Paraphrase Worksheet Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing One way to improve your TOEFL essay writing is to practice paraphrasing. Take a paragraph from an academic text and rewrite it. Put the writer’s ideas into your own words. This will help you get used to restating ideas found in the academic passages that appear throughout the TOEFL iBT. Here's an example of how you can do this: Example Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words. In 1610, Galileo Galilei published a small book describing astronomical observations that he had made of the skies above Padua. His homemade telescopes had less magnifying and resolving power than most beginners’ telescopes sold today, yet with them he made astonishing discoveries: that the moon has mountains and other topographical features; that Jupiter is orbited by satellites, which he called planets; and that the Milky Way is made up of individual stars. From David Owen, “The Dark Side: Making War on Light Pollution,” The New Yorker (20 August 2007): 28. Possible Paraphrase There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this: Galileo was able to make some amazing discoveries with his telescope. He made discoveries about the moon, about Jupiter, and about the Milky Way. He was able to do this with a telescope that was less powerful than even today's most basic telescopes. Your paraphrase doesn't have to be a work of art. However, it should contain the author's main ideas and it should be written in your own words. You can find more passages for paraphrasing on the pages that follow. Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing Paraphrasing Exercise 1 Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words. In American society, Introverts are outnumbered about three to one. As a result, they must develop extra coping skills early in life because there will be an inordinate amount of pressure on them to “shape up,” to act like the rest of the world. The Introvert is pressured daily, almost from the moment of awakening, to respond and conform to the outer world. Classroom teachers unwittingly pressure Introverted students by announcing that “One-third of your grade will be based on classroom participation.” From Otto Kroeger and Janet M. Thuesen, Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types that Determine How We Live, Love and Work. New York: Dell Publishing, 1989. Possible Paraphrase There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this: There are many more extroverts than introverts in America. This puts a lot of pressure on introverts to fit in and be like everybody else. Even in school, teachers add to this pressure by making class participation part of the student's grade. Consequently, introverts have to acquire additional skills to deal with these pressures. Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing Paraphrasing Exercise 2 Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words. "Michelangelo was a man of tenacious and profound memory,” Vasari says, “so that, on seeing the works of others only once, he remembered them perfectly and could avail himself of them in such a manner that scarcely anyone has ever noticed it." That “scarcely anyone has ever noticed it,” is easy to understand. For, Michelangelo, when exploiting the “works of others,” classical or modern, subjected them to a transformation so radical, that the results appear no less “Michelangelesque” than his independent creations. From Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconography. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. Possible Paraphrase There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this: Michelangelo had a tremendous memory. He could remember the details of works of art after having seen them just once. He copied these works, but changed them dramatically--he created copies in his own, unique style. As a result, few people ever realized some of his works were actually copies. Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing Paraphrasing Exercise 3 Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words. By mid-December, 1914, British troops had been fighting on the Continent for over five months. Casualties had been shocking, positions had settled into self-destructive stalemate, and sensitive people now perceived that the war, far from promising to be “over by Christmas,” was going to extend itself to hitherto unimagined reaches of suffering and irony. From Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory. London: Oxford University Press, 1977. Possible Paraphrase There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this: After more than five months of fighting, the British had lost so many men and they were unable to make progress. People began to realize that the war would not end before Christmas. Instead, it would continue for longer and be more ironic than they had ever imagined. Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing Paraphrasing Exercise 4 Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words. It has never been denied that Dante the political philosopher as well as Dante the poet assimilated to the full the political doctrines by which his century was moved. In fact, Dante held a key-position in the political and intellectual discussions around 1300, and if in a superficial manner he has often been labeled reactionary, it is simply the prevalence of the imperial idea in Dante’s works—different though it was from that of the preceding centuries—which obscured the overwhelmingly unconventional features of his moralpolitical outlook. From Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981. Possible Paraphrase There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this: Both as a poet and as a philosopher, Dante's political outlook was formed by the period in which he lived. During his liftime he even participated in important debates that were of a political and intellectual nature. Though it is true that certain themes in his writing broke with the past, Dante was more than a simple reactionary. His moral and political views were both quite extraordinary for his time. Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing Paraphrasing Exercise 5 Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words. It is natural, and in so rapid and superficial review as this inevitable, to consider the criticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge together. But we must keep in mind how very different were not only the men themselves, but the circumstances and motives of the composition of their principal critical statements. Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads was written while he was still in his youth, and while his poetic genius still had much to do; Coleridge wrote the Biographia Litteraria much later in life, when poetry, except for that one brief and touching lament for lost youth, had deserted him, and when the disastrous effects of long dissipation and stupefaction of his powers in transcendental metaphysics were bringing him to a state of lethargy. From T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism: Studies in the Relation of Criticism to Poetry in England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961. Wordsworth and Coleridge 58-77. Possible Paraphrase There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this: The criticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge are usually examined together. However, it is important to remember that these two men were very different. Moreover, their works were written for different reasons and during different periods of their lives. Wordsworth wrote Preface to Lyrical Ballads when he was young and his life lay before him. Coleridge, on the other hand, wrote Biographia Litteraria near the end of his life.
