Paraphrasing
When you paraphrase you don't use the author's exact words. Instead, you put his or her ideas into your own words. Your words must be different enough from the author's that there is no possibility of mistaking yours for his or hers. Be very careful about this. When you do this you must say whose ideas they are and where they came from IMMEDIATELY. Don't put it in a foot note, don't wait until the end of the paper; state that these ideas belong to someone else and where you found them. The most important aspects of paraphrasing are that you: 1)choose from the original source the ideas that will most help your paper, 2)deliver those ideas accurately, but in your own words, 3)credit the original source clearly. Be careful not to change the meaning of the original ideas when paraphrasing.

An example of paraphrasing:
The original text (about Max Ernst) written as a direct quote:
"While convalescing from an illness, Ernst discovered the possibilities of using engravings from nineteenth-century magazines as the basis for transformation in collage; he came upon another new world in biological drawings of microorganisms. Thus, singlehanded, he created much of the Surrealist vocabulary"(Arnason, p.243).

Unacceptably close wording and sentence structure:
Note there are no quotation marks, and it is not an "exact" quote, but it is too close to be paraphrasing.
While Ernst was recovering from an illness, he found that engravings from nineteenth-century magazines could show and make change in collage; he discovered a whole new world in the drawings of microorganisms from biology. He then created most of the vocabulary used in Surrealism (Arnason, p.243).

Note that here the same basic sentence structure is used and that only a few words and phrases have been changed or moved around. This equals PLAGIARISM even though you say it's someone else's!! Watch out!!!!!!!

Okay paraphrasing:
Arnason asserts that Ernst is responsible for a lot of the Surrealist vocabulary. His ideas and art were changed after discovering the miniature world shown in biological drawings found in nineteenth century magazines (p. 243).

Note that the paraphrase delivers the main ideas but not every single part of the quote. It is also clear that the ideas belong to Arnason and the author is named directly.