Paraphrasing Practice to Improve Writing

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Paraphrasing Exercise 3

Read the following passage and paraphrase it by putting it into your own words.

By mid-December, 1914, British troops had been fighting on the Continent for over five months. Casualties had been shocking, positions had settled into self-destructive stalemate, and sensitive people now perceived that the war, far from promising to be “over by Christmas,” was going to extend itself to hitherto unimagined reaches of suffering and irony. From Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory. London: Oxford University Press, 1977.

Possible Paraphrase

There is not a single correct answer, but you could paraphrase the above passage by writing something like this:

After more than five months of fighting, the British had lost so many men and they were unable to make progress. People began to realize that the war would not end before Christmas. Instead, it would continue for longer and be more ironic than they had ever imagined.