Your words are important because they allow you to share your voice and express your thinking in a way that makes sense to you. Academic writing that has gone through a Western publishing system often has a particular tone to it (e.g., formal, complex vocabulary and sentence structure, objective third-person voice) but that doesn’t mean that your writing has to sound that way. Check with your instructor regarding their expectations and chances are they’ll want you to express your ideas in your words so they can get a sense of how you understand the concepts. You can do that in a formal way that meets the expectations of your audience (typically your instructor) but still sound like you. If you’re a RRU student and you’d like some help with finding that balance, please book a 30-minute appointment with the Writing Centre so that we can assist you.
For more information on paraphrasing, please visit Summarizing and Paraphrasing. See also Qualities of Academic Writing (8:02 min) in the Writing Centre’s Introduction to Academic Writing video.
