The act of copying someone else’s ideas or words, and not giving them the proper credit for it, is known as plagiarism. Most of the time, plagiarism occurs unintentionally, but some people do it deliberately. Therefore, to avoid plagiarism, you must include the sources from which you have taken your material. This can be done if you keep track of all your sources. Please do not leave it for the later but include them in your report as you use them.
Moreover, you can paraphrase the content that you have taken from someone else’s work. It is quite common to write your academic paper based on the research work conducted by other people. It would help if you used a plagiarism checker to be sure that the percentage of your plagiarism is not more than what is allowed. Lastly, it would help if you gave credit to the author of the material from which you have taken your content. But you can always get help from My Custom Essay to get your 100% unique paper. Of course, to do it yourself you must follow the steps that are discussed below to make sure that your paper is plagiarism-free.
-
Keep track of your sources
During the research process, you must make sure that you have written down all the sources from which you are taking the content. One big blunder that the students are guilty of committing is to forget to write down the source of the content and later presenting it as their content. Organization of the notes and a compilation of the list of all the references is an important way of avoiding such silly mistakes that can have serious consequences. You should write down all the books, journals, magazine articles, and websites that you have consulted before writing your paper. Afterward, you can go back to those sources and check the same article in which you found something interesting that you want to include in your paper.
-
Quote and paraphrase
If you are thinking about sharing an idea or information that was either researched or collected by someone else, you should first paraphrase it. If you find that you cannot paraphrase a particular line or paragraph, then you must quote it. The difference between quoting and paraphrasing is that in quoting, you copy the same words in your paper, enclosed in quotation marks. On the other hand, paraphrasing means that you explain the content in your own words, and do not copy anything into your paper. In paraphrasing, the main point that the author is trying to make is compressed, summarised, and rephrased. Moreover, its order is changed as well.
On the comparison between the quotation and paraphrasing, the paraphrasing is preferred. The reason behind this is that the paraphrasing shows that you have understood the content properly and are now able to write it in your own words.
-
Cite the original source
An in-text citation must be added after you have paraphrased or quoted the content. In the in-text citation, there is usually the name of the original author, the year the original content was published, and sometimes a page number. There is also a list of references towards the end of the paper. This list of references is also known as the bibliography. It must correspond to the in-text citation within the paper. It would help the reader understand the exact source from which you have taken the content and ideas.
There are several citation styles, and different colleges use different citation styles. The commonly used citation styles are Chicago style, MLA, Harvard, and APA. One thing that must be kept in mind that you should use one citation style throughout the paper.
-
Use a plagiarism checker
The plagiarism checker is important for the students as with the help of this checker; the student will find out if there is any plagiarism in this content or not. It is used by most of the universities to check if the paper is plagiarism-free. There is a huge database of websites and publications with which the plagiarism checker compares your content. It later highlights the content that is like the content in its database.
Conclusion
If you follow the steps that we discussed above, then you will be able to write a paper that will be free from any plagiarism. It might seem like a small issue, but in terms of paper, plagiarism is synonymous to stealing. You are stealing someone else’s hard work, and not giving them credit for it as well. Therefore, you must make sure that you paraphrase whenever you find that you want to include something interesting, but it is written by someone else.
Or if you feel that paraphrasing the essence of the writing and its meaning can be lost, then you can use the quotation. Later, use the plagiarism checker before submitting your paper, so that you can make changes if there is plagiarism that is more than what is allowed.
