Paraphrasing is more than replacing a few words with synonyms. It is about summarizing someone else’s idea in your own words. It shows that you understand the idea. If you add your own perspective, it shows how your new idea builds on the original idea.  

Let’s say you’re writing a paper about copyright in the music industry. You want to argue that social media can be an effective tool for educating college students about copyright laws that pertain to music piracy in order to combat the illegal downloading of music. You do some research, and you find a journal article that has some great information related to your topic. You want to paraphrase parts of the article to help support your argument.

Here’s a direct quote from the article:

"The government and music industry, for example, could work on a clear and extensive consumer policy that uses numerous online social media outlets—especially those utilized by Gen Z—to spread information about copyright laws, regulations, and penalties that pertain to music piracy. In addition, new laws can focus on the liability of online intermediaries and platforms facilitating copyright infringement" (Borja & Dieringer, 2022).

Below is an example of poor paraphrasing:

The government and music industry could work on a detailed consumer policy that uses online social media outlets utilized by Gen Z to spread information about copyright laws, regulations, and penalties that pertain to music piracy. Additionally, new laws can focus on the liability of online platforms facilitating copyright infringement (Borja & Dieringer, 2022).

This new paragraph is so close to the original statement, it might as well be a direct quote. It shows no conceptual understanding and no synthesis of new ideas with Borja and Dieringer’s thoughts. Anti-plagiarism software might even flag this paragraph as being plagiarized. 

More effective paraphrasing would be something like this:

One way to reduce music piracy among Generation Z would be for the music industry to use social media platforms to educate users about laws pertaining to copyright infringement and illegal downloading of music (Borja & Dieringer, 2022).

To be more effective, the writer could blend their own ideas on the value of peer-to-peer sharing of information with Borja and Dieringer’s thoughts on the use of social media to educate students about copyright law.  

Social media is a powerful tool for reaching college students and can be used not only to provide information but to promote peer-to-peer discussion. Students are likely to value and respond to new information when it is shared by their peers. One way to reduce music piracy among Generation Z would be for the music industry to use social media platforms to educate users about laws pertaining to copyright infringement and illegal downloading of music (Borja & Dieringer, 2022).

You probably noticed the in-text citations. Because the writer builds on/uses Borja and Dieringer's thoughts to inform their own writing, they need to cite them as a source. 

The full citation is below. Providing the full citation makes it easier for the interested reader to find this article.

Borja, K., & Dieringer, S. (2022). Is music piracy over? Comparing music piracy attitudes and behaviors between young generations. The Journal of Consumer Affairs, 56(2), 899-924.