Paraphrasing · Word order

Word order in English paraphrasing

With this technique, the same information arrives in a different order. Use this when the prompt gives you a sentence whose key words have no good synonyms — a technical topic, a figure, a place. You cannot swap the words, so you move them instead. It is also the technique that rescues a paraphrase that has started to look like the original with two adjectives changed.

The long versionwhat it is, what it costs, where it stops

9 examples6 moves and 3 worked rewrites

Guided practice3 steps, you write, then you compare

5 exercisesmeaning first, then production

Start here · the long version

What word order really asks you to do

Moving information to a different position so the same facts arrive in a different order — the technique for sentences whose words cannot be replaced.

What English lets you move, and what it does not

English is a fixed-order language in one specific way: the subject comes before its verb, and the verb before its object. Almost everything else can move. Time phrases, place phrases, whole conditional clauses and reported sources all slide to the front of a sentence, and the only thing they need on arrival is a comma. That single comma is most of what this technique asks you to remember.

What cannot move is the relationship between a modifier and the thing it modifies. “Only students pay the fee” and “Students only pay the fee” are two different claims, and nothing in the words themselves tells you which is which — position is carrying the meaning on its own. Spanish can afford to be looser here because it marks these relationships in other ways; English cannot, and a word that drifts takes its meaning with it.

The second thing that cannot move is the verb, upward past its subject. “In the last decade climbed the proportion of stressed children…” is a sentence a Spanish speaker writes without noticing anything wrong, because Spanish allows verb before subject freely. English allows it in a handful of fixed inversions and nowhere else, and this is one of the errors that most clearly marks a response as translated.

Free to move

Time phrases, place phrases, “if” clauses, “according to X”. Front them and add the comma.

Moves together or not at all

A comparison has two sides. Flip “more” to “less” and both sides must swap with it, or the sentence claims the opposite.

Never moves

A modifier away from its noun. “Only” is the classic case: its position is its meaning.

Never inverts

Subject before verb. Fronting a phrase does not license “climbed the proportion”.

Why this is the technique that rescues you

Every prompt eventually hands you a sentence whose key words have no synonyms: a technical topic, a figure, a place name. A paraphrase built only on synonyms stalls there — and what usually happens next is that the writer replaces a technical term with something inaccurate rather than admit the sentence is stuck. Reordering has no such ceiling.

Moving one element forces the rest of the sentence to reorganise around it, which is why a single move can carry an entire paraphrase without touching one content word. It is also the technique that most often saves a rewrite which has started to look like the original with two adjectives changed.

What it costs you to skip this

Skipping it means running out of paraphrase on any prompt with technical vocabulary, and falling back on replacing terms that should not be replaced. Doing it wrong costs elsewhere: a fronted phrase without its comma reads as careless, and an inverted verb reads as a first-language error — and both of those land in Grammatical Range and Accuracy rather than in Lexical Resource, so the damage shows up on a criterion you were not even working on.

Where it stops applying

Reordering must not become rewriting. If the new version claims a cause the original did not, or drops an element to make the sentence flow better, it has stopped being a paraphrase of that prompt. The test is mechanical and worth running: every fact in the original should be findable in the new version, and no fact should have appeared that was not there before.

Examples · the move in two sentences

A paraphrase changes the words and keeps the claim

That is the whole job, and it is harder than it sounds: the fastest way to lose marks is to write something in better English than the prompt that no longer says what the prompt said. Here is what this particular technique moves.

The original

The number of stressed children in Eastern countries rose to 54% over the last ten years.

Word order

The paraphrase

Over the last decade, the proportion of stressed children in Eastern nations climbed to 54%.

Nothing was removed and the figure did not move. The time phrase went from the end of the sentence to the front, and everything else reorganised around it. Moving one element forces the rest to shift, which is why order alone can carry a paraphrase.

When you need it
Use this when the prompt gives you a sentence whose key words have no good synonyms — a technical topic, a figure, a place. You cannot swap the words, so you move them instead. It is also the technique that rescues a paraphrase that has started to look like the original with two adjectives changed.

The moves

What you can change, and where the meaning breaks

Not every move is equally safe. Three of these you can make without thinking; the last two are where paraphrases stop being paraphrases.

Time phrase → front

Safe move

Move “in 2019”, “over the last decade”, “since the pandemic” to the start and put a comma after it. The safest reordering in English, and it fits almost any sentence.

Place phrase → front

Safe move

“In rural areas, access to specialists remains limited.” Same rule, same comma. Useful when the paragraph is about the place rather than the problem.

Reported claim → “According to X”

Safe move

“Psychologists argue that…” → “According to psychologists, …”. This frees the main clause to carry the finding instead of the attribution.

Flip the comparison

Check as you go

“A earns more than B” → “B earns less than A”. The fact holds, but both sides have to swap at the same time as the adjective, or the sentence reverses.

Result → front, cause → back

Check as you go

“Because X, Y” → “Y, because X”. Only when the new first half can stand alone as a sentence on its own.

Never move a modifier away from its noun

Where meaning breaks

“Only students pay” and “Students only pay” are different sentences. English carries with position what Spanish can carry elsewhere, so a word that moves takes its meaning with it.

Watch three · then do four

Follow every word that moved

Each example lists exactly what changed, so you can check the claim survived the journey.

Worked example · Word order

Original: Random searches help the police look for illegal weapons and other substances that people may be carrying.

Paraphrase: People carrying illegal weapons or other substances can be found by the police through random searches.

What moved: The thing being looked for moved to the front and became the subject; “help the police look for” became “can be found by the police”.

Why this works: Fronting the object forced the passive, which is why order and voice so often travel together. Note that “random” stays: “aleatory” is a translation of “aleatorio” and in English is a narrow legal term for a contract that depends on chance.

Worked example · Word order

Original: Psychologists argue that passion in couples lasts between six months and two years, and that it can lead to break-ups if the relationship has not built stronger foundations.

Paraphrase: According to psychologists, a relationship that has not built stronger foundations before passion fades — roughly six months to two years — may end in a break-up.

What moved: The source became a front phrase; the condition moved ahead of the result; the time span became an aside.

Why this works: “According to X” frees the main clause to carry the claim. Three elements moved and no fact was added: the six-months-to-two-years span is still the one the original gave.

Worked example · Word order

Original: Deserts offer a real opportunity to install solar panels and produce sustainable energy for future generations.

Paraphrase: Installing solar panels across desert land offers a genuine opportunity to produce sustainable energy for future generations.

What moved: The action moved into the subject position; the place became where the action happens.

Why this works: Turning the action into the subject is the most useful reordering in Task 2, because it lets the main verb carry the claim instead of the setting.

What goes wrong

The mistakes this technique produces

These are real sentences from a WeLearn classroom, not invented errors. Most of them are calques: English words in a Spanish shape, which is exactly what paraphrasing under time pressure produces.

In the last decade climbed the proportion of stressed children to 54%.

The time phrase moved to the front and dragged the verb with it. Spanish allows verb before subject; English does not, outside a handful of fixed inversions. The subject still comes first.

Repaired: In the last decade, the proportion of stressed children climbed to 54%.

Any other professional makes significantly less money when it is compared with successful athletes.

The comparison flipped correctly, but “it” has nothing to refer to: the professionals are plural and the pronoun is singular. Most comparisons do not need the extra clause at all.

Repaired: Professionals in any other field make significantly less money than successful athletes.

Diverse triggers can cause different alternative futures.

This is a reordering of a different sentence. The original said that examining alternative futures is useful; this says triggers cause them. Reordering must not quietly become rewriting.

Repaired: Examining alternative futures is valuable because it shows where particular triggers lead.

Now you try · with the scaffolding on

Build it one step at a time

This sentence resists synonyms: the figures and the years cannot move at all, and “exercise” is the topic. You are going to paraphrase it by moving things instead of replacing them.

The material

Prompt: “The proportion of adults taking regular exercise rose from 34% to 51% between 2005 and 2020.”

Step 1Front the time phrase, with its comma

The period sits at the end. Move it to the start and write the first few words of the new sentence. The years themselves do not change.

Your version0 words · minimum 6

6 more words before you can compare. Writing it yourself first is the whole exercise.

Step 2Replace the one word that can be replaced

Step 3Write the whole sentence

Exercises · step 1, the meaning

Before you judge a rewrite, learn to spot what changed

Producing a paraphrase is the second skill. The first is noticing when a sentence that reads perfectly well has quietly stopped saying the same thing.

Step 1 · the meaning

Which one still says the same thing?

The sentence you have: Successful athletes earn considerably more than professionals in any other field.

All three are written in good English. Only one of them makes the same claim as the original. Find it before you write a single paraphrase of your own.

Exercises · step 2, production

Choose the paraphrase that moves everything and changes nothing

Every wrong option here is wrong for its own reason, and it says so. Three of them are grammatical English — that is the point. Nothing on this page is scored automatically.

Paraphrase this: Air quality in the capital improved significantly after the congestion charge was introduced in 2003.

Choose an option first

Paraphrase this: Private schools achieve better exam results than state schools in most regions.

Choose an option first

Paraphrase this: Researchers claim that early exposure to a second language improves long-term memory.

Choose an option first

Paraphrase this: Many commuters would use bicycles if cities built protected lanes.

Choose an option first

The other techniques

Four more ways to move a sentence

Synonyms

The words change and the claim does not.

6 moves · 4 exercises Word form

The same word stays, in a different grammatical shape.

6 moves · 4 exercises Voice

The doer and the thing done change places.

6 moves · 4 exercises Sentence structure

The same ideas arrive as a different number of sentences.

6 moves · 4 exercises