What is plagiarism?
Stealing copying or reposting someone’s ideas or wordings without attributing to its real author is called plagiarism. Plagiarism can be committed deliberately with proper intention, or it may happen by mistake due to carelessness.
You may be a student and writing university assignment or academic paper. You may be a professional writer and writing for any website or magazine. All of your work depends upon the work of others. Now if you are careless and not giving proper attention, there is a strong chance that plagiarism exists in your writing.
Why it is essential to avoid plagiarism:
Basically, plagiarism is a matter of ethics, but it may turn in legal consequence. The legal implication may result in loss of reputation, money, website ban etc. as per nature of matter. The plagiarized work is considered theft of other’s property.
You are a professional writer or student, writing for money or for getting a high grade in university. If plagiarism found in your writing, you will definitely incur a great cost. As being a professional writer, your integrity will be compromised if plagiarism is not avoided.
Being a student, you are expected to ruin your future by getting a low grade or even fail from the subject. You will have no respect in front of your mentor and peers. Sometimes a student is studying at university scholarship; you are also putting your financial assistance at risk.
If you are fair in your matters, then you do not need to worry. Avoiding plagiarism is no more difficult. You just need some care and follow basic rules. You will be able to generate your article or assignment free of plagiarism.
Here are 4 simple ways to avoid plagiarism in your content:
1. Make a record of all sources of your research and compile your own idea:
To be a competent writer, you need to do proper research. Choose point from your search and make notes of those points. Keep an adequate record of sources you have chosen. Compiling a list of citations and properly organizing notes will help you avoid mixing up data and prevent plagiarism.
When you have made notes, now do not promote other’s ideas, explore your intuition about the matter, and draw on paper what you think about that. Conclude your own unique perspective which you can contribute addition to that already exists.
When you write for something, there is a chance you have multiple assignments for the same subject matter. This will have much more chance that you committed self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is also risky even for a professional writer as the publisher may not accept.
For student instructor may refuse if you are copying your previous work. To avoid self-plagiarism, check your previous work and compare both if any similarity found to make some changes to describe that without altering the basic idea.
2. Use quotation and paraphrasing:
When it is necessary to share someone’s idea in your writing or any part of that source, you want to write. You may choose for using a quotation or paraphrase. Simply the quotation mark shows that the words or idea is not yours. There is a strong suggestion if using a direct quote, citation of sources must be included to reveal the original author to readers.
The second option is to rewrite by using paraphrasing. In this option, the source idea is compiled in your own wording, but the meaning remains unchanged. Paraphrasing is slightly technical, and there is more chance that still plagiarism exist if due care is not followed. To paraphrase the other’s idea, simply you need to shuffle the wording, include your own words, and change the structure of the paragraph.
Paraphrasing is considered a better option than using a quotation. In paraphrasing, it is deemed that you have a full grip on the subject matter and have raised your own voice. The quotation may become better in the following conditions:
- When defining something and there is no option to change the wording.
- If paraphrasing resulting in altering the original meaning.
- Author’s style and wording enhance the beauty of your article.
3. Use Citation:
Plagiarism means copying or reposting ideas of others. Citation means you are telling everybody that the wording or intention in not belonging to you initially. Whenever you are using someone’s work, you are correctly using an in-text citation or footnote citation to reveal the original author! The usage of citation ultimately makes your writing free of plagiarism as you are not claiming it as your work.
The authority of the original author is safe, and all credit goes to him. Reproducing his working with a proper citation is even a significant source for him to be famous.
You have a lot of option to use citation style. Every style has different rules than others. It’s up to you which one appeal you and easy to use for you. Most of the famous and commonly used referencing style is as bellow:
- APA
- MLA
- Chicago style
It is very important to utilize consistently one style in the whole of your article.
4. Utilize Plagiarism Checker:
Plagiarism checker is the tools which can be utilized to check plagiarism. The online sources provide a lot of option to check plagiarism. This technology at first place scans your document and then compares it with a massive database of website and publications.
- If any similarity found in your writing and in the database, it will be highlighted as plagiarized text. All the universities and professional sites are using a plagiarism checker such as Grammarly, Prepostseo, Turnitin . If you are a student or professional writer, check your work for plagiarism before submitting.
This can keep you safe from being penalized. Being a human there is possibility anyone can forget citation. Checking before submitting will notify you where you left citation.
Nowadays, there are a lot of professional tools available free of cost. Plagiarism checkers are one of the essential tools. These are also available free of charge. Bellow list shows some of the best plagiarism tools available in the market.
All the above suggestions are constructive to produce unique content and avoid plagiarism. In addition to all method as mentioned above, reading books, generals, articles, the magazine will increase the vocabulary and knowledge. These will enable you to create unique content from your own understanding and knowledge.
Barry Lachey is a Professional Editor at Zobuz. Previously He has also worked for Moxly Sports and Network Resources “Joe Joe.” He is a graduate of the Kings College at the University of Thames Valley London. You can reach Barry via email or by phone.
