<![CDATA[This study investigates the difficulties experienced by English Education students at Universitas Islam Negeri Sulthan Thaha Saifuddin Jambi in paraphrasing other authors' ideas when writing their undergraduate thesis in English. Paraphrasing is an essential academic writing skill that allows students to demonstrate comprehension of source texts while avoiding plagiarism, yet many students still struggle to apply it correctly. Using a qualitative descriptive design, data were collected through semi-structured interviews with eight informants selected through purposive sampling, comprising students who were still writing their theses and students who had already completed them, and the results were triangulated with documentation of the students' thesis drafts and Turnitin similarity scores. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings reveal that students' difficulties can be grouped into two major categories: linguistic problems and cognitive burden. Linguistic problems consist of low reading comprehension, the challenge of working in a second language, and difficulties in applying paraphrasing practice to avoid plagiarism. Cognitive burden covers analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence, reflecting students' struggles in analyzing source texts, generating original expressions, and applying paraphrasing strategies in real academic writing situations. Students who were still completing their theses generally reported more severe difficulties than those who had finished, particularly regarding vocabulary, sentence restructuring, and maintaining an academic tone. These findings suggest that paraphrasing instruction should be strengthened through systematic and continuous practice supported by lecturer feedback. This study contributes new insight by focusing specifically on thesis-level paraphrasing difficulties among students at different stages of the writing process, rather than paraphrasing in general academic writing tasks]]>
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