MPH 599 Week 4 Paraphrase and Citation Exercise Example

Paraphrase and Citation Exercise: Four Sentences From Restaurant Inspection and Foodborne Illness Studies, Each Quoted Exactly, Then Rebuilt and Cited

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MPH 599: Professional Writing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Paraphrase and Citation Exercise: Four Sentences From Restaurant Inspection and Foodborne Illness Studies, Each Quoted Exactly, Then Rebuilt and Cited

Method

For each pair, the original sentence is reproduced exactly, inside quotation marks, with its page number. A patchwritten version follows, of the kind that keeps the original's shape and swaps its words, to show what the exercise is designed to catch. Then comes my paraphrase, with its citation, and a note on what changed. My test for a paraphrase is whether the sentence's clause order and structure are my own, not only its words, because a sentence that keeps the original's order with new nouns reads as an attempt to disguise borrowing rather than as a misunderstanding. The guidance in the style manual on paraphrasing and citation applies throughout (American Psychological Association, 2020).

Pair 1

Original: "Mean scores of restaurants experiencing foodborne disease outbreaks did not differ from restaurants with no reported outbreaks" (Jones et al., 2004, p. 688).

Patchwritten, not acceptable: Average scores of restaurants having foodborne illness outbreaks were not different from restaurants without reported outbreaks.

Paraphrase: In Tennessee, a restaurant's inspection score gave no sign of whether it would be linked to a foodborne outbreak; restaurants with outbreaks had the same average scores as those without (Jones et al., 2004).

Note: The patchwritten version keeps every clause in the original order and changes four words, which is close copying without quotation marks. The paraphrase reverses the order, leading with what the finding means for a reader and then giving the comparison. The words "no reported outbreaks" become "those without" because the study's definition depends on reports, and I kept that point by writing "linked to." I did not change "average" or "outbreak," because these are the plain terms for what was measured, and inventing synonyms would blur the finding.

Pair 2

Original: "More than 91% (95% CI=88%, 94%) of New Yorkers approved of the program and 88% (95% CI=85%, 92%) considered grades in dining decisions in 2012" (Wong et al., 2015, p. e81).

Patchwritten, not acceptable: Over 91% of New York residents supported the program and 88% used grades in their dining choices in 2012.

Paraphrase: Public support for New York City's letter grades was high; in a 2012 telephone survey, about nine in ten residents approved of the program, and nearly as many said the grades affected where they chose to eat (Wong et al., 2015).

Note: The numbers must not change. In the paraphrase I rounded 91% to "about nine in ten" and 88% to "nearly as many," which is acceptable in prose that does not need the exact figures, but if the exact numbers mattered I would quote them with their intervals rather than restate them. I added "telephone survey" from the article's methods so that a reader knows what kind of evidence this is. "Considered grades in dining decisions" is not the same as changing where they ate, so I wrote "said the grades affected," which keeps the claim at the level of what people reported.

Pair 3

Original: "The results suggest that restaurant hygiene grading with public posting of results is an effective intervention for reducing the burden of foodborne disease" (Simon et al., 2005, p. 32).

Patchwritten, not acceptable: The findings indicate that grading restaurant hygiene and publicly posting the results is an effective way to reduce the burden of foodborne illness.

Paraphrase: Simon et al. (2005) concluded from their Los Angeles County data that posting hygiene grades where diners could see them likely helped reduce foodborne disease, a conclusion based on a fall in hospitalizations after the program began.

Note: The word that must not change is "suggest." The authors made a cautious claim, and a paraphrase that says the program "was effective" would overstate it. I used "likely helped" and named the evidence the conclusion rests on, so a reader can judge its strength. I also put the authors in the subject position, because this sentence reports their interpretation rather than a measured result.

Pair 4

Original: "These estimates cannot be compared with prior (1999) estimates to assess trends because different methods were used" (Scallan et al., 2011, p. 7).

Patchwritten, not acceptable: These figures cannot be compared with earlier 1999 figures to look at trends since different methods were used.

Paraphrase: Because the 2011 estimates were built with new methods, Scallan et al. (2011) warned that they should not be set beside the earlier estimates from 1999 as evidence of a rise or fall in foodborne illness.

Note: The paraphrase moves the reason to the front and the warning to the end, which changes the structure. It keeps the year 1999, which must not change, and makes clear that the problem is methods, not data quality.

The Sentence Left Unattributed on Purpose

In my week 7 paper, one sentence will carry no citation: "Local health departments inspect restaurants to check that they follow food safety rules." This is common knowledge for the paper's readers and is not drawn from any one source, so a citation would add nothing. By contrast, a sentence such as "inspection scores vary widely between inspectors" is a finding and needs a source, even though it sounds like common knowledge to anyone who has worked as an inspector.

What This Exercise Refuses to Judge

The exercise does not judge whether the original authors were right, whether their methods were sound or whether my paraphrases are elegant. It judges only whether each borrowed idea is marked, whether quoted words are exact and inside quotation marks, and whether paraphrases are my own in structure as well as in words. Judging the studies themselves belongs in the week 7 paper, where each source's design is weighed.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Jones, T. F., Pavlin, B. I., LaFleur, B. J., Ingram, L. A., & Schaffner, W. (2004). Restaurant inspection scores and foodborne disease. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10(4), 688-692. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1004.030343

Scallan, E., Hoekstra, R. M., Angulo, F. J., Tauxe, R. V., Widdowson, M.-A., Roy, S. L., Jones, J. L., & Griffin, P. M. (2011). Foodborne illness acquired in the United States: Major pathogens. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 17(1), 7-15. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1701.p11101

Simon, P. A., Leslie, P., Run, G., Jin, G. Z., Reporter, R., Aguirre, A., & Fielding, J. E. (2005). Impact of restaurant hygiene grade cards on foodborne-disease hospitalizations in Los Angeles County. Journal of Environmental Health, 67(7), 32-36.

Wong, M. R., McKelvey, W., Ito, K., Schiff, C., Jacobson, J. B., & Kass, D. (2015). Impact of a letter-grade program on restaurant sanitary conditions and diner behavior in New York City. American Journal of Public Health, 105(3), e81-e87. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302404