Paraphrase Exercise
A good paraphrase is true to the ideas in your source material, but neither the wording nor the organization depends on the source.
These strategies will help you put source material into your own words:
· Look away and try summarizing what you read
· Use Google’s define: command to look up unfamiliar words
e.g., define:longitudinal
· Build background
e.g., read an encyclopedia article
· Find an easier version
ü Comments by someone who’s read the article
ü An interview with the author
(search for name + interview)
· Reorganize the ideas in the article:
e.g., highlight a cause-effect relationship or compare one expert’s ideas to another
· Use a combination of quotations and paraphrase.
· Quote words taken directly from the source unless they are common language;
e.g., perennial allergic rhinitis
· Show how source material relates to the point you’re making.
After you paraphrase a source, do a side-by-side comparison to see if you really put the source into your own words. If not, try again.
Original passage
Caffeine is one of the fastest acting drugs known to man. When we drink it, almost every cell in the body, including the brain, absorbs it within minutes. There, caffeine works its magic by blocking something called adenosine, a chemical the body releases to tell the brain it’s tired. Caffeine intercepts the adenosine, turning the "I’m tired," message into "I’m wide awake." The result is an invigorating buzz coffee drinkers crave.Caffeine nation. (2002, November 14). Retrieved from CBS Sunday Morning Web site: http://www.cbsnews.com/
stories/2002/11/14/sunday/
main529388.shtml /
Unacceptable paraphrase
Caffeine acts quickly to give an invigorating buzz that coffee lovers crave.Acceptable paraphrase
Caffeine is stimulating for two reasons: it is quickly absorbed, and it blocks the chemical that signals fatigue, adenosine (“Caffeine Nation,” 2002).Acceptable paraphrase
According to a CBS News report, “Caffeine is one of the fasting acting drugs known to man.” Once absorbed, caffeine blocks the body’s chemical signal of fatigue, adenosine (“Caffeine Nation,” 2002).Suggested strategy: Summarize
In Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile, University of Newcastle psychologist Daniel Nettle conceives of happiness as a multivalent term encompassing three distinct levels. For Nettle, Level One happiness consists of “momentary pleasures.” Level Two happiness consists of “judgements about feelings,” the same idea captured by “life satisfaction.” Level Three happiness is taken to concern “quality of life,” which Nettle sees as eudaimonistic “flourishing” or “fulfilling one’s potential”—a more objective notion of well-being. (Wilkinson, 2007, p. 14)Wilkinson, W. (2007, April 11). In pursuit of happiness research: Is it reliable? What does it imply for policy (No. 590). Retrieved March 12, 2008, from Cato Institute Web site: www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa590.pdf / Daniel Nettle, an English psychologist, identifies three levels of happiness:
Suggested strategy: Summarize and quote
“Seligman ... found that about 50 percent of a person's self-reported happiness level, known as subjective well-being, can be predicted by his or her genetic makeup. Seligman was also impressed by a happiness equation, written as H = S + C + V, developed in 2000 and since reformulated into a pie chart by psychologists David Schkade, Sonja Lyubomirsky, and Kennon Sheldon. In this formula, H is a person's enduring level of happiness, S is his genetic contribution to his level of happiness, C is his life circumstances, and V is factors under his voluntary control.You can't—at least for now—do much to improve S, and C seems to count for surprisingly little....Living in a wealthy democracy, being married, having a rich social network, and adhering to a religion do boost contentment, but altogether life circumstances count for no more than 8 to 15 percent of the variance in happiness among people ...
So Seligman, along with psychologists Tracy Steen and Chris Peterson, created interventions—actions anybody can take to boost V, the remaining roughly 40 percent of a person's happiness quotient that is under immediate, voluntary control. (Lemly, 2006)
Lemly, B. (2006, August 1). Shiny happy people: Can you reach Nirvana with the aid of science? Discover. Retrieved March 12, 2008, from http://discovermagazine.com/2006/
aug/shinyhappy / (Focus on these points:
• What is the formula for happiness?
• Why did Seligman and his colleagues try to raise V?)