❓ Sentence Rewriter: Why Use It?
✍️ What Is Rewriting?
Rewriting is the supreme level of editing. You took it right. The process often improves the original, making the text more readable. In particular, rewriting comprises:
- Sentence rearrangement;
- Merging or dividing the paragraphs;
- Revision of word choice;
- Altering the sentence structure.
Publishing circles use the term “revision” instead of “rewriting.” The reason is on the surface: each time you reread a text, new issues reveal themselves, making the process sometimes infinite.
You will employ rewriting at the level of texts, paragraphs, and sentences. However, the principle is the same, as any text consists of sentences and paragraphs.
What Does It Mean to Paraphrase a Sentence?
Paraphrasing a sentence encompasses changing its word order, grammar forms of verbs, word count, and emotional tone of adjectives. You can change everything apart from the meaning of the phrase. Don’t forget to credit the author according to the selected citation style.
How to Rewrite a Sentence in Your Own Words?
- Read the sentence a couple of times to understand the author’s message.
- Write what you remember trying not to use the words from the source.
- Check the result against the original, correcting the mistakes.
- Delete all the extra information the original text didn’t contain.
How to Rewrite a Sentence in Active Voice?
- Find the subject. In “the fish was eaten by the cat,” fish is the subject. It does not do anything. In passive voice, the subject is always passive.
- Place the actor in the first position. “The cat” becomes the subject.
- Change the verb form accordingly. “Was eaten” should be “ate.”
- The ex-subject becomes the object: “The cat ate the fish.”
What Is the Best Sentence Rewriter?
The answer depends on your needs. Many sentence rewriters are specialized in a specific subject area. Thus, ours is designed for academic purposes. That’s why this sentence rewriter will do the mechanical work if you are writing an essay and wish to incorporate an indirect quote. Besides, it’s available online for free.
🧩 Sentences in Academic Writing: Structure & Tone
Below you’ll find the 3 questions you should ask yourself while working on the sentence structure and tone in your academic paper.
Question #1: What Does My Discipline Require from Me?
To produce high-quality texts in a knowledge-intensive field, you should first read lots of similar works.
Why is it important?
- Firstly, the practice allows understanding the writing conventions of the discipline. These comprise the language, abbreviations, professional slang, and ways to express one’s thoughts.
- Secondly, you should be aware of the purposes of the given assignment and the course in general. Think about why you have been asked to work on the task. Which skills does your tutor expect you to show?
Question #2: How Do I Rewrite My Sentence So That It Sounds Scholarly?
Scholarly writing is a genre used in all academic spheres. It is not more “professional” than fiction or poetry. However, it is the only appropriate one in college and university settings. At first, the genre can feel unfamiliar and intimidating, particularly when you read the works of professional researchers. But it is not that hard with intensive writing practice. Here’s a brief list of rules:
Thus, maintain a formal and academic tone by avoiding colloquialisms, contractions, rhetorical questions (nobody likes them), discriminatory language, and 2nd person pronouns.
Question #3: How Do I Make a Clear Statement?
- If you can write it in active voice, do so. We don’t need unnecessary complications.
- Many young researchers think they will sound scholarly if their text consists of paragraph-long sentences. Meanwhile, it becomes barely readable and hard to follow. As Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
- A bad sentence carries little information or points out obvious things.
- Thesaurus is your best friend. Never use a word or phrase for its “scholarly” appearance. Check its exact meaning beforehand.
- Don’t adjust your word count by adding unnecessary linking words. They make your text sound heavy.
🤓 How Do I Rewrite My Sentence? Best Tips
If you prefer to keep everything under control, try our tips on rewriting sentences for academic texts. We also suggest you compare your results with the examples in our tool.
Changing the Sentence Length
- The gold standard is 15 to 20 words. Feel free to break longer passages into separate sentences.
- You may be surprised, but the field and audience define sentence length. For instance, an average sentence in natural sciences is usually shorter than the one in humanities or social sciences.
- Meanwhile, you’ll get a dull passage if you place several sentences with equal word count in a row. Intermingle short and decisive phrases with longer explanations. Besides, starting a new paragraph whenever you introduce a new idea will also break the cycle.
Consider the following examples.
Rewriting Too Short Sentences
The series of choppy sentences in the left column below cuts the ear. Let us improve that. Note that we kept one sentence as short as it was to balance the length.
Rewriting Too Long Sentences
The sentence in the left column contains 38 words and is challenging to understand at the first reading. Let us break it into two shorter sentences.
Changing the Voice
Do you know that passive voice is no longer a popular speech formula in academic circles? It has so many adverse effects that researchers and scientists did their best to abstain from using it. We recommend you follow their example.
Passive voice happens when you put an object of action in the position of the subject. It makes writing sound lifeless and flat. Moreover, young researchers used it to evade responsibility. Do you remember all those “it is widely considered” instead of “we consider”? If the former variant looks fine, it is a bad habit of the previous decades speaking in your memory.
Still, there is no prescribed ban on using passive voice. Whenever you describe a process or study results, feel free to use it. For instance, “it has been found” means that you have established something during your project work. But always use active voice to describe actions.
Changing the Vocabulary
The last tip is the most critical one when you reword a sentence of non-academic origin. The vocabulary you use in the paraphrase should meet the requirements of scholarly writing. You should also consider the subject matter conventions and applicable terms (be sure to consult the thesaurus when you have doubts).
Below you can find a non-exhaustive list of conversational phrases that would be incorrect to use in an academic paper. The right column contains their formal alternatives.
And here are two examples of sentences: a conversational one on the left and an academic one on the right:
We hope that this article, as well as the sentence rewriter, was useful for you. Check the other writing instruments we offer: summarizer, text reducer, question generator, and thesis maker.
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