Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7e by 
The plagiarism, the taking of someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as your own, is an action that could cause you to fail your course or assignment and even lead to your expulsion from college. But plagiarism's close relation, paraphrasing, can be confusing.
Paraphrasing, the rewording of someone else's written or spoken words, still counts as academic dishonesty even though you rephrase a quote because the original idea is not your own. Paraphrased sentences still need an in text citation within the work because you are quoting someone else's words or ideas.
When properly cited, paraphrasing is beneficial because it engages your brain and requires you to understand what you have read or heard so that you can rephrase it. Paraphrasing is more often used in professional writing, so knowing how to paraphrase can help prepare you for your career. While paraphrasing might be difficult at first, once you practice it, it will become easier and benefit you in the future.
1. Paraphrasing could still be plagiarism
Because paraphrasing uses the author's original ideas even though you are not using a direct, word-for-word quotation, it still requires a citation.
2. Summarizing is not paraphrasing
Summarizing and paraphrasing are not the same. A summary selects the most important information in a text and is written in your own words, while paraphrasing refers to an author's specific ideas. Paraphrasing remains more true to the original author's ideas because you need to reword individual quotes and ideas instead of writing a broad summary of an entire text.
3. Changing word order is not paraphrasing
Often, students think that paraphrasing is changing a few words around in a quote. However, because the author's original thought is not entirely reworded, this could still be plagiarism. If you struggle with paraphrasing a particular idea, it is better to use a direct quote with quotation marks around it rather than risk committing plagiarism.
