Test your paraphrasing skills: answers

Paraphrase 2 is a better example of good academic practice, because it acknowledges the original source, summarises key points in completely different words and gives a sense of what the original paragraph tried to convey.  Whenever it needs to use exact words, it puts them in quotation marks.

Paraphrase 2

The University of Birmingham's (2014) website reports that its campus was recently listed in The  Telegraph's 'top ten most beautiful universities in Britain.'  It goes on to highlight that the campus is being continually developed.  Future plans include a new sports centre, a state-of-the-art library and a student hub.

 

Paraphrase 1 isn't as good as paraphrase 2 because the writer has merely changed some of the words and appears to be passing off some of the original writer's phrases and sentence structures as his or her own.

Paraphrase 1

The University's large campus was recently listed by The Telegraph in the top ten most beautiful in Britain.  It is a campus that is growing and developing all the time with its most recent investments being in the planned building of a new multi-million pound sports centre, an improved library with a cultural hub and a brand new student hub housed in the famous Aston Webb building.

 

Original Text

The University's 250 acre campus was recently listed in the top ten most beautiful universities in Britain by The Telegraph.  It is a campus that is expanding and improving all the time with our most recent investments being in the planned building of a brand new multi-million pound sports centre, a redeveloped library with a cultural hub and a brand new student hub housed in the iconic Aston Webb building.

University of Birmingham (2014) About Birmingham.  Available at: www.birmingham.ac.uk/undergraduate/birmingham/About-Birmingham.aspx (Accessed: 6 May 2014).