Paraphrasing Checker Activity

Using the sources that you've found, practice your paraphrasing skills.

First, type or copy-and-paste the text of the original version:

Use these sample original source texts from the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

Second, try to paraphrase the original text using your own words:

Examples of possible paraphrased versions of Purdue Online Writing Lab samples.

Third, see if you used any overlapping language:

Color-coded, Side-by-Side Matched Text

  • Notice the color-coded matching words.
  • If you've paraphrased well, you should have few matches.
  • Create new words to represent the matched words and ideas.
  • Create a new sentence structure to represent the original ideas.

Plain, Merged Matched Text

  • Notice the words with strikethrough that have been replaced by the underlined words that follow them.
  • If you've paraphrased well, you should see many words with strikethrough and underlined.
  • Create new words to represent the matched words and ideas.
  • Create a new sentence structure to represent the original ideas.


Clear Page

This Paraphrase Checker page is adapted from the Paraphrase self-test by Chu Alan and the Javascript Diff Algorithm by Daniel Lewis, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.