How to Use Quillbot for Paraphrasing: Tips & Tricks

You may not have heard much or little about Paraphrasing, but indeed you have done a lot of content marketing, social media marketing tasks in English, haven’t you?

Paraphrasing is essential in content marketing, helping you master grammar skills and expand your vocabulary by expressing sentences differently without changing the original meaning.

Therefore, I recommend a Paraphrase tool developed using AI technology called QuillBot. With QuillBot, you will find many practical applications and features beyond paraphrase practice!

Update as of March 2023: QuillBot has added a translation feature for 30 languages.

Update as of March 2022: QuillBot officially launched the Plagiarism Detection feature. For more details about how to use quillbot for paraphrasing, please refer to the following article.

1. What is QuillBot?

QuillBot is a tool that supports rewriting sentences or English text (Paraphrasing Tool), meaning expressing content without changing the original meaning.

In addition to the Paraphrase feature, QuillBot supports the Summarizer feature for content summarization and recently developed a Grammar Checker feature. The features provided by QuillBot are beneficial for users in improving their English skills.

In addition to the website platform, QuillBot also provides extensions for various platforms and software such as the Chrome browser, Microsoft Word software, and Google’s text editor, Google Docs. Furthermore, QuillBot offers an API to integrate its paraphrase toolkit into your applications (update as of January 2022: This API is no longer supported by QuillBot).

Below, I will share how to use the QuillBot for paraphrasing fluently to reduce plagiarism rates.

2. How to Use Quillbot for Paraphrasing?

2.1. QuillBot Installation Guide

You can use QuillBot without installation.

The simplest way to use it is: Open a web browser, enter the Quillbot.com address, log in to your free QuillBot account or premium account if you have one, and you can start using it right away.

You only need to install the QuillBot extension when you want to:

• Use QuillBot directly in Microsoft Word.
• Use QuillBot on the browser with more convenience.
• Use QuillBot for Google Docs.

2.2. Paraphraser (Text Paraphrasing Tool) Guide

To use the Paraphraser mode of Quillbot, you access the tool’s official website: https://quillbot.com/. The main interface is similar to Google Translate, with the screen divided into two parts. The left is where you enter the original text, and the right shows the text paraphrased through AI technology.

You can enter or paste the copied text (up to 10,000 characters) into the left text box. In addition, the tool allows paraphrasing large text files with the “Upload Doc” button represented by a cloud icon at the bottom left corner.

I will use a content marketing task on the topic of Social Networks to illustrate the following:

After clicking on Paraphrase button, you need to wait a few seconds for the AI software to work:

When the AI completes the text changes, it will appear on the right side of the interface. Your screen will look like this:

The paraphrased text will be marked in several ways for users to track and understand the content and how QuillBot rephrased the original text:

Underline: Changes the sentence structure by modifying or rearranging clauses.

Orange color: Marks words and words changed with synonyms.

Purple color: Uses words or phrases with equivalent meanings to enhance sentence structure.

Green color: Highlights the most extended whole phrase in the original sentence.

When you click on any character, QuillBot will display the original sentence and the paraphrased sentence for you to compare and make detailed adjustments:

At this point, you can click on each word or phrase to view a list of alternative words or phrases, copy the sentence, or lock the penalty if you feel no further adjustments are needed with the toolbar on the right side.

2.3. Paraphrasing with Levels (Modes) Guide

How to use Quillbot for paraphrasing easily? A toolbar with Modes is at the top of the text box. These Modes are specific modes of expressing text provided by QuillBot’s AI technology. There are seven modes, the first three are used with free accounts, and the remaining four require a premium account. The default mode is always Standard:

2.3.1. The free modes

Standard: This is the default mode, where the sentence is paraphrased in a standard way, meaning the sentence is kept with the most natural expression possible.

Fluency: This mode helps to paraphrase the sentence in the most natural and grammatically correct way possible. With the Fluency mode, the sentence is paraphrased with minimal changes, ensuring the original meaning is preserved. However, Synonym Slider (a tool explained in more detail later) will be set to the lowest level when using this mode.

Creative: As the name suggests, the Creative mode aims to change the original sentence creatively. Therefore, the overall consistency of the text may be affected. This mode is helpful if you need text as different as possible from the original text.

2.3.2. The premium-only modes

Creative+: Creative+ can be seen as an upgraded version of the Creative mode with a new model. Simply put, QuillBot will use Creative+ to generate sentences with more positive and proactive changes, helping you paraphrase better results from the original sentence.

Formal: This mode helps refine the sentences of the original text to make them more formal and professional. It is suitable for academic purposes, research, or serious cases.

Shorten: This is considered the sentence-shortening mode of QuillBot, often used to condense texts or reduce the number of words in a text.

Expand: The Expand mode can be understood as expanding sentences/texts by adding words and transforming sentence structures to create a new sentence that is longer and provides an expanded meaning compared to the original sentence/text.

Changing modes is only applied to each sentence. If you want to use it for the entire text, select the mode first and then enter the original text into the dialogue box on the left or click the green Rephrase button below the dialogue box.

2.3.3. Synonym Slider

Should a paraphrase be unique? Yes! Synonyms are a mode to control and adjust the number of synonymous words used to transform the original text. This tool is located next to the Modes bar with a 4-level slider:

The four levels of Synonyms are arranged from low to high, where level 1 will provide a text with the fewest synonymous words, while level 4 will use the most synonymous words to rephrase the original text.

Only QuillBot premium users can adjust level 4 on the Synonyms slider.

Adjusting the Synonyms slider is only applied to each sentence. If you want to change the Synonyms level for the entire text, select the Synonym level first and then click on the green Rephrase button below the dialogue box. Quillbot can suggest synonyms for any word in your text. This can help you improve your writing style and avoid repetition.

2.3.4. Freeze words

Freeze Words is a premium feature of QuillBot that allows users to lock certain words or phrases so that QuillBot will automatically keep these words unchanged during the paraphrasing process.

After clicking on the Freeze Words icon, a dialogue box will appear on the right side of the screen:

You need to enter the words or phrases you want to freeze in the text input box and then click the Freeze button or press Enter. The locked words or phrases will be displayed below. You can also enter multiple words or phrases simultaneously, separated by commas.

Note that you must enter the Freeze Words list before paraphrasing the text.

2.3.5. Compare Modes

Compare Modes is a feature for QuillBot premium users. This feature displays different modes of the same sentence simultaneously, allowing users to compare and select the most suitable mode for their sentence.

The Compare Modes tool is located below the Freeze Words tool in the right sidebar:

Similar to Freeze Words, after clicking on the Compare Modes icon, a dialogue box will appear on the right side of the screen:

You can adjust the level of synonymous words used for each mode with a slider next to each mode. The Undo and Redo icons allow you to undo and restore previous actions for the sentence. The Select button is used to choose the sentence that you find most satisfying to replace the sentence in the Paraphrase text.

2.4. Advanced Settings Guide

Also, in the right sidebar, the gear icon at the top is the advanced settings section to change and adjust some settings for QuillBot:

After clicking on the advanced settings icon, a dialogue box will appear on the right side of the interface with a list of settings for users to adjust:

In the advanced settings section, you can choose or deselect these settings to ensure a smooth and pleasant paraphrasing process. There are two settings: “Paraphrase” – settings related to paraphrase content – and “Interface” – settings related to the display of paraphrased text.

2.4.1. The “Paraphrase” group of settings includes

Paraphrase quotations: Paraphrase even the quoted sentences.

Use contractions: This mode allows for using contractions (don’t, can’t, shouldn’t, etc.) instead of their expanded forms (do not, cannot, should not, etc.).

English options: Language options. QuillBot only supports English in three forms: UK English, US English, and Australian English.

2.4.2. The “Interface” settings include

Use yellow highlight: Display the color of the selected sentence as yellow (default is light blue).

Show tooltips: Display tooltips.

Show legend: Display legends for the paraphrased text marking methods (underlining, colors, etc.)

Show changed words: Do not mark synonymous words that replace original words in the original text.

Show structural changes: Similar to the above setting, and this setting highlights structurally changed parts in the original text by underlining them.

Show longest unchanged words: Similar to the previous two settings, and this setting marks the most extended whole portion from the original text in blue.

2.5. Summarizer Guide

The Summarizer is a helpful feature of QuillBot that allows users to summarize or extract the main ideas from a large text (up to 25,000 characters).

The interface and usage of the Summarizer are similar to the Paraphrase tool. You input the text (using the same methods as the Paraphrase tool) in the text input box on the left side of the interface and click the green Summarize button below for QuillBot to summarize the text.

In addition to text summarization, QuillBot has recently added a feature for summarizing video subtitles. You can click the Enter Video URL button and enter the link to the video for subtitle summarization.

QuillBot offers two main functions that you can use with the Summarizer tool:

Key Sentences: When selecting this function, QuillBot will summarize your original text by listing the critical ideas as individual sentences.

Key Paragraph: This function helps you summarize a long text into a short paragraph that includes the text’s main ideas.

The Summarizer also has copy text and download text as Word file (.docx) tools. Additionally, the Summarizer provides some additional features, such as:

Summary Length: A slider with four levels to control the length of the summary text. To change the size, you can drag or click on the desired level and then click the green Re-Summarize button below the text input box (in the same position as the Summarize button).

Paraphrase Summary: A feature that combines with the Paraphrase tool, allowing users to rephrase the summary text to avoid duplication with the original text.

2.6. Grammar Checker Guide

Update as of November 2021: I compared the English grammar-checking capabilities between QuillBot and Grammarly in the following article: “QuillBot vs. Grammarly: Which tool checks grammar better?”

This newly introduced feature of QuillBot allows you to check the grammar of any given text and correct grammar errors.

The Grammar Checker tool uses AI technology to automatically scan the text and identify grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. These errors are marked with red underlines.

The QuillBot tool displays alternative suggestions to fix the errors by clicking on the underlined words. You can review each error and decide whether to make the correction or choose “Fix All Errors” to correct all errors at once.

Once you have corrected the errors and are satisfied, you can also paraphrase the revised text using the “Paraphrase Text” button in the bottom-right corner of the text input box. The error-corrected text will be transferred to the Paraphraser tool and automatically paraphrased.

I have observed that QuillBot’s AI technology performs well in detecting text errors. QuillBot found ten errors in the original text, while Google’s error detection system only identified seven errors, including some proper nouns.

Although the Grammar Checker has been officially launched (ending the testing phase, updated in July 2021), this tool is still being further improved to meet user needs.

When writing this article, the English grammar-checking feature of QuillBot is still not on par with Grammarly. I have provided a detailed comparison in another article of how to use Quillbot for paraphrasing:

3. Tips for Using QuillBot

While using QuillBot’s features and tools it has been beneficial for me when paraphrasing content. Besides that, I have also discovered many uses of QuillBot in developing and improving English proficiency, not just in writing styles. Here are some experiences when using Quillbot for paraphrasing easily:

3.1. Finding Inspiration and Topics

I often encounter difficulties and spend much time determining the subject and topic and writing an introduction for an assigned essay or article. In these cases, I use QuillBot’s Summarizer tool to synthesize available data concisely and comprehensively. From there, I can make specific comparisons and evaluations to find ideas feasible to start writing.

3.2. Expressing the Essay Fluently

Weak English proficiency is not an issue when using QuillBot. The Grammar Checker tool will enhance your essay, and then the Paraphrase tool will help you express the essay in various ways.

For example, the Formal mode is suitable for writing argumentative essays or speeches at important ceremonies or meetings. And when you want to expand on a specific idea, the Expand mode will assist you so you never struggle to express your thoughts. To concisely state a particular issue, you simply select the Shorten mode.

3.3. Using a Wide Range of Vocabulary and Diverse Sentence Structures While Learning New Words

Your essay will be more exciting and engaging when using a variety of sentence structures and vocabulary. The Synonyms tool is one of my favorite tools in QuillBot. By adjusting the Synonyms level to the maximum and enabling Show tooltips, you can diversify the vocabulary used for the same meaning. At the same time, the Modes will also provide different sentence structures to enrich your text as much as possible.

In this way, you can both “upgrade” your essay and learn more vocabulary and sentence structures in English.

3.4. Controlling the Arguments and the Development of the Essay

When I get too carried away with writing, I often lose focus, leading to “off-topic” situations. With QuillBot, I can address this issue using the Summarizer tool to summarize the written text. After reviewing the main ideas after summarization, I can determine whether my essay focuses on the correct development topic.

Suppose there is a tendency to go off-topic, but I still want to keep some interesting points in the essay. In that case, I will use the Expand and Shorten modes in the Paraphraser tool to further develop the main ideas and shorten unnecessary parts.

4. Advantages and Disadvantages of QuillBot for Paraphrasing

4.1. Advantages of QuillBot

I appreciate QuillBot’s efforts in supporting users to improve their texts with valuable features and tools. Primarily the Synonyms tool in the Paraphrase and Grammar Checker has dramatically helped me in enhancing my English skills and making me more confident when using this international language.

QuillBot operates on a website platform with a user-friendly interface and fast text processing speed. The QuillBot homepage provides detailed and comprehensive instructions for using the tool. QuillBot also offers a list of keyboard shortcuts for regular PCs and Mac computers.

In addition to the website, QuillBot has developed browser extensions for Chrome, Google Docs, and Microsoft Word software. Moreover, the tool also provides its API for developers who need to use the Paraphrase service.

Alongside the Premium package, QuillBot allows users to use the tool with a free account.

4.2. Limitations of QuillBot

Everyone can use with a free account, but many QuillBot’s features are limited. The Premium package costs relatively high ($4.17 per month/ $49.95 per year). Subscribing to a Premium account can be costly if you do not regularly need to use QuillBot.

QuillBot limits the character count of the input text, even when using the Premium package. This can be inconvenient when working with large-sized documents.

The QuillBot homepage directs users to the Help Center to view instructions on how to use the tool. However, these instructions have not been updated with the new tools and features of QuillBot.

5. QuillBot’s latest features

5.1. Citation Generator

For essays or reports, citing sources and references is extremely important and must be done correctly to avoid plagiarism or copyright issues.

In mid-2021, QuillBot introduced a new free feature called Citation Generator. This feature supports the citation of content sources that users can use for their essays, papers, or reports as a bibliography or reference list.

Guide on using QuillBot’s Citation Generator tool:

5.1.1. Identify the citation style

Firstly, you need to determine the appropriate citation style for your essay to achieve accurate and proper results. I often cite references according to the APA standard, the most commonly used standard in our universities and graduate schools. QuillBot’s citation tool currently supports three citation styles: APA, MLA, and Chicago. These are the most popular styles that can be used in some primary fields, precisely:

• APA: APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used in scientific fields such as Psychology, Education, Business, Engineering, and other scientific disciplines. APA citations are typically listed in the References section (at the end of the essay).
• MLA: MLA (Modern Language Association) is often used to cite sources in humanities fields such as History, Language, Literature, and Philosophy.
• In essays, MLA-style citations are typically listed in the Works Cited section.
• Chicago: Citations in the Chicago style are commonly used in the fields of Fine Arts, Humanities, and general science and humanities, as well as for publishing and editing manuscripts.

5.1.2. Enter citation information

The first step to creating a properly formatted citation is to have complete information about the cited source.

However, it is essential to ensure that the cited source is reliable and to have complete information about the author, date of writing/publication, place of publication, etc.

5.1.3. Website source

For important theses and dissertations, the cited sources are often books that have been published and dissertations that have been presented and recognized. This does not mean that sources from websites are unacceptable, as specific rules have been established for these sources.

First, in the Citation Source section on the left, select Website and enter the URL of the referenced article in the Enter URL box, then click the Citation button to go to the detailed information entry section:

In addition, you can also click the Compose button to go to the detailed information entry section:

At this point, the right panel of the interface will display the complete citation based on the information you provide about the source:

5.1.4. Book source

This is the most commonly used source in essays. The information entry requirements are more detailed than for website sources.

There are two ways to cite a source from a book. The first way is to directly search for the title of the text in the search bar:

The system will provide results for books with the same title that have been published, and you just need to find and select the correct book (publisher, year of publication matching the source you are referencing) and click Cite.

There may be some missing information that you need to supplement, such as place of publication (required) or volume number, series, edition, etc. (if applicable). In this case, you need to click the Edit button to add this information.

For books that the system cannot find, you can directly enter the information by clicking the Compose button:

5.1.5. Newspaper and magazine sources

This source is also commonly used in essays, but the citation method differs from citing books or websites. To make a citation, you need to click Compose and select Citation Source as Journal, then enter the complete information of the cited source:

In addition, the content displayed in the citation section on the right is a condensed version. If you need a full and properly formatted citation with all the information and punctuation, you can click on the content for QuillBot to display the detailed version.

5.2. QuillBot Citation Generator vs. Citations & Bibliography (Microsoft Word 365)

In my field of content marketing, I often come across books and articles, so almost every subject requires us to write advertising content, promotion content, SEO content. Thanks to that, I am pretty familiar with writing references and using paraphrasing tools.

One of the tools I used before I knew about QuillBot’s Citation Generator was the Citations & Bibliography feature in Word. The functioning of these two tools is similar; however, because Word is specifically designed for creating documents, it has more advantages than QuillBot.

Criteria	QuillBot	Microsoft Word 365
Citation Sources	3 types (Website, Books, Journals)	17 types (Books, Journals, Websites, Theses/Dissertations, Reports, Films, etc.)
Citation Styles	3 styles (APA, MLA, Chicago)	10 styles (APA, MLA, Chicago, GOST, ISO 690, Harvard – Anglia, etc.)
Language	English	English
Ease of Use	Easy, convenient, and fast	Complexity of entering information

Word surpasses QuillBot regarding the number of citation styles and available sources. However, the typical academic and work environments do not require excessively high references and citation formatting standards.

Therefore, I still find QuillBot’s Citation Generator tool worth using because it is an open tool that anyone can use for free. The sources and citation styles it supports are also widely used and easy to use, without requiring too many steps compared to Word.

5.3. QuillBot: Save Time & Rewrite Faster

The new feature, Citation Generator, is a handy tool for college and graduate students and teachers who frequently have to work on and deal with essays.

QuillBot is still trying to improve the Citation Generator tool by adding more source types and citation styles. This feature will be further optimized to meet users’ needs.

What if all the existing features of QuillBot, along with some content-specific functions such as data search and analysis and text customization, were combined into a single interface? Let’s explore QuillBot’s collaborative editing feature, Co-writer (currently in beta testing)!

5.4. QuillBot’s Co-writer Feature

QuillBot recently introduced a new Co-writer feature for beta testing on its official website. When accessing the Co-writer tool (alongside the Citation Generator), you will be directed to the interface of this feature, and a dialog box for managing and working with projects will appear:

You can create new projects, upload personal files (up to 2GB), and download or delete tasks as needed.

Here are the new integrated tools in Co-writer:

5.4.1. Editor

When creating a new project, you will be directed to a blank interface with the editor on the left side. You can also directly upload existing text and continue editing and working on it. I’m pretty impressed with Co-writer’s text editor; it has many features similar to a content editor (adjusting size, font, alignment, font color, word count, real-time autosave, spell-checking, etc., just like Google Docs).

5.4.2. Research

This is also an impressive and incredibly convenient tool when you’re writing but need help finding ideas or trying to figure out the content you’re writing, or whenever you need to search for additional information and resources.

Co-writer’s Research tool functions as a data-gathering tool. It can help you find relevant articles related to the keywords you’re searching for, then analyze and provide necessary information that you can use for your writing.

5.4.3. Notebook

While researching additional information, if you come across exciting information or content using the Research tool, you can bookmark and store it in the Notebook section.

5.4.4. Analytics

This section is geared towards advanced content writers with statistical and analytical capabilities. Based on the gathered information, you can adjust your writing to better align with the article’s purpose, enhancing the quality and increasing user engagement.

5.5. Available Features of QuillBot

And finally, how can you adjust your writing to be more suitable? The Paraphrase, Summarizer, and Grammar Checker tools will assist you. Paraphrases can transform the tone of the content, Summarizers can condense lengthy content, and the Grammar Checker can correct expressions and grammar errors for you.

To change the writing style, summarize, or add a source to a paragraph, highlight the paragraph and right-click on it. Using the Paraphrase and Summarizer tools is similar to using QuillBot’s independent Paraphrase and Summarizer features.

QuillBot Co-writer is a highly convenient feature.

In conclusion, Co-writer is an incredibly convenient feature as it combines all the existing features of QuillBot and adds some useful content-writing tools. I hope this feature will be optimized and officially launched shortly.

QuillBot is an excellent language tool constantly improving and adding new features. Other paraphrasing tools are available, but QuillBot is currently ranked as the top tool. If you want to try an equivalent tool, I recommend Linguix Premium and OutWrite Pro!

6. Is QuillBot Good for Paraphrasing?

Totally yes! QuillBot is a handy tool for analyzing and expressing existing content. Additionally, I have discovered the potential of QuillBot in supporting English language proficiency improvement through its various features.

In particular, QuillBot’s AI tool has achieved impressive levels of content analysis, thereby providing users with astonishingly effective tools such as Synonyms, the Summarizer, and creating the utmost convenience for users with the Compare Mode, adjusting the degree of synonym usage, the length of the summary, and more. Thereby, the writer’s style increased significantly.

7. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List about QuillBot

7.1. What is QuillBot?

QuillBot is a tool that reinterprets and summarizes English sentences or paragraphs using artificial intelligence technology. In other words, QuillBot can generate a new text with equivalent content to the original text by modifying sentence structures, synonymous phrases, antonyms, etc. Are you considering how to use Quillbot for paraphrasing fluently? QuillBot has six main features: paraphrasing in various styles and degrees, text summarization, grammar checking, plagiarism detection, Citation Generator, and Co-writer.

7.2. Is QuillBot free or paid?

QuillBot offers two subscription plans: QuillBot free and QuillBot premium. If your usage needs are not extensive, you can use the free QuillBot plan or the QuillBot premium plan (shared) currently supported by an online network.