What is paraphrasing in the context of academic writing?

• A. Restating someone else's ideas in your own words with proper citation
• B. Copying text word-for-word without citation
• C. Summarizing ideas without citing sources
• D. Rewriting to avoid plagiarism

Answer: (A)

Paraphrasing in academic writing means restating someone else's ideas in your own words while including a proper citation to the original source. It shows you understand the idea well enough to express it with your own wording and integrate it smoothly into your argument. This is different from copying text word-for-word without citation, which counts as plagiarism, and it’s also different from summarizing, which condenses the main points rather than preserving the full nuance in new wording. Paraphrasing still requires attribution because the original idea comes from someone else, even though the wording is yours.