The most frequent and serious mistake made by students trying to paraphrase is automatically to seek vocabulary alternatives. Sometimes this is possible, and if an alternative immediately springs to mind it will probably be acceptable. However, there are arguably no absolute synonyms in English. If you substitute one word for another you will inevitably change the meaning to some extent. Some students realize this, but see it as an excuse not to try to paraphrase at all but simply to quote. Others quote because vocabulary alternatives do not immediately spring to mind.

Instead of seeking for alternative vocabulary, you should look for an alternative syntax and sequence. In this respect paraphrase is similar to the conversions we practised as one of the redundancy reduction techniques. You should consider changing the original verbs into nouns or adjectives, the original nouns into verbs and so on. You should try starting with the middle or end of the original.

For an example, let us paraphrase one of the quotations given earlier:

This can be paraphrased by rethinking the sequence. If we begin with the end, released him on September 11th 1928, we can create a sentence beginning: On September 11th 1928, the government released Motilal Nehru from gaol. All that is required now is the reason, and in this case vocabulary alternatives do spring to mind, precisely because we have started from the end:

Here is another example that relies more on syntactic conversion:

Beginning again near the end, outsiders to supply, can become foreign suppliers, while to depend heavily can become is heavily dependent. Thus:

As noted above, you should always paraphrase rather than quote unless you have a good reason. Therefore, in this exercise you convert the quotations from the previous exercise into paraphrases beginning with the words given. Model answers are provided but clearly some variation is acceptable and even desirable: these are supposed to be your paraphrases. The quotation about King Lear has been omitted because it is the most literary, and therefore the most difficult and inappropriate to paraphrase.

1. The eighteenth century, as is notorious, saw a general movement among the enlightened dissenters through Arianism to Socinianism towards the resting place of Unitarianism, which entailed the denial of the Trinity and of Christ's divinity. (Thompson 1993: 157)

Many enlightened ...

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2. From the modern point of view, it is strange that scholars do not know when Jesus was born and when he died. This will not be surprising to those who read academic discussions of ancient history. (Sanders, 1995: 54)

Anyone familiar …

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3. The solution of the difficulty lies, in our opinion, in understanding the nature of the post-capitalist societies as societies in transition between capitalism and socialism. (Mandel, 1983: 237)

The difficulty …

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4. Later sources represent Felix and Sigebert as having met in Gaul and travelled to England together, but this is contrary to Bede's narrative which seems to imply that Felix's journey to East Anglia had been made at the prompting of the archbishop in Canterbury. (Blair 1970: 108)