Critical Tips on How to Avoid Plagiarism
Plagiarism! This is one thing that gives students goose bumps and put your professor in a black mood. Have you ever tried to avoid plagiarism to no avail? Worry no more, just take your time to understand what it hence goes for the best ways to escape it. Below are top tips that will help you come up with work that is plagiarism free.
Understand what plagiarism entails
Plagiarism is the intentional or accidental use or close imitation of one’s ideas or work and passing them as your own. It is a fraudulent act that can lead to cancellation of degrees, being flanked in exams of even penalties. One can commit a direct plagiarism, self-plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism or accidental plagiarism.
Focus on your ideas
Since this is your paper, your primary focus should be your thoughts. Use other people’s ideas only to support or reinforce your idea.
Have you found information that is relevant to your topic of study? Do not use it as it is. Read it and rewrite it in your own words. Avoid using more than two words in a row from the information you are using.
This is one of the best ways to avoid plagiarism. Include the date of publication, the author’s name and any other related information in your work. Add internet sources in your citation to in case you obtained that information from the web. Your citation must meet the document formatting guidelines such as; APA, MLA, and Chicago; your institution uses that.
Use quotation marks whenever you are directly stating other people’s words. Make sure you use the words exactly as they are.
Scrutinize your sources
Not all the information you come across come from reputable sources. Make sure the information you are using is up to date, use authors who have a voice of authority in their field and avoid information that has a lot of technical errors.
Cite your work
In case you are using information from a document you had been employed on previously, treat that information like you would treat other people’s work. Make sure you cite yourself to avoid self-plagiarism.
Having gone through the tips elaborated above, creating work that doesn’t steal other people’s ideas or words will never be a problem again.