Paraphrasing to Escape Red and Orange Turnitin Similarity Scores

When you receive a red or orange in your Turnitin similarity score, chances are you did not paraphrase what you borrowed from other authors.  Paraphrasing means rewriting the paragraph or sentence you took from a journal article or other source in such a way that it does not look like what you borrowed yet says nearly the same thing.  If you develop the ability to rewrite things well, Turnitin will never give your work a similarity score that would raise a red flag.

For example, this paragraph below is what was written by Bantekas (2003) in a journal article from The American Journal of International Law:

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the Security Council became the focal point of discussions and the forum for the adoption of measures against terrorism.  Significantly, in subsequent resolutions it emphasized terrorist-related funds.  These novel measures exposed the inadequacy of domestic and international financial system in dealing with terrorist funds, although the problem was not unknown.  Moreover, they revealed a lack of coordination between states themselves and between states, intergovernmental organizations, and private financial institutions. (p. 315)

Now, this is what someone wrote in a paper:

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the Security Council became the focal point of discussions and the forum for the adoption of measures against terrorism.  Significantly, in subsequent resolutions it emphasized terrorist-related funds.  These novel measures exposed the inadequacy of domestic and international financial system in dealing with terrorist funds, although the problem was not unknown.  Moreover, they revealed a lack of coordination between states themselves and between states, intergovernmental organizations, and private financial institutions (The American Journal of International Law, 2003).

Needless to say, the Turnitin score for it was red because it is exactly the same as the paragraph that was extracted from the journal article!  That is why the Turnitin similarity score was red.  What the author needed to do was to rewrite totally that borrowed paragraph but in different words.  For example, the author could have rewritten it as follows:

After 9/11, the United Nations Security Council became the focus of dialogue.  It also was the forum for passing legislation to combat terrorism.  Worthy of note, in follow-on legislation, the Security Council scrutinized funding related to terrorism.  These unique approaches highlighted the shortcomings of domestic and foreign financial systems that dealt with funding for terrorism–even though the issue was known to nearly everyone.  Furthermore, these approaches identified poor intra-state coordination among the nation states.  Additionally, these approaches identified poor inter-state coordination among nation states, intergovernmental agencies, and financial institutions in private industry. (Bantekas, 2003, p. 315)

I rewrote the paragraph that the paper author had initially borrowed from the Bantekas (2003) article.  My rewrite says nearly the same thing but in different words.  Now, if that rewritten paragraph was run through Turnitin, the similarity score would be either blue or green.  At worst, it would be yellow, but never orange or red.  Therefore, if you will rewrite or paraphrase everything you borrow from other authors, you will have no problem with possible plagiarism.  Yes, you can be charged with plagiarism even if you give credit to the journal from which you borrowed.

A way to use the exact paragraph that you borrowed is to present it as an exact quotation.  For items you quote that are less than 40 words, all you need do is to put the double quotation sign on the beginning and end of the quoted sentence or phrase and give the proper credit with the citation comprised of the article author’s name, the year of publication, and the page number from whence the quote came, i.e., (Bantekas, 2003, p. 315). 

However, if what you desire to quote is more than 40 words in length, you must put that paragraph in a block quotation.  That means the entire paragraph must be placed in a block quotation that is indented 1/2″ from the rest of the body text.  Block quotations do not require placing the double quotation sign at the beginning and end of that paragraph.  Hence, this is what your quotation would look like:

Bantekas (2003) stated the following in his article that appeared in The American Journal of International Law:

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the Security Council became the focal point of discussions and the forum for the adoption of measures against terrorism. Significantly, in subsequent resolutions it emphasized terrorist-related funds. These novel measures exposed the inadequacy of domestic and international financial system in dealing with terrorist funds, although the problem was not unknown. Moreover, they revealed a lack of coordination between states themselves and between states, intergovernmental organizations, and private financial. (p. 315)

I hope this article gives you a better idea of what you need to do to avoid receiving red or orange Turnitin similarity scores on all of your future papers and articles.  It is very important that you learn how to paraphrase because you may not be assigned to understanding instructors in some of your future courses, where receiving red similarity scores would severely and adversely affect your grades.  It can be done.  You can do it!  It just takes getting used to paraphrasing everything you borrow from other authors.  Good luck!

Bantekas, I. (2003, April). The international law of terrorist financing. The American Journal of International Law, 97(2), 315-333.