How do I learn to paraphrase with well evidenced answers when reading an academic textbook in any course?

Answer 1

This, I've found, can be a challenging skill for many people. However, I can give you a few tips to help you paraphrase with well-evidenced answers.

1) Read the question before you read the text. Keep in mind what you are trying to find or learn.

2) When you find evidence (AKA, your answer), close the textbook and try writing the answer in your own words, as if you are explaining to another person.

3) Check to make sure you didn't repeat word for word what's in the text. If you did, try to incorporate synonyms or restructure the sentence.

I teach my high school students to "reword and rearrange".

Here's an example: Let's say that you were asked to find evidence of how unemployment is unhealthy. You find this information: "Studies have shown that prolonged unemployment harms the mental health of workers and can actually worsen physical health and shorten lifespans." (This was taken from Investopedia.com)

If I wanted to paraphrase this information, I would change "Studies have shown" to something similar. Let's go with "Research suggests". Then we need to change the phrase "prolonged unemployment". We can change that to "when people are unemployed for too long." Next we want to change the phrasing of "harms the mental health of workers...etc"

So we end up with something like this: "Research suggests that when people are unemployed for too long, it can lead to health issues, both mental and physical."

Now we have reworded the sentence. It's also good to rearrange. Start with the end of the sentence, and turn that into your subject.

"According to research, mental and physical health issues can both result when a person is unemployed for too long."

By doing this, we have kept the same meaning, but paraphrased the information.

I hope this helps!