Paraphrasing

Unlike summaries, which significantly reduce a text or portion of a text, paraphrases convey all or most of the details in a sentence or short passage. For this reason, it can be challenging to write a paraphrase that does not imitate the author's sentences too closely.
Use your own sentence structure. Consider this example:

Original Sentence:
Although philosophers, anthropologists, and others have weighed in, with most concluding that language does not shape thought in any significant way, the field has been notable for a distressing lack of empiricism-as in testable hypotheses and actual data.

Paraphrase:
While philosophers, anthropologists, and more have expressed an opinion, the majority agreeing that language doesn't influece thought to any considerable degree, the discipline has been noteworthy for a troubling dearth of experimentation-i.e. provable assumptions and concrete evidence.

When paraphrasing, convey the author's meaning in sentences with rhythm, cadence, and even punctuation placement that do not obviously imitate the original. Using two sentences to convey what the author said in one or using one sentence to say what was said in two can help you avoid imitating sentence patterns. Rearranging the details of a passage can also help. Another way to avoid imitating sentences is to paraphrase without the source in front of you.

Convey the author's meaning. Avoid paraphrasing passages that include numerous words you don't know. Also, avoid paraphrasing passages from articles or chapters you have not read in their entirety. You risk misrepresenting the meaning when you don't understand the context.

Give  credit to the source of information. One way to signal the start of a paraphrase is by citing the author's name (such as with "according to...") Repeat the author's last name or use the pronoun to refer to the author when you paraphrase the same source in successive sentences.

English professor Sue Shirley suggests the following approach for writing and original paraphrase:

First, identify the passage's keywords- the proper nouns, distinctive phrase, and specialized terms crucial to the meaning. Then record the meaning by answering as many of the reporter's questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how) as relevant, trying to use different words but putting quotation marks around any phrasing you deem necessary to keep.