Paraphrasing means putting illustrations in your own words instead of quoting.
Here are the basic steps of paraphrasing.
Identify what you're trying to prove with your paraphrased evidence. (This is the point of your PIE.)
Looking at the text, identify what details support that point.
Stop looking at the text. Walk away if you need to. Get the exact wording from the text out of your head; focus on the ideas themselves.
Write down the important details in your own words, being as specific as possible.
Look back at the text to make sure that (a) you didn't directly copy the structure or language of the original and (b) your paraphrase accurately conveys the text's ideas.
Write your explanation to complete your PIE.
When writing about literature, your illustrations will be quotes most of the time. We’re often analyzing elements of language and the author’s words matter. You usually need quotes to analyze characters’ emotions, motivations, or relationships. You also need quotes to discuss any literary elements that involve language, such as imagery, similes, metaphors, hyperbole, diction, and tone.
There are two important questions to ask yourself when deciding whether to quote or paraphrase a specific piece of evidence. If the answer to either question is "yes," you need to quote.
Are you just analyzing meaning (what is conveyed), or are you also analyzing language (how the meaning is conveyed)? If any part of your analysis is about language, you need to quote that language. If you're just discussing the literal meaning of your evidence, you can often paraphrase.
If the meaning of your evidence is at all ambiguous, you should use a quote and interpret it for your readers. Your evidence is your proof, and a questionable interpretation of the text is not good evidence.
For example, let's say I want to paraphrase Rosaura's reaction to being handed money when she is expecting a party favor. Here is that moment in Heker's words: "Rosaura also leaned forward, stretching out her arm. But she never completed the movement" (4).
I could paraphrase this moment like this: Rosaura refuses to take the money that Señora Ines tries to pay her.
Is it really a refusal, though, or is Rosaura just so hurt and surprised that she freezes? The word "refuses" implies that not taking the money is an intentional decision, and I'm not sure about Rosaura's motivations.
Here's another option: Rosaura freezes, hurt and surprised to realize that she has been a maid all along.
I'm also not sure of that interpretation, though, and paraphrasing characters' emotions or motivations is generally not a good idea because they are open to interpretation. This paraphrase isn't exactly trustworthy evidence either.
Ultimately, I would decide to use the quote as evidence instead of paraphrasing.
You should almost always paraphrase ideas from secondary sources. If you're connecting a real-life event to a work of literature, it's going to be the facts about the real-life event that matter, not the language that a particular journalist used to explain those facts. In this example, note that the secondary source evidence is paraphrased while the evidence from the literature is quoted.
[TS] In “The Stolen Party,” Rosaura learns that Luciana’s social class is relevant to their friendship. [P] Even when people do not purposely choose friends who are similar to them, social class can affect relationships. [I] A 2014 study found that teenagers tended to be friends with others from similar social classes, perhaps because they could afford to participate in similar activities and had similar life experiences (Papapolydorou). [P] Likewise, in “The Stolen Party,” Rosaura’s lower social standing affects her relationship with Luciana even if she does not see it. [I] This becomes clear when the girl with the bow announces, “I'm her cousin and I know all her friends. And I don't know you” (Heker 2).
This is trickier. When analyzing literature, you can almost always deepen your analysis by discussing language. To state that again, if you have access to a text, quoting and analyzing language is almost always a good idea. However, many literary elements aren't specifically about language and therefore can be discussed without quotes. If you're going to paraphrase a piece of evidence, make sure the details that matter are concrete and indisputable. You can't paraphrase something that's
If your evidence is a specific, indisputable fact, and you’re not going to analyze its language, you can paraphrase it. Here are a few examples:
Symbolism: I could develop a pretty strong analysis of the conch in Lord of the Flies with paraphrase:
[TS] In Lord of the Flies, the conch symbolizes order. [P] The conch is most powerful at the beginning of the novel when the boys are trying to develop an orderly civilization. [I] The sound of the conch is what first calls the boys together as a group, and one of the boys' first rules is that whoever has the conch is allowed to speak. [E] Literally, the conch enables them to begin working together and gives them a mechanism by which to do so in an orderly fashion. [P] As the boys' society gradually becomes less orderly, however, the conch loses its power. [I] Jack refuses to let Piggy speak even when he is holding the conch, and he later declares that the conch only works on certain parts of the island. [E] The limitations Jack sets on the conch's power correlate with actions Jack takes to destroy the peaceful order the other boys try to maintain...
Plot Structure: Since plot structure requires taking a broad view of a text, it can be analyzed well with paraphrase. Here's the beginning of a structural analysis of "The Stolen Party" using only paraphrased evidence:
[TS] The exposition, a conversation between Rosaura and her mother, provides all the information we will eventually need to understand the ending. [I] In this conversation, Rosaura insists that she is friends with Luciana and lays out the reasons why she is excited about the party. [E] The excitement Rosaura reveals in this scene explains how she later manages to misinterpret her role at the party, as everything she has hoped for seems to come true. [Transition / I] Dismissing Rosaura's optimistic perspective, her mother argues that the two girls cannot be real friends because Rosaura's mother is Luciana's mother's maid. [E] This assertion identifies the dynamic that eventually explains what happens at the end of the story. [CS] Through the two sides of this argument, Heker uses the very first page of the story to set up a tension between Rosaura's naïve optimism and her mother's more jaded perspective on social class.
Characters' Actions: Quotes are helpful for most types of characterization, but characters' actions are often straightforward enough that they can be analyzed with paraphrase only:
[TS] Rosaura is confident, assertive, and entirely unintimidated by the wealthy children around her. [I] When the girl with the bow tries to convince Rosaura she doesn't belong at the party, Rosaura ends their argument by kicking her. Not only does she disagree with the girl, but Rosaura is so confident in her own position that she asserts her dominance physically....
The scope of your analysis will also determine how much you should focus on language and, accordingly, how much you should quote versus paraphrase.
Essentially, essays with a broader scope will require you to use broader evidence and potentially more paraphrase. If you need to analyze the progression of a theme throughout an entire novel, you probably don't have space for a lot of sentence-level language analysis. Instead, you'll want to analyze broader plot developments, character development, symbols, etc.
When you're looking at an entire novel, you'll likely find plenty to analyze that doesn't require quotes. For example, perhaps a character faced two similar situations at different points in the novel and reacted very differently to them. Your essay could analyze the similarity between the situations, analyze the differences in the character's responses, and then seek to explain what changed in between these two scenes. You definitely could use quotes to help illustrate this, but they likely wouldn't be required.
The symbolism and plot structure examples in the section above both show how essays with a broad scope can use paraphrase effectively.
In contrast, if your essay has a narrow scope—say you're doing a close-reading of a passage—you'll quickly run out of things to say if you don't analyze language. A short passage just won't display the kind of plot-level complexity that develops over the course of a novel and can be illustrated with paraphrase.
This makes sense if you think about it in terms of ratios. I'm oversimplifying this somewhat, but if you're analyzing a whole novel, maybe the evidence for your first paragraph is the events of Chapter 1. If you're analyzing one page of text, maybe the evidence for your first paragraph is the first two sentences—and you'll almost certainly need to use quotes to analyze them.
Let's say you want to write one paragraph that analyzes one sentence of text. To be successful, you'll need to do a very close close-reading of that sentence, carefully analyzing each specific word.
The following paragraph is a close-reading analysis of the sentence: "Señora Ines had said: ‘You yes, but not the others, they're much too boisterous, they might break something’” (2). I needed to use quotes as evidence.
[TS] Señora Ines lets Rosaura into the kitchen because she views her as a maid, but frames access to the kitchen as a special privilege. [P] In giving her permission to enter the kitchen, Señora Ines makes a distinction between Rosaura and the other guests, [I] clarifying "You yes, but not the others" (2). [E] With this simple statement, Señora Ines reveals that she sees Rosaura—and only Rosaura—as different from the other children. If Señora Ines were really letting children into the kitchen based on how careful they are, she could have allowed Rosaura in, not said anything about the other children, and made individual decisions about any other children who asked later. This isn't the case, though: Señora Ines groups the other children together as her daughter's friends (who are not allowed in the kitchen) and views Rosaura as her maid's daughter. [P] Señora Ines also compliments Rosaura while making this distinction, making Rosaura feel special. [I] She tells Rosaura the other children cannot enter the kitchen because "they're much too boisterous" and emphasizes the problem with this by adding "they might break something" (2). [E] In framing the distinction this way, Señora Ines hides the real reason she treats Rosaura differently; her sentence is almost perfectly balanced between identifying Rosaura as different and smoothing over that difference. She both establishes a social hierarchy and ensures that it stays invisible rather than explicit, giving Rosaura no opportunity to contemplate and potentially renegotiate her role.
Often, embedding a small, important quote within a sentence or two of paraphrase is the most effective way of presenting evidence. That way, you draw attention to the words that matter. You can analyze details that you paraphrase as well as details that you quote.
In the following example, I paraphrase the fact that Rosaura is allowed into the kitchen. My analysis addresses the significance of kitchens as a place; I don't need to quote the word "kitchen" for it to work. I'm also, however, analyzing how Señora Ines's words might confuse Rosaura, and I need to quote her dialogue to do that.
[P] Señora Ines lets Rosaura into the kitchen because she considers her a maid, but Rosaura thinks she is special. [I] Rosaura is the only guest at the party who spends time in the kitchen, and Señora Ines tells her this is because the other children are “‘much too boisterous’” and “‘might break something’” (Heker 2). Señora Ines’s words imply that Rosaura is allowed in the kitchen because she is more careful than the other children, but the kitchen is, in fact, a location where maids—not guests—traditionally work. Sra Ines contributes to Rosaura’s confusion by treating her like a servant while also complimenting her abilities.