Tips to Avoid It Plagiarism

According to Oxford Dictionary:

• the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own

According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, to "plagiarize" means:

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
• to use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

Academic writing generally involves producing scholarly work in support with other ideas to produce argument which are intellectually useful. This encompasses gathering of other scholar works and using their ideas academically. This means that during paper writing or research writing, a researcher will be discussing the topic in support with other ideas of which recognition or acknowledging must be observed. Various techniques are used during this process to avoid copying and pasting which academically is known as plagiarism.

In order to avoid plagiarism process the following tips are essential for scholars:

1

Give credit to copied, adapted or paraphrased materials

You are allowed to borrow ideas from existing work and incorporate them in your work but copying them as they are might be plagiarism. Borrowed ideas should be paraphrased (written in one’s own words and style) and the owner of the work from which they have been copied should be acknowledged. There might be some cases where you may wish to incorporate/present the original ideas as they are in another person’s work, and that is acceptable if done properly. This entails presenting the copied contents/ideas in quotation marks and properly acknowledging the owner of the work. However, remember to not use too many quotations. Your own ideas should dominate your work.

2

Intensive reading and understanding

Reading intensively will enhance your deep understanding of the subject you are working on. As a result, you will be capable of presenting ideas in your own words or viewpoints.

3

Proper referencing

Knowing how to incorporate and acknowledge other writers’ work does not only enhance your academic writing but also enables you to avoid plagiarism offenses. However, to do this, you first have to know the referencing style you are required to use and adhere to its rules.

4

Do your work

Do you know that if your work/assignment is not entirely written by you, even if it has observed all rules of writing, you would have committed an academic offense? Well, now you know. So, to be on the safe side, do not hire/allow any person to work on your behalf.

5

Plan ahead/start early

Writing a good academic work honestly requires a lot of time with proper plan. To avoid academic offenses such as plagiarism, make a plan and start working on your planned assignment/work early. This will afford you ample time to read, understand, and develop ideas for your work. Remember, shortcuts are always appealing when you are in a rush.

6

Use plagiarism checkers

Turnitin (https://turnitin.com) is used to check plagiarism rate.  This is an automatic system used to identify plagiarism. It detects the percentage of plagiarism in your work. When the percentage is high, a scholar has to rephrase the work or add own arguments and reduce other scholars’ ideas.