High-quality academic writing requires extra authority from expert interviews, findings from key reports, or third-party research. However, weaving the content of other authors in your writing is different from misrepresenting their ideas as your own. You commit plagiarism when you incorporate someone else’s ideas into your work without full acknowledgment.
Avoiding plagiarism in academic papers should be a top concern for any student. Duplicate or copied content takes away the originality of your work and can cause you to be expelled or to get a failing grade. Plagiarism in writing is also unethical. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to apply the principles of academic practice in all your papers.
In this post, we discuss the different types of plagiarism and tell you how to avoid even a hint of plagiarism when writing academic papers:
What is considered plagiarism in writing: The most common types
1. Word-for-word quotations (Verbatim)
This form of plagiarism occurs when you text from a source and paste it into your academic paper without making any changes. Such quotations must always be identified as such using indentations and quotation marks and cited accordingly. The readers should be able to differentiate your independent work from parts that you have drawn from another author’s work.
2. Collusion
This form of plagiarism occurs when there is an unauthorized collaboration between students. It arises when you don’t attribute assistance to other students or fail to follow the precise regulations of a group project. To create non-plagiarized essays in group academic assignments, ensure you adhere to the extent of collaboration permitted to avoid collusion on the parts you are required to complete on your own.
3. Paraphrasing
Rewriting the work of others by altering a few words, changing the word order, or following a similar structure of an argument is considered plagiarism if you don’t acknowledge the source. Even when you reference the original author, ensure the way you present the text doesn’t create a misleading impression that the ideas are your own.
4. Inaccurate citations
The most important factor in preventing plagiarism in academic writing is citing all sources correctly. You shouldn’t include the source information in the wrong place or references you have not consulted. Instead, list all the sources in a bibliography and use in-text references or footnotes in all areas you quoted an outside source. If you can’t access the primary source, indicate in your citation that you derived the text from a secondary source.
5. Failure to acknowledge assistance
If you fail to acknowledge all assistance that contributed to the creation of your work, then you are committing academic plagiarism. Assistance could be in the form of advice from fellow students, laboratory technicians, or other external sources. However, you don’t need to acknowledge ordinary proofreading assistance from a professor, supervisor, or tutor unless it leads to substantive changes in your approach or content.
6. Auto-plagiarism
This type of plagiarism arises when you submit work for assessment that you have already submitted somewhere else, in full or part. Some students present identical pieces of research to different universities or for different qualifications. The practice is considered plagiarism. Still, if you have earlier works that are citable, you can use them as references and cite them correctly.
Ways to avoid plagiarism in writing: 6 tips for students
1. Use the help of writing services
Professional writing services can help you to create unique, plagiarism-free content. Top writers employed by the companies write every academic paper from scratch based on the rubric and other instructions provided by the student. All legitimate writing services guarantee plagiarism-free work. They achieve this using efficient plagiarism check software that confirms that the content is 100% unique before delivering it to you. Also, the experts cite all sources used in research according to the required style, such as APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago. The measures eliminate any worries of accidental similarities. Find a non plagiarism essay writer and visit CustomWritings asking experts to complete a non-plagiarized paper for you.
2. Do your research
Most times, you don’t know everything about the topic you’re writing about, and hence the need to seek information from outside sources. To avoid plagiarism in writing, ensure you read content from multiple sources. Checking numerous websites reduces the chances of unintentionally replicating ideas from a single source. Still, ensure you note all the website links with useful information that you want to include in your writing.
3. Cite your sources
Once you identify a useful statistic or fact from a website, journal, book, or any other academic source, indicate the proper sourcing. The citation should identify the author’s name, date of publication, and other citation elements required by the style guide. You also need to include a citation if you feel that your custom content relies on ideas you have researched. However, you don’t have to include quotes when you refer to general ideas in an external text.
4. Paraphrase
As a student, you must learn how to rewrite the information in your own words. Be careful because improper paraphrasing can slip into plagiarism in academic papers. Successful paraphrasing involves rewording and reformatting your writing in an original way without including phrases or words used in the original source or altering the meaning. Since you are using the ideas of another author, you must include a citation.
5. Present your ideas
Another way of avoiding plagiarism in essay writing is to add your unique perspective. You don’t always have to refer to previous works by other authors. See what ideas you can contribute to your writing that are entirely your own. If you are writing on the same topic for multiple assignments, avoid self-plagiarism by not recycling some of your words in other texts.
6. Use plagiarism checkers
Before you submit an academic paper for assessment, run it through a plagiarism detection software. Some phrases or words might stick with you when researching a topic, and you inadvertently include them during writing without citation. There are many resources online that check how similar your text is to content on other websites. Use the report to remove accidental plagiarism. To clear any doubt, use more than one tool when checking your content to confirm its plagiarism-free.
Is plagiarism in academic writing illegal?
Plagiarism is illegal and considered a serious academic offense. If you commit any of the examples of plagiarism in writing discussed above in a professional academic setting, it can lead to legal charges relating to fraud and copyright infringement. That’s why presentations, essays, research papers, or other kinds of academic writing must be unique. You should find the most effective way to avoid plagiarism in academic writing.
Also, plagiarism can get you a failing grade or even cause you to be dismissed from your institution. Thus, you must educate yourself on the different types of plagiarism to help you identify them in your writing. If you want to add another layer of insurance, reach out to professionals for help to ensure your paper doesn’t have any plagiarism.
Salman is a prolific environmental writer, and has authored more than 500 articles in reputed journals, magazines and websites. He is proactively engaged in creating mass awareness on renewable energy, waste management, sustainability and conservation all over the world.
Salman can be reached on salman@cleantechloops.com
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