During research, you read the following passage on a website: Although a cone snail looks beautiful, it is very deadly. It uses a harpoon-like tooth to paralyze its prey and then swallow it whole. It can even change its poison depending on the animal it is attacking.

You write the following passage in your informational article:

The cone snail can change its poison depending on the animal it attacks. After paralyzing its prey with a harpoon-like tooth, it swallows it whole. Although it is very deadly, it looks beautiful.

Which choice best describes what you wrote?

1) It is a strong example of paraphrasing. It successfully rephrases the main idea in a new way.
2) It is not a strong example of paraphrasing. It changes the meaning of the original passage.
3) It is not a strong example of paraphrasing. It just deletes a few words and phrases in between.
4) It is not a strong example of paraphrasing. It just rearranges the original words in a new order.

The correct answer is D. It is not a strong example of paraphrasing. It just rearranges the original words in a new order.

Explanation:

In writing, paraphrasing implies using the ideas of an external source and author and expressing them by using your own words, because of this a strong paraphrasing would change the language used but keep the essence and main points of the original ideas. In the excerpt presented, the author tried to paraphrase a passage that describes cone snails. However, in the passage paraphrased the author uses the same terms and words than in the original passage which means he or she is not expressing the ideas of the original passage with his or her own words but only changing the order of ideas the text and therefore this is not a strong paraphrasing and can even be considered a plagiarism as the same words and ideas are being used. Therefore, this text can be described as "It is not a strong example of paraphrasing. It just rearranges the original words in a new order".

historically speaking, military dictators usually come into power

as the result of a military coup d'etat that was successful against  

whatever form of government existed before.  

sometimes the military dictator was put in place by winning a civil war.  

    occasionally military dictators conduct phony 'elections'  

in order to claim that they were elected by the people.

but there are never any serious candidates running against the dictator.

when a dictator becomes too old for governing his country,

he usually tries to arrange for one of his sons to take over power  

after he is dead and gone.  

when that is not possible, some secret decisions within the military

results in the next dictator taking power

—whether by means of an 'election' or another coup d'etat.  

    countries with little experience of other forms of government

often assume that a military strongman is their natural leader.  

military dictators want to stay in power for as long as possible.  

often the only way they leave office is feet first,

that is, they must die or be killed while still in power  

before the next form of government will take over.

explanation: