How to Use the Quillbot Paraphraser API with Python, PHP, Ruby & JavaScript Examples

Have you ever felt the need for access to a service that effectively paraphrases your text? The Quillbot Paraphraser API can come in handy.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines paraphrasing as “a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form”. Paraphrasing can be of great help, when conveying information in words that would be easily understood by the target audience. It serves as a great tool to test your understanding on a particular subject. Paraphrasing can also help in changing the focus of information by reordering words to present the information in a different light. However it is worth noting that paraphrasing does not mean modifying the semantics of the original sentence, it only refers to restating the original sentence in a different form. Paraphrasing can also help in improving the written content in terms of clarity, crispness and conciseness.  Thus paraphrasing can greatly aid students, writers and professionals who intend to research and collate information from different sources; and produce a condensed report of the researched information.

The process of paraphrasing text manually can be a tedious one. It involves gaining a comprehensive understanding of the source material with a clear idea of the topic to emphasize, while presenting this information. Consequently, the process requires selecting the keywords from the source text and experimenting with replacing them with their synonyms, followed by reordering them to form a syntactically correct English sentence that does not distort the original semantics. Thus it is safe to say that manual paraphrasing of text can be time-consuming and cumbersome.

With the recent advances in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, there has been significant progress in leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Natural Language Processing (NLP). Automatic paraphrasing as a service has emerged as a by-product of this cutting edge research development. Among the different such services available online, Quillbot offers a paraphrasing and summarizing tool that leverages state-of-the-art AI for this purpose. The services offered by Quillbot have been known to reduce the writing time of numerous students and professions, by more than half.  This article discusses the paraphrasing service offered by Quillbot – specifically the Quillbot Paraphraser API.

What is the Quillbot Paraphraser API?

The Quillbot Paraphraser API enables programmatic access to the paraphrasing service of Quillbot. It enables the users of the API, to paraphrase text based on custom set parameters and modes as supported by the Quillbot service.

How does Quillbot Paraphraser API work?

The Quillbot Paraphraser API takes as input the sentence or paragraph provided by the user and renders paraphrases of the user input, based on the user-set parameters. The service under its hood, leverages state-of-art deep learning based language generation models to generate high quality paraphrases of the user input text.

Who is Quillbot Paraphraser API for exactly?

The Quillbot Paraphraser API is intended to serve application developers and web developers and also startups and enterprises – who are looking to integrate an efficient paraphrasing service in their application or website. From the end user perspective, startups and enterprises who cater to students, writers and other professionals, would greatly benefit by integrating an efficient paraphrasing service such as the Quillbot Paraphraser API in their website or application.

How to connect to the Quillbot Paraphraser API Tutorial – Step by Step

The following is a step-by-step tutorial for connecting to the Quillbot Paraphraser API

Step 1: Sign Up on RapidAPI

A RapidAPI account is required to connect to the Quillbot Paraphraser API. You can sign up for a RapidAPI account by navigating to the RapidAPI website and clicking on the Sign-Up button at the top right!

RapidAPI supports signing up using Google, Github, or Facebook.

Step 2: Subscribing to the Quillbot Paraphraser API

Having signed up and logged in to RapidAPI, you would need to navigate to the Quillbot Paraphraser API page on RapidAPI platform to subscribe and connect to the API.

You would need to navigate to the Pricing Page of the Quillbot Paraphraser API to subscribe to the Quillbot Paraphraser API . The API is paid and would require you to select a subscription plan. Please select the appropriate plan and navigate to the Quillbot Paraphraser API page.

Step 3: Test the API Connection

We will test the API connection with the “Paraphrase” endpoint of the API. So please click on the “Paraphrase” in the list in the left-most section of the page. You may scroll down in the center section to observe and note the parameters that are to be sent with the request to the “Paraphrase” endpoint. The parameter “text” has been set to “A strong regime of intellectual property is a crucial prerequisite for improving and stimulating economic development in the region” indicating that we would be querying the “Paraphrase” endpoint with the “text” string to paraphrase.

You can go ahead and click on “Test Endpoint”. A successful connection would result in a “200 OK” response in the Results tab on this page. You should also be able see the paraphrase results returned for the “text” string.

Now that you have subscribed and tested the connection to the Quillbot Paraphraser API, let’s learn more about its usage!

Endpoints of the Quillbot Paraphraser API

The Quillbot Paraphraser API has two endpoints –  to facilitate user-set parameters based paraphrasing of text. The endpoints with the relevant information on their usage are as follows:

Paraphrase

This endpoint facilitates generating the paraphrases for the user input “text” string.

This endpoint requires six parameters:

• • “text” – indicating the text that the user wants to paraphrase. The character count must be between 10 and 3000. The user may input multiple sentences and they will be split automatically.
  • “numParaphrases” – indicating the number of paraphrased sentences the user wants, per input sentence. It can be a value between [1] and [4].
  • “coupon” – indicating the coupon code for free characters if the user has one. This is optional.
  • “includeSegs” – Boolean value (true or false). If set to true, the response will include alternative words/phrases per each word.
  • “strength” – An integer value between 1-5 that determines the strength of the paraphrasing mode used. Strength and corresponding values include: FLUENCY: 1, CONCISION: 2, STANDARD: 3,  SUGGESTIVE: 4, CREATIVE: 5.
  • “autoflip” – A decimal value between 0.0-1.0 corresponding to how frequently words in the text will be replaced with synonyms. The higher the number the less reliable/accurate the results would be.

The API response contains a list of paraphrases with each list item containing – “editdistance”, “alt”,  “score and a list of “segs” values for the corresponding input parameter – “text” string.

All-Paraphrase

This endpoint facilitates generating the paraphrases for the user input “text” string across multiple modes and flip values and returns a combination as the Output.

This endpoint requires six parameters:

• • “text” – indicating the text that the user wants to paraphrase. The character count must be between 10 and 3000. The user may input multiple sentences and they will be split automatically.
  • “numParaphrases” – indicating the number of paraphrased sentences the user wants, per input sentence. It can be a value between [1] and [4].  The input by default will have 3 modes and 2 different autoflip values; permutations of which will be returned as output.
  • “coupon” – indicating the coupon code for free characters if the user has one. This is optional.
  • “includeSegs” – Boolean value (true or false). If set to true, the response will include alternative words/phrases per each word.
  • “strength” – All integer values from 3-5 will be used as the strength for the paraphrasing mode. Strength modes and corresponding values:- [STANDARD: 3, SUGGESTIVE: 4, CREATIVE:5]
  • “autoflip” –2 extreme border values used which renders most diverse output – [0.1, 1]

The API response contains a list of paraphrases with each list item containing – “editdistance”, “alt”,  “score and a list of “segs” values for the corresponding input parameter – “text” string.

How to use the Quillbot Paraphraser API with Python?

The following code snippet depicts the request with the required parameters to the “Paraphrase” endpoint of the Quillbot Paraphraser API with Python. It uses the “requests” library to send a POST request to the endpoint with the parameters specified in the “payload” dictionary.

The “x-rapidapi-key” value in the “headers” dictionary would need to be replaced with your actual key which can be obtained from the Quillbot Paraphraser API’s page for the “Paraphrase” endpoint in the Header Parameters section. The “coupon” parameter in the “payload” dictionary is optional.

import requests

url = "https://quillbot.p.rapidapi.com/paraphrase"

payload = "{\n\t\"text\": \"Researchers in the field of HCI both observe the ways in which humans interact with computers and design technologies that let humans interact with computers in novel ways. Humans interact with computers in many ways; the interface between humans and computers is crucial to facilitating this interaction.\",\n\t\"numParaphrases\": 1,\n\t\"coupon\": \"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\",\n\t\"includeSegs\": true,\n\t\"strength\": 3,\n\t\"autoflip\": 0.25\n}"
headers = {
    'content-type': "application/json",
    'x-rapidapi-key': "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    'x-rapidapi-host': "quillbot.p.rapidapi.com"
    }

response = requests.request("POST", url, data=payload, headers=headers)

print(response.text)

How to use the Quillbot Paraphraser API with PHP?

The following code snippet depicts the request with the required parameters to the “Paraphrase” endpoint of the Quillbot Paraphraser API with PHP. It uses the “curl” function of PHP to send a POST request to the endpoint with the parameters specified in the “CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS”.

The “x-rapidapi-key” value in the “CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER” object would need to be replaced with your actual key which can be obtained from the Quillbot Paraphraser API’s page for the “Paraphrase” endpoint in the Header Parameters section. The “coupon” parameter in the “CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS” object is optional.

<?php

$curl = curl_init();

curl_setopt_array($curl, [
  CURLOPT_URL => "https://quillbot.p.rapidapi.com/paraphrase",
  CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
  CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION => true,
  CURLOPT_ENCODING => "",
  CURLOPT_MAXREDIRS => 10,
  CURLOPT_TIMEOUT => 30,
  CURLOPT_HTTP_VERSION => CURL_HTTP_VERSION_1_1,
  CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => "POST",
  CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => "{\n\t\"text\": \"Researchers in the field of HCI both observe the ways in which humans interact with computers and design technologies that let humans interact with computers in novel ways. Humans interact with computers in many ways; the interface between humans and computers is crucial to facilitating this interaction.\",\n\t\"numParaphrases\": 1,\n\t\"coupon\": \"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\",\n\t\"includeSegs\": true,\n\t\"strength\": 3,\n\t\"autoflip\": 0.25\n}",
  CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
    "content-type: application/json",
    "x-rapidapi-host: quillbot.p.rapidapi.com",
    "x-rapidapi-key: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
  ],
]);

$response = curl_exec($curl);
$err = curl_error($curl);

curl_close($curl);

if ($err) {
  echo "cURL Error #:" . $err;
} else {
  echo $response;
}

How to use the Quillbot Paraphraser API with Ruby?

The following code snippet depicts the request with the required parameters to the “Paraphrase” endpoint of the Quillbot Paraphraser API with Ruby. The “x-rapidapi-key” value in the “request” object would need to be replaced with your actual key which can be obtained from the Quillbot Paraphraser API’s page for the “Paraphrase” endpoint in the Header Parameters section. The “coupon” parameter in the “request.body” is optional.

require 'uri'
require 'net/http'
require 'openssl'

url = URI("https://quillbot.p.rapidapi.com/paraphrase")

http = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
http.use_ssl = true
http.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE

request = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url)
request["content-type"] = 'application/json'
request["x-rapidapi-key"] = 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx'
request["x-rapidapi-host"] = 'quillbot.p.rapidapi.com'
request.body = "{\n\t\"text\": \"Researchers in the field of HCI both observe the ways in which humans interact with computers and design technologies that let humans interact with computers in novel ways. Humans interact with computers in many ways; the interface between humans and computers is crucial to facilitating this interaction.\",\n\t\"numParaphrases\": 1,\n\t\"coupon\": \"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\",\n\t\"includeSegs\": true,\n\t\"strength\": 3,\n\t\"autoflip\": 0.25\n}"

response = http.request(request)
puts response.read_body

How to use the Quillbot Paraphraser API with JavaScript?

The following code snippet depicts the request with the required parameters to the “Paraphrase” endpoint of the Quillbot Paraphraser API with Javascript. It uses JQuery’s “ajax” function to send a POST request to the endpoint with the parameters specified in the “settings” object.

The “x-rapidapi-key” value in the “headers” object would need to be replaced with your actual key which can be obtained from the Quillbot Paraphraser API’s page for the “Paraphrase” endpoint in the Header Parameters section. The “coupon” parameter in the “data” object is optional.

const settings = {
  "async": true,
  "crossDomain": true,
  "url": "https://quillbot.p.rapidapi.com/paraphrase",
  "method": "POST",
  "headers": {
    "content-type": "application/json",
    "x-rapidapi-key": "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
    "x-rapidapi-host": "quillbot.p.rapidapi.com"
  },
  "processData": false,
  "data": "{\n\t\"text\": \"Researchers in the field of HCI both observe the ways in which humans interact with computers and design technologies that let humans interact with computers in novel ways. Humans interact with computers in many ways; the interface between humans and computers is crucial to facilitating this interaction.\",\n\t\"numParaphrases\": 1,\n\t\"coupon\": \"xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx\",\n\t\"includeSegs\": true,\n\t\"strength\": 3,\n\t\"autoflip\": 0.25\n}"
};

$.ajax(settings).done(function (response) {
  console.log(response);
});

Alternatives to the Quillbot Paraphraser API

A few alternatives APIs that provide paraphrasing capabilities similar to the Quillbot Paraphraser API are:

• Rewriter/Paraphraser/Text Changer (Multi-Language)
  • This API facilitates paraphrasing by modifying the syntax, structure, word/phrase order, and uses synonyms when relevant. This API supports most major languages.
• Webit LanguageLingua Robot
  • This API provides AI based paraphrasing as well as a dictionary look up service.
• Paraphrasing Tool
  • This API facilitates automatic rewriting of sentences, phrases or paragraphs.
• TextRewrite.com
  • This API enables paraphrasing using machine learning based technology for rewriting text.

Benefits of the Quillbot Paraphraser API

The Quillbot Paraphraser API leverages state-of-art deep learning based language models to generate grammatically correct paraphrases of the user input text without modification of its semantics. In addition to this the API empowers users with the control to chose from the five paraphrasing modes – “Fluency”, “Standard”, “Suggestive”, “Creative” and “Concision” with varying strength of the tradeoff between meaning and grammar.  Thus the API can greatly benefit app and web developers seeking to include a powerful paraphrasing service in their app or website. Moreover the use of Quillbot Paraphraser API has been known to reduce the writing time of numerous students, writers and professions, by more than half. Thus the Quillbot Paraphraser API can significantly enhance the productivity of its end users.

Summary

The Quillbot Paraphraser API is a powerful tool for app and web developers, intended for seamless integration of a paraphrasing feature in an app or a website. The API thus enables its users to paraphrase sentences of paragraphs, based on user-set parameters and modes.