Strategies for effective paraphrasing

in this paper we present a new dimension to paraphrasing text in which characteristics of the original text motivate strategies for effective pacaphrasing. Our system combines two existing robust components: the IRIJS-.II natural language underst~mding system and the SPOKESMAN generation system. We describe the architectur(: of the system and enhancements made to these components to facilitate paraphrasing. We particularly look at how levels of representation in these two systems are used by specialists in the paraphraser which define potential problems and paraphrasing strategies. Finally, we look at the role of paraphrasing in a cooperative dialog system. We will focus here on paraphrasing in the coutext of natural language interfaces and particularly on how multiple int::rpretations introduced by various kinds of ambiguity can be contrasted in paraphrases using both sentence structure and highlighting and folmating the text itself.