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In writing an academic paper, you may want to paraphrase, to say what someone else has said using different words. This process may seem simple, but it presents subtle challenges. You must digest what the author has said, what the author implies and means, and transform that into your own language. Not an easy task.
The source passage for our paraphrase is an article from a collection exploring the relationship between philosophy and the comedy cartoon series The Simpsons. The collection, The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'Oh of Homer, edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard, and Aeon J. Skoble and published in 2001 by Carus Publishing Company of Peru Illinois, contains an article by Carl Matheson entitled "The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony, and the Meaning of Life." In this article, Matheson shows how particular episodes of the series exemplify the idea of "hyper-ironism," which he defines as "a sense of world-weary cleverer-than-thou-ness" (109). The passage quoted here, taken from pages 119-120, uses as an example of its claim the Simpsons' episode "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield."
Source passage:
I think that, given a crisis of authority, hyper-ironism is the most suitable form of comedy. Recall that many painters and architects turned to a consideration of the history of painting and architecture once they gave up on the idea of a fundamental trans-historical goal for their media. Recall also that once Rorty's version of Derrida became convinced of the non-existence of transcendent philosophical truth, he reconstructed philosophy as an historically aware conversation which largely consisted of the deconstruction of past works. One way of looking at all of these transitions is that, with the abandonment of knowledge came the cult of knowingness. That is, even if there is no ultimate truth (or method for arriving at it) I can still show that I understand the intellectual rules by which you operate better than you do. I can show my superiority over you by demonstrating my awareness of what makes you tick. In the end, none of our positions is ultimately superior, but I can at least show myself to b
e in a superior position for now on the shifting sands of the game we are currently playing. Hyper-irony is the comedic instantiation of the cult of knowingness. Given the crisis of authority, there are no higher purposes to which comedy can be put, such as moral instruction, theological revelation, or showing how the world is. However, comedy can be used to attack anybody at all who thinks that he or she has any sort of handle on the answer to any major question, not to replace the object of the attack with a better way of looking at things, but merely for the pleasure of the attack, or perhaps for the sense of momentary superiority mentioned earlier. The Simpsons revels in the attack. It treats nearly everything as a target, every stereotypical character, every foible, and every institution. It plays games of one-upsmanship with its audience members by challenging them to identify the avalanche of allusions it throws down to them. And, as "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield" illustrates, i
t refrains from taking a position of its own (119-120).
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Paragraph showing how to paraphrase:
When philosophers analyze popular culture, they often link its ideas to those in the wider culture. For example, when Matheson analyzes The Simpsons, he links what he calls the hyper-ironism in the series to the loss of sureness in the wider culture. In the wider culture, he cites the way painters, feeling that painting had no broad purpose, turned instead to examining the history of painting, and he notes that Rorty, in deciphering Derrida, turned to taking a critical view of older ideas. In referring to the series, he notes how the writers target every aspect of life and talk down to their audience, making multiple allusions to culture more or less to see if the audience can catch them. Through showing these parallel trends, Matheson implicitly defines the term hyper-ironism as the tearing down of past institutions without the ability to offer an improved replacement. Matheson's analysis typifies the wide-ranging connections made by many authors discussing popular culture from an academic perspective (119-120).
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Note carefully the decisions--about meaning, about summarizing, about the level of vocabulary to use-- that had to be made even for this one paragraph of paraphrase. These decisions exemplify why paraphrase is such a difficult art.
The Works Cited entry in the MLA style would look like this:
Works Cited
Matheson, Carl. "The Simpsons, Hyper-Irony, and the Meaning of Life." The Simpsons and
Philosophy: The D'Oh of Homer. Ed. William Irwin, Mark T. Conard, and Aeon J. Skoble. Peru,
Il: Carus Publishing Company, 2001.
How to Paraphrase Exercise
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