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Plagiarism refers to intellectual theft that means using other authors’ ideas and words without crediting them. Most of the time, it involves purposely stealing someone’s work, but often it takes place accidentally, through forgetfulness or carelessness. When writing any paper, students take or build upon others work and use various sources for evidence and information. In order to avoid the notion of plagiarism, it is required to correctly incorporate these sources into the text.
Below-mentioned four steps can help you ensure that the paper is free from traces of from plagiarism:
- Make sure to keep a track of the sources you have gathered information or research from and incorporated into the paper.
- Quote or paraphrase from the used sources (also, add own ideas).
- In the reference list as well as in the in-text citation, do credit the original author.
- Before you submit the paper, use authentic and reliable plagiarism checker tool.
Plagiarism can put you for poor consequences in your academic journey, so make sure to follow these steps to save yourself from accusation of plagiarism for every paper you write.
Step 1: Make sure to keep track of sources the research is gathered from;
While doing research, make sure to record each source you collect piece of information from. Often students commit plagiarism by forgetting where the information was extracted from and unintentionally they present it as their own.
This pitfall can easily be avoided by keeping the notes organized and assembling the citation as you go. So, keep track of every source considered which doesn’t only include journal articles and books, but also magazine articles, websites and video. This makes it easy to keep a check on the phrase, idea or fact which was extracted from these sources.
Step 2: Quote or paraphrase from the used sources (also, add own ideas);
In the paper, if you want to share an idea, any piece of information or a research from a source, then it can be done by either paraphrasing or quoting the original text.
- Quoting
It directs to copy a piece of text word-for-word. The text that is copied should be introduced in own words, and enclosed in quotation marks. To add, it must correctly attribute to the original author:
- Paraphrasing
It directs to use own words in order to explain something from a source. This allows providing the most important information and data from a passage.
The paraphrased example shows that author’s key points has been condensed and rephrased; though the information order and the structure of sentence have been changed.
The plagiarized example shows that though the text is not similar, some of the same phrases and information is presented in the same structure and order. Despite the citation, the passage would likely to be labeled as plagiarism. When paraphrasing, make sure that the text isn’t too identical to the original.
3 Quoting vs. Paraphrasing
Quotes are apt at the time when;
- Using an exact definition given by the original author.
- There is no possibility to rephrase the original text as it may lose the meaning.
- There is a need to maintain the style and authority of the author’s words.
Generally, paraphrasing is far better than quoting, particularly for long passages. This indicates full understanding of original text and make sure that the writers voice is dominant in the paper.
So, whether the text is quoted or paraphrased, build on the sources by including own arguments, interpretations and ideas.
Step 3: In the reference list as well as in the in-text citation, do credit the original author;
Either the text is paraphrased or quoted, include an in-text citation (footnote citation) to identify the original author. This may cover the author last name, publication year, page number and volume if any.
Each of the used in-text citation must correspond to a full reference in the bibliography or reference list in the last of paper. This allows the user to navigate the sources and know exactly where the particular information was extracted from.
There are various citation styles and each has its own rules for citing. The common one includes MLA, APA, Chicago, Harvard and more. The most crucial of all is to apply one style constantly throughout the text.
Step 4: Before you submit the paper, use authentic and reliable plagiarism checker tool
Institutes use plagiarism checker tools to detect plagiarism in student’s assignment. The technology scans the paper and compares it to the websites and extensive database of publications, and then highlights the passages that show similarity to text available on other sites.
Using a plagiarism checker too prior submitting your paper allows identifying areas where you have left out quotation marks, might forget to add citation or have paraphrased information which is close to the original text. Following the aforementioned steps, you can easily fix occurrences of potential plagiarism. The best plagiarism check tools in 2020 are, Turnitin, Plagiarism Checker X, Copyleaks, Grammarly, ProWritingAid etc.
