Take a look at the excerpt and paraphrase below and answer the following question.
NB: The examples use APA referencing style.

Original excerpt:

“Throughout most of human history, calories were relatively scarce and hard to get, and physical activity unavoidable” (Katz, 2011, p. 1).

Paraphrase:

Humans evolved when food was scarce and physical activity unavoidable (Katz, 2011).

What’s wrong with this paraphrase?

Question

Take a look at the excerpt and paraphrase below and answer the following question. 
NB: The examples use APA referencing style.

Original excerpt:

“Throughout most of human history, calories were relatively scarce and hard to get, and physical activity unavoidable” (Katz, 2011, p. 1).

Paraphrase:

Humans evolved when food was scarce and physical activity unavoidable (Katz, 2011).

What’s wrong with this paraphrase?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

When evaluating paraphrase quality, we need to compare length, structure, language, and idea retention across the original and the paraphrase.
Option 1: 'Similar length, same ideas, similar structure and language.' This claim is not accurate here because the paraphrase shifts the emphasis (from calories and activity to evolution) and changes key elements, so the ideas are not the same and the wording is not truly similar.
Option 2: 'Similar length, different structure and language, but the idea has changed.' This option correctly notes that the paraphrase stays around a similar overall length but alters structure and wording, and more importantly, it changes the core idea by introducing evolution as a driver and adjusting the causal framing, which is not present in the original.
Option 3: 'Substantially different length, similar structure and language, same idea.' The paraphrase is not substantially longer or shorter; moreover, even if the structure is somewhat altered, the core idea is not the same, so this mischaracterizes the match between paraphrase and original.
Option 4: 'Substantially different length, same idea, different structure and language.' The paraphrase does not preserve the same idea, so this option overstates alignment on the idea while also not acknowledging the close length and the altered content.
Overall, the key issue is that the paraphrase introduces a new causal claim (evolution) and uses different vocabulary (e.g., 'food' instead of 'calories'), which changes the idea, while the other options misdescribe the relationship in various ways.

ANSC20003_2025_SM2 Academic Integrity Quiz

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