

What Is Acceptable Paraphrasing?

Before discussing the concept of acceptable paraphrasing, let’s start by discussing the core definition of paraphrasing.

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines paraphrasing as:

“A restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form.” (Merriam-Webster)

According to the above definition, paraphrasing is the art of restating the existing information in your words without changing its context. But what exactly is acceptable paraphrasing?

As the name suggests, the term ‘acceptable paraphrasing’ refers to the ethically correct form of paraphrasing. So, the information that gives credit to its original owner and has been paraphrased correctly will be considered the acceptable form of paraphrasing.

Let’s understand the concept of paraphrasing through a simple example:

How to Ethically Implement Paraphrasing in Research Writing?

You can ethically employ paraphrasing in research writing by working on small chunks of texts, making enough changes and citing the sources. So, let’s elaborate on each point to understand the ethical implementation of paraphrasing in a better way.

1.     Make Enough Changes During Paraphrasing

The goal of paraphrasing is to make the information unique from the original form. But how can you do that? The answer to this question lies in making extensive changes.

There are different techniques for making extensive changes while paraphrasing information. But let’s discuss the most common and effective ones here.

·        Perform Active-to-Passive or Passive-to-Active Conversion

One of the most popular approaches to paraphrasing information is to perform active-to-passive or passive-to-active conversions. For instance, you can change the subject of a sentence into the object and the object into the subject.

Here is an example of changing the voice of a sentence from passive to active:

Original Text: The DNA can be edited by a new gene editing tool named CRISPR. (Passive Voice)

Active Voice: CRISPR is a new gene editing tool that edits the DNA.

As you can see in the above example, the start of the sentence has shifted from ‘DNA’ to ‘CRISPR’ in the active nature of the sentence. Besides, you can also see how CRISPR has become the agent (something that does the stated action) of the sentence and highlights its importance as a gene editing tool.

This technique is an ethically correct way of implementing paraphrasing in research writing. So, you can use the combination of active and passive voices to bring more clarity to research writing.

·        Use Reverse Conditional Sentences

Besides changing the voice of sentences, using inverted conditional sentences is another popular approach for making changes while paraphrasing the information. However, this technique will be only helpful for paraphrasing a conditional sentence.

As the name depicts, an inverted conditional sentence will contain the reverse order of the subject and verb. So, let’s understand how you can transform a conditional sentence into its inverted form:

Original Text: If you read this complete guide, you will learn to implement paraphrasing ethically in research writing. (Conditional Sentence)

Inverted Conditional Form: You will learn to implement paraphrasing ethically in research writing if you read this complete guide.

In the above example, the original text asks the readers to do something first before knowing the benefits. So, this technique is the conventional way of writing conditional sentences. However, you can follow the unorthodox approach of spoiling the benefits before giving the actions to it, as we’ve done in the ‘Inverted Conditional Form.’

So, this technique is another ethical way of paraphrasing the text without changing the context.

·        Use a Thesaurus

Besides changing the nature of structures, you can also take assistance from a thesaurus for making extensive changes to text through paraphrasing.

A thesaurus will find synonyms and antonyms for the entered word. So, you can use synonyms or antonyms and change the sentence structures to increase the uniqueness through paraphrasing.

Let’s see an example of finding relevant synonyms of some words through a thesaurus and paraphrasing the text:

Original Text: The diagram below shows the process by which bricks are manufactured for the building industry.

Figure 1: Finding synonyms for the word ‘manufacture’ from a Thesaurus

Figure 2: Finding synonyms for the word ‘process’ from a Thesaurus

Synonymized Form: The diagram illustrates the way bricks are made for the building industry.

As you can see in the above example, we’ve found the synonyms of some keywords from a thesaurus and implemented them to paraphrase the text. But the ‘Synonymized Form’ doesn’t look much different from the ‘Original Text.’ So, synonym replacement alone is ineffective in making changes through paraphrasing.

If you want to make your paraphrasing ethical, you must use the synonym replacement technique along with the combination of the aforementioned techniques. So, consider the following example where we have made extensive changes to a sample text by implementing all the aforementioned techniques:

Thus, consider the above-discussed example to learn to make your paraphrasing ethically correct and implement it in research writing.

·        Take the Assistance from Technology

Often, writer’s block can stop the creativity of writers. So, making extensive changes and paraphrasing the information in such a situation can be challenging. But technology’s assistance is here to save the day.

Nowadays, technology has become more advanced, as it can accurately paraphrase information and make it unique. So, let’s prove this claim by running some sample text through a paraphrasing tool. We will be using Paraphraser.io for this purpose.

For this example, we have taken the following lines from our previous research work:

Writing good content requires you to fix the tone of your content and make sure you deliver your ideas properly to the mind of your readers.

But with this article, we have tried to address how an AI-based paraphrasing tool works and what is it capable of.

Thus, after reading this discussion, you will definitely be able to make a decision whether you should use a modern-day paraphrasing tool or not.

Now, we’ll perform a readability test on the aforementioned lines and you’ll see how the readability bar turns to red, which demonstrates hard-to-read sentences.

Now, we’ll run the hard-to-read lines into our paraphrasing tool and you’ll see how our AI-based best paraphrasing tool makes the content more distinctive and readable than the source text.

Now, we’ll perform the same readability check to prove that our paraphrasing tool has made the text more readable by changing its wording.

So, that’s how you can use the assistance of technology to ethically change your text and use it in your research work.

2.     Cite the Original Information’s Source

The second way to ethically implement paraphrasing in research writing is to credit the original data owner appropriately.

Crediting the original data owner is not directly related to paraphrasing. However, performing this step is crucial from the ethical perspective of paraphrasing. Otherwise, even though you’ve successfully explained the ideas in your words, it will still come under plagiarism.

Generally, you can credit the original owner by writing statements like:

• According to William Shakespeare.
• In a study conducted by a mobile company

However, the aforementioned ways of giving credit to the original owner will not work in research writing. That’s because research writing involves the use of proper citation styles.

Some Popular Citation Styles

There are different styles of adequately citing the sources. However, the use of each style generally depends on the field of study and the institute’s guidelines. So, let’s briefly discuss the layout of the three most popular citation styles and where you can use them (Library, 2012).

1)    APA (American Psychological Association)

The APA citation style is used in Education, Psychology and Sciences. So, consider the following pattern when citing your sources in the APA style:

2)    Chicago

Generally, the Business History and Fine Arts candidates cite their sources in the Chicago style. So, if you are one of them, you can take assistance from the following styling pattern of Chicago citation style:

3)    MLA (Modern Language Association)

If you are a Humanities student, you can use the MLA citation style. So, consider the following styling pattern when trying to cite your sources in the MLA style:

3.     Work on Small Chunks of Text

Another ethical way of implementing paraphrasing is to focus on small chunks of text instead of entire paragraphs.

When you paraphrase something sparsely, it is not considered to be unethical. But if you take a whole essay or a whole paper and paraphrase it, then it will neither be allowed nor will it be ethical.

While the purpose of paraphrasing small bits of someone else’s text is to bolster your own arguments, paraphrasing long-form content is done only for unethical reasons.

Conclusion

Paraphrasing can be an essential tool for research writing because it helps to explain complex ideas in an easy-to-understand manner. However, it is necessary to use paraphrasing ethically. Otherwise, paraphrasing will be a waste of time.

But how can you use paraphrasing ethically? The answer to this question lies in paraphrasing the material correctly and giving credit where it is due.

READ: Research Grants/Scholarship for Doctoral Programmes in Germany

Read the above discussion to explore the ethical considerations of paraphrasing and get tips on using it correctly in research writing.

APA References

Library, B. U. (2012, August 31, 2022). LibGuides: Citation: Citation Styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). Brown University Library https://libguides.brown.edu/citations

Merriam-Webster. (November 19, 2022). Paraphrasing Definition & Meaning – Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paraphrasing