A Brief Note on Paraphrasing

As I'm finishing up grading your paraphrasing worksheets, I've noticed a trend:

1. We're really good at taking notes now- bravo!
2. We would benefit from a clarification on the difference between just taking notes, and taking paraphrasing notes.

If you're confused about why you were docked points on your worksheet, or what the difference is between paraphrasing and note-taking, see if this helps:

Paraphrasing notes are a type of note-taking;

But

not all note-taking is paraphrasing.

 When you take notes just for yourself (for a test, for new content, during a powerpoint), it's fine to copy down some exact words or sentence structure.  
BUT! When you take notes on a source to include in a research paper, you want to protect yourself from accidentally stealing their language (plagiarizing) when you use your notes to write your paper. This is why we practiced paraphrasing notes- so that you know how to put things in your own words. If you don't want to put things in your own words, that's called a quote- feel free to use those! Just make sure you put quotation marks around them.

Both paraphrases and quotes, of course, need to be cited in your work.

-Mrs. L.