Plagiarism is, literally speaking, the act of knowingly or unknowingly passing someone else’s work off as your own.
Every research/educational institution in the World has an anti-plagiarism policy. Failing to follow this policy ultimately will result in a failing grade and maybe even expulsion. But, what does it mean? How do you check your paper for copied content? Is there such a thing as an online plagiarism checker or services?
What is Plagiarism?
According to the definition given in the 1997 New Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language, plagiarism is “the unauthorized use of language and thoughts of another author and representation of them as one’s own”.
It can easily result in a student failing their assignment, being expelled from their school or college or an employee losing their job. To incorporate another writer’s ideas into your work, you should use quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing.
How to recognize plagiarism?
Plagiarism has many faces as it exists in various forms. That is why everybody should know how to recognize it in the written text and avoid it while writing their own research papers. It is a serious violation so in academia different types of it are distinguished. So, infringement of copyright is:
- Knowingly passing someone else’s work off as your own
- Unknowingly passing someone else’s work off as your own
- Mixing information from different sources
- Patch writing that is using words and phrases from sources and patching them together in new sentence
- Not properly citing source material
- Not properly giving credit to someone when you’ve used their words in your text
- Not properly citing your own text if you’ve used it in a different contextal
Consequences of Plagiarism
Being found guilty of plagiarism, whether intentionally or unintentionally, has a lasting effect and might even impact a researcher’s ability to publish a research work.
The consequences of plagiarism include a failing mark, academic probation, a mark on a permanent record. The worst consequence is being expelled from the course or university.
For a student, being found guilty of committing copyright infringement follows them throughout their academic career, and possibly even further. Post-Secondary institutions share information, so even if an expelled student does attempt to transfer or register at a different school, details of their indiscretion will be made available.
Later in life, as a professional employee, attempting to copy or take credit for someone else’s work will ultimately result in job loss and ripple effect that follows.
How to avoid plagiarism
There are many tips on how to not plagiarise and be sure that your content is original and will not be declined.
Cite your sources. To avoid plagiarism, you must document sources properly using Footnotes, Endnotes, or Parenthetical References, and must compose a Bibliography, References or Works Cited page and place it at the end of research paper to list used sources. Of the three ways to document sources – Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parenthetical References, the simplest is using Parenthetical References, sometimes referred to as Parenthetical Documentation or Parenthetical Citations.
If you use Parenthetical References you only put a short reference enclosed in parentheses immediately after the citation, then list the sources cited in your Bibliography, Works Cited or References page at the end of your paper. See Parenthetical References Examples as well as Parenthetical References Sample.
Stick to Citation Manuals
For Parenthetical References you only put a short reference enclosed in parentheses immediately after citation, then list the sources cited in your Bibliography, Works Cited or References page at the end of your paper.
For Footnote references, you must have numerically superscripted Footnote references at the foot of the same page where your citations are located, plus you must add a Bibliography, Works Cited, or References page at the end of your paper unless instructed otherwise by your teacher or instructor.
For Endnote references, your citation within the text of your paper is the same as your Footnote citation, but you must list your Endnote references at the end of your paper in superscripted numerical order on a separate page entitled Endnotes. You must still add a Bibliography, Works Cited or References page after your Endnotes page unless instructed otherwise by your teacher or instructor.
Write your own ideas. Do not use someone else’s original text from the Internet and directly incorporate such information into your essay without paraphrasing and acknowledging its source. Remember that plagiarism also includes paraphrasing, mix sentences from different sources and patchwriting — simply taking parts from various texts and combining them in your own text in different ways.
Don’t take this risk. Apart from you acting in an unethical, dishonest, and learning nothing in the process, problem is that your teacher probably knows you and your writing style too well for you to submit copied text successfully. Most secondary schools, colleges, and universities take a dim view at plagiarism which is becoming more rampant with the prevalent use of the Internet. Technology has made it too easy for students to search and click for an essay and simply pay with a valid credit card for an instant download online. Consequences may be severe when students are caught copying of another’s written work, so it is safer to avoid it.
Examples of Plagiarism
The most common example of plagiarism in today’s academic world comes from students’ lack of citation knowledge. Even if students mention used authors and books within text and create a list of references, they may forget to include endnotes, footnotes or parenthetical citations. That is considered an infringement of copyright as well. In order not to make such a mistake, it is necessary to cite all sources in the paper in accordance with your university citation guide. Make sure you know what citation manual you should use as all of them are different and have not similar requirements.
One more example is when a student decides to use the essay he or she has completed on their own but one or two years ago. Self-plagiarism is also a thing and is not accepted by professors. The aim of university studies is to broaden your knowledge, learn new material, develop a new viewpoint and not to copy from your old papers.
Another example might come in form of an employee attempting to take credit for the work created or report finished by their coworker or subordinate.