Avoiding Plagiarism: Tips On Writing A Unique Paper

Everyone who had to write a paper is familiar with the term “plagiarism”. Nowadays, there are many discussions over plagiarizing in the academic community, and there were many new rules added concerning this issue. Right now, it’s hard to get published without being checked on plagiarism. This way, we discourage academic dishonesty and popularize the works of real authors who did not use somebody else’s words.

But how do you detect plagiarism and, what’s more, which steps do you have to take to avoid plagiarism in your own works? Well, this article is going to give you the answer to all of these questions and share some recommendation on avoiding plagiarism.

Tips On Writing Without Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism is a task that has to be taken seriously. Here are some tips not only on avoiding plagiarism but also on how to write an original work that will impress others.

• Learn how to properly cite. It doesn’t mean what kind of text you are writing, whether it’s a college essay, research paper, dissertation, or anything else — everything should be cited.

The truth is that all papers will be checked for plagiarism. Before going through the citation process, check what kind of instructions for the paper were given to you by the educational institution or your teacher. There are many formats for citing, including Chicago, MLA, APA, and other styles. If you’re not sure which one you should use, contact your prof or teacher.

• Whenever you put the quote in your text, make sure that you mention the name of the author and properly cite it to avoid plagiarism. Unfortunately, many first-year students and even some writers forget to do the citations for the quotes. That’s a type of plagiarism that was used accidentally. Some think that it’s just okay to put a quote in the paper, and some just don’t pay attention to the rules of formatting and styling.

As a result, a decent work of a good writer can be accused of plagiarism and not taken seriously. Remember to use quotes in the right way all the time and check the citation for each quote you’ve used — this way, you will be avoiding plagiarism without any problems.

• Use anti-plagiarism software. It will take only a few seconds to run your text through the program and get the percentage that will show the level of possible plagiarism. Of course, there might be a situation when anti-plagiarism software will show false results. But even in this case pay attention to the highlighted areas and try to change your choice of words a little bit.

Another thing you could do is ask your teacher or professor about which anti-plagiarism software they recommend and which they use. This way, you will avoid plagiarism for sure.

• But what should you do in case there is some information you should find and use? Of course, we can’t know everything. For writing any paper you need to use some resources to write it, such as different news portals or even blogs.

Even if you don’t know something, it doesn’t let you plagiarize. To write well on any topic and avoid plagiarizing use paraphrasing. To do it effectively,  read something a few times and then try to describe it in your own words. When practicing this, you will not only avoid plagiarism but will also understand the material better.

Top 4 Common Mistakes That Lead To Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism is not possible if you don’t know which mistakes can lead to plagiarizing. Here is the list of the most common mistakes that lead to plagiarism.

• Not having a clear understanding of what plagiarism is. Plagiarizing is not only taking the work of another writer and saying that it’s yours. It’s also copying pieces of texts without giving a credit to the authors, stealing ideas of others, and using the words of other people to write your own paper.

If you are worried that your work will seem as plagiarized, make sure that you cite everything you have used, including quotes, phrases, extracts from books or journals.

• Using someone’s ideas to write a paper. Some believe that if they just use the ideas of someone else, they won’t get caught plagiarizing. Well, even if they won’t, still, their ideas will turn out to be fake and stolen. In the worst case, someone will notice that the ideas used in the text don’t belong to the author.

It doesn’t matter what is your profession and what you study — you should always respect the ideas of others. For example, if you are a doctor and have to write an article about medicine, conduct your own research and study the materials instead of stealing them.

• Taking the exact words of another author or changing them only a little bit. Even if you copy only a sentence, it’s still plagiarism. Even if you take a small part of a text, it’s still plagiarism. Remember that — anything copied and taken from other resources and not cited correctly is plagiarizing. No matter if it is a thesis or whole paper. 

It’s okay to read the materials for a deeper understanding and to write your paper based on them, but you should always give credit to everything you’ve used in your paper and cite it properly. Not doing so will lead to plagiarism.

• No reference page. This is a common mistake among students. They search for materials and use them properly in text, but forget to make a reference page or think that it’s not necessary. Some think that it’s too complicated to make it. Well, it’s not. All you have to do is just organize resources in the alphabetical order and organize them by year.

The reference page is the last page of your paper. Don’t always rely on the citation generator — these are useful, and you can use them, but there is always some information that you will have to add by yourself.

To Conclude

As  Lady Marguerite Blessington said, "Borrowed thoughts, like borrowed money, only show the poverty of the borrower”. Avoiding plagiarism is not an easy goal, but it’s something that every writer should achieve. And if you are not sure about your paper, you can always trust it to the writing services that will help you write a top-level paper without plagiarizing.