IELTS Skills
Paraphrasing
What is paraphrasing?
Paraphrasing: “To paraphrase is to include the ideas or information from an original source in your paper by rephrasing those ideas or information in your own words”1
In other words: Paraphrasing is incorporating the concepts or data from an authentic source in your writing by saying this in another way, while not modifying the original significance.
As you can see above we had an original message, or here a quote from an online source and we changed this quote into our own words. This is paraphrasing, changing the message/words while still keeping the same meaning.
Why is paraphrasing important?
It’s one of the crucial skills to master for your IELTS. You will need it for
- Academic writing task 1
- General Writing task 1
- Writing task 2.
- IELTS speaking
- IELTS reading
- IELTS listening
Have a look at the following parts of the exams and how it’s used.
Academic writing task 1
In your Academic writing task 1 you either get a graph, a process or a map which you need to write about. In your introduction your first sentence should always be a restatement of the task. In other words you need to paraphrase the question. If you just copy exactly what the task says your score will go down.
Additionally, your task will include some key words/ key vocabulary which you will need to use throughout your report. Making sure you do not repeat the key words over and over again will ensure your lexical resources score will go up.
Example
The graphs below show how people in a European city reached their office and got back home in 1959 and 2009. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
This means you have to change:
The graphs below show how people in a European city reached their office and got back home in 1959 and 2009.
By paraphrasing the text, using your own words, but still keeping the original meaning.
Some of the key words you will have to paraphrase will be:
- People
- European city
- Reach
- Office
- Get back
- home
General writing task 1
In writing task 1 you have to write a letter based on the task you have been given. This letter always has a purpose (the reason why you are writing the letter) mentioned in the question. This purpose will have to be paraphrased in the letter.
Example
You are a college student in an English speaking country. You share a rented apartment with others but want to move to the college accommodation instead.
Write a letter to the teacher in charge of the hostel and explain your intention to move to the college accommodation. In your letter:
– Introduce yourself
– Give reasons why you not happy with current accommodation
– Explain why you think the college accommodation will be better for you
Write at least 150 words.
This is the purpose of your letter and will have to be included and paraphrased:
You want to move to the college accommodation instead … explain your intention to move to the college accommodation.
You will also need to paraphrase some key vocabulary
- Accommodation
- Happy
- Apartment
- Current
Writing task 2
This is an essay writing where they give you a precise question and you will need to write an essay about it. Here again paraphrasing is used in multiple ways:
- Like in Academic writing 1 you will need to start the introduction of your essay by rephrasing the question. Again this is a crucial skill as people should know what your writing is about, which should always be introduced at the beginning.
- Your task will include some key words/ key vocabulary which you will need to use throughout your essay. Making sure you don’t repeat the key vocabulary will be important to improve your lexical resources score.
Example
One of the consequences of improved medical care is that the people are living longer and life expectancy is increasing. Do you think the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
What will need to be paraphrased:
One of the consequences of improved medical care is that the people are living longer and life expectancy is increasing. Do you think the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Some of the key words you will use throughout your essay:
- Consequences
- Improved
- Medical care
- People living longer
- Life expectancy
- Increasing
- Advantages
- Disadvantages
- Outweigh
IELTS Speaking
In IELTS speaking you will be asked some questions and you will need to answer them. Here paraphrasing is useful in different ways:
- To buy time for thinking, you can always rephrase the question before answering.
- Like in the writing you can try to use synonyms for the key words from the question, to make sure you do not repeat yourself and again increase your lexical resources.
- When you do not know or remember a word you want to use in your speaking you can try describing the word. This is essential as you do want to keep your fluency up and don’t want to have an awkward silence while you try to think of the word you’re looking for. This will improve your fluency and coherence score.
Example:
“When we were walking on the side of the road where you know the people walk…”
Here the person didn’t remember the word pavement/sidewalk when speaking. Instead of stopping the conversation the person tried to describe it and just continued talking. This is a far better strategy than just stopping a few second to look for the word.
IELTS Reading
When answering the questions in your IELTS reading, paraphrasing will be necessary, as they will never use the same words from the text into your questions. The questions will always use synonyms or paraphrase parts of the text to say the same thing. If you do not know how to look for similar words or expression in the text you will never find the answer. As a result your reading score will go down as you either waste too much time finding the answer, and/or do not find the answer at all.
Example:
Question | In the text |
crime is on the increase | criminal activities are not decreasing, quite the opposite in fact |
inadequate diet | deficiency in minerals |
tends to be more expensive | seems to be more costly |
recognized at a younger age | Identified early |
IELTS Listening
As with in reading it can happen that you will need to rely on synonyms or similar expressions to find the correct answer. This is particularly true in summary and note completion questions. Where you have some sentences and need to fill in the words from the listening. The words in your completion exercise will have synonyms or different wording, while the word you need to fill in will be the exact one of the listening.
Example:
In the listening | Question |
Mars, or the Red Planet as it is affectionately referred to | Mars is also called ____(5)____. |
Methane is a volatile gas, meaning that it breaks down relatively quickly and so needs to be constantly produced to exist | If there is Methane, then there must be life because it ____(8)_____ fast. |
I found I needed to maintain a high level of motivation | Studying with the Open University demanded a great deal of 27 ……………….. |
from time to time there are summer schools. They usually last a week. They’re great, because you meet all the other people struggling with the same things as you | She enjoyed meeting other students at 30 ……………….. |
How can we paraphrase
There are essentially 2 ways of paraphrasing. Either you change the word or you change the order of the words. Let’s have a look at how you can change the word first before we look at the order.
Changing the word
1.Synonyms
The easiest way to change the word is by replacing it with a synonym.
Example
Car: vehicle, automobile, means of transport, jeep, pickup, truck, convertible, race car
The only thing you need to be careful of with synonyms is that you cannot always replace 1 word by another.
Let’s have a look at car again
- There are many cars in our neighborhood.
- There are many vehicles in our neighborhood
- There are many automobiles in our neighborhood
- There are many means of transport in our neighborhood
- There are many jeeps in our neighborhood
- There are many pickups in our neighborhood
- There are many trucks in our neighborhood
- There are many convertibles in our neighborhood
- There are many race cars in our neighborhood
Though car has many synonyms, if you just replace them with any of the synonyms randomly the meaning changes. The only synonym where the meaning stays the same is automobiles. With all the other synonyms the meaning of the sentence changes.
So for example:
Academic writing task 1
The production of cars went up in 2009. The production of pickups went up.
General English writing task 1
My car was damaged in the accident. My race car was damaged in the accident. Unless you really are talking about a race car.
Writing task 2
The overproduction of cars is a serious issue. The overproduction of means of transport is an issue.
Speaking
There are many cars on the roads in my country. There are many jeeps on the roads of my country
Tip:
If your not good at finding synonyms use a thesaurus. This is the best tool for students to expand their vocabulary. Just type in the word and look at the different synonyms provided. Just remember to make sure that the meaning stays the same.
Another issue with synonyms are collocations. Certain words go together while others don’t .
Excessive smoking is bad for your health
Heavy smoking is bad for your health
Here the collocations are heavy or excessive smoking. In English you cannot say strong smoking or big smoking. For collocations there are no rules. The words go together because that’s how people us the words and always have.
Tip:
If your not good at collocations then use a collocation dictionary. Again an extremely useful tool to expand and correct your vocabulary use. Just fill in the word and look at the possible collocations.
The final issue with synonyms is that the grammar might change.
Although I mostly agree with the main statement, I personally think there might be some important objections.
Despite mostly agreeing with the main statement, I personally think there might be some important objections
As you can see in the example above changing the linking word changes the grammar.
So, when in doubt, and you are not sure of the correct synonym, collocation or grammar, do not change the word. This means you won’t make mistakes, keeping your score up.
2.Changing the word form
You can also just keep the word but change the word form.
For example
Doing exercise : exercising noun changes into a verb
Fail: failure verb into a noun
Riding my bike: cycling expression into a verb
Unnecessary: not necessary changing the prefix un into not
Underplayed: not paid well again changing the prefix
The same problems as with synonyms apply:
- meaning might change
- grammar definitely changes for example if you change a noun into verb.
Again, if you are not sure about what you are doing don’t do it.
3.Changing the grammar
Active to passive
One of the other possibilities is changing an active sentence into a passive sentence.
Example
The UK sold 2000 cars in February
2000 cars were sold in the UK
Changing the order
You can also just keep the words but change the order of the words in the sentence, or you could combine 2 separate sentences into 1 more complex sentence.
Changing the order of the causes
When you have multiple clauses in your sentence you can swap the clauses and put the second clause first and the first clause last.
For example
Millions of people every year move to English-speaking countries such as Australia, Britain or America, in order to study at school, college or university.
Why do so many people want to study in English?
Why is English such an important international language?
You should write at least 250 words.
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Becomes:
In order to study at school, college or university, millions of people every year move to English-speaking countries such as Australia, Britain or America
Combining 2 sentence in 1
Another common way to paraphrase is to combine to existing sentences and combine them into 1 sentence with multiple clauses
For example
Some people think that it is important to use leisure time for activities that improve the mind, such as reading and doing word puzzles.
Other people feel that it is important to rest the mind during leisure time.
You should write at least 250 words.
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Becomes:
While some people think it is important to use leisure time for activities that improve the mind, others feel it is more important to rest the mind.
Here just the first and the second are combined to form one more complex sentence. This is for example a good way to show that you can make complex sentences. Just remember to also use some synonyms and not just combine the 2 sentences.
The best way to paraphrase
Now, I’m sure you are asking, which is the best way to paraphrase? The best way is to use a combination of the different techniques. You could combine, synonyms with word from and changing the order, or any other technique or combination.
The most important things to remember are:
- You do not need to change all words. The examiner is not going to check or count how many synonyms you have used, or how you changed the order of the words. All that matters is that it sounds natural and most importantly that it is correct.
- Make the changes you feel most comfortable with. Like mentioned above, correctness is important, so if you are not sure about the correct synonym, word form, spelling, grammar structure, then don’t change it. Only use the techniques you are comfortable with.
Now you know all the techniques the next thing you need to do is practice them.
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