Plagiarism is one of the most frowned-upon misconducts in academia and carries severe consequences. It has even more far-reaching consequences beyond school whereby, individuals pay fines, lose their reputation, or miss out on funding for their research and projects. For this post, our focus will be plagiarism in academic writing such as school essays, research papers, dissertations, and more. By the end of this article, you’ll understand what plagiarism is, the various types of plagiarism, why you should avoid it, and how to avoid it.
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is stealing someone else’s ideas and presenting them as your own. It is the intentional or unintentional use of another person’s work without crediting them. In academia, plagiarism refers to the use of thoughts, expressions, or ideas of other scholars without citing the source. Without citations and references, the reader assumes whatever they are reading is your original thoughts. While some people plagiarize someone else’s work knowingly, most people do it unintentionally by forgetting to cite, losing the original source material, etc.
Types of Plagiarism in Academic Writing
There are various types of plagiarism in academic writing. These include:
Complete Plagiarism
This is the worst kind of plagiarism, and often the person is aware of what they are doing. In complete plagiarism, you take someone’s work and present it as your own. It’s like erasing the identity of the original author and replacing it with yours. Complete plagiarism is more common than we would like to admit. For example, a parent can write a paper for their child and let them present it as their own. Another example is when someone pays someone else to write a paper for them and they submit it directly without making any changes.
Direct Plagiarism
Direct plagiarism is half as bad as complete plagiarism. With direct plagiarism, the writer incorporates their ideas but still copies some sections directly from another source. When such a paper is passed through a plagiarism checker, the tool marks some parts as plagiarized while others are marked as original.
Paraphrasing Plagiarism
Paraphrasing plagiarism is the most common unintentional plagiarism. Most students think that paraphrasing someone else’s idea and presenting it in your own words doesn’t count as plagiarism. We are sorry that you thought otherwise, but using different words to say what someone else said doesn’t make it your original idea.
Mosaic/Patchwork Plagiarism
This is yet another intentional plagiarism that involves incorporating another person’s ideas into sentences with your original thoughts. When you scan such a paper using a plagiarism checker, you see a repeated pattern of original sections followed by plagiarized parts, and the cycle goes on and on.
Self-Plagiarism
Self-plagiarism isn’t so common, especially with students. However, published researchers might find themselves self-plagiarizing their previous work in their subsequent papers. For instance, suppose a family law expert wrote a research paper on “the leading cause of divorce in the 21st century.” If a national publication, say the Family Law Quarterly, asks the same expert to write an original paper on a similar topic, the expert cannot use his ideas from the first research paper without crediting himself.
Source-Based Plagiarism
Source-based plagiarism is unintentional plagiarism where the writer cites the wrong source. Suppose you’re quoting a thought from a research paper by Author A. By chance, Author A had sourced that idea from Author B. If you missed the fact that the line you’re quoting was by Author B and not Author A, you’ll cite Author A. This is an incorrect citation and a type of plagiarism.
Why You Should Avoid Plagiarism
Plagiarism is theft. That alone spells an ethical issue. You are taking someone else’s intellectual property and presenting it as your own. Whether they know it or not, it is not right and should be avoided. Secondly, plagiarism shows a lack of integrity. If you plagiarize an essay and score an A grade, it is a false representation of your skills and abilities. If your peers or professor realizes that the essay was not your original work, they will lose the respect they had for you. This might cause serious consequences like losing scholarships, leadership roles, and referrals.
Another reason why plagiarism is wrong is that it undermines academic standards. Your university clearly states that the practice is wrong, but you go ahead and do it. If the school establishes that it was intentional plagiarism, the consequences will be dire. Lastly, plagiarism is a hindrance to learning. If you don’t learn how to think critically and come up with your own ideas, you have failed as a student. It is the whole point of writing essays, research papers, dissertations, and other academic papers.
How to Avoid Plagiarism- Best Practices to Avoid Plagiarism
As we’ve already established, plagiarism can be intentional or accidental. Follow the following best practices to avoid plagiarism:
Manage Your Sources
One of the causes of unintentional plagiarism is the loss of source materials. The research process can be intense and long, and amid the fatigue and long hours, you might lose your sources. These are the best practices for tracking your sources during research:
- Take notes as if you are writing the actual paper by using signal phrases like according to, John says, Smith argues that, etc.
- Indicate the important details for a citation including the title, author, page number, and year of publication.
- Use a citation manager like Zotero, Flickr, or Mendeley.
- For online sources in PDF form, use a reliable PDF reader that manages your read list.
- If you get some original thoughts during research, write them down and mark them as original.
- For interview sources, record the conversation for future reference if it’s permitted.
- In the case of email interviews, retain the whole conversation so that you can go back to it for reference.
Cite Your Sources Properly
The best way to avoid plagiarism is to cite the source and do it correctly. When you write a phrase or sentence that alludes to someone else’s work, add the proper citation according to the style guide provided by the supervisor or professor. The citations include:
- In-text citation
- Footnote citation
The citation should identify the author, their work, and when the work was established. You should also follow through with a reference page, also called a bibliography or work cited page, showing all the cited sources.
Besides helping you avoid plagiarism; citations make your work credible because the reader can reference the sources for more information on the topic. A citation manager may help you manage your cited sources and therefore cite correctly to avoid source-based plagiarism.
Use Quotations Where Necessary
Using quotations is a great way to tell the reader that certain words aren’t yours but have been borrowed from another writer. If you plan on incorporating someone else’s thoughts in your sentence, separate the words with quotation marks, then add a citation at the end of the sentence.
Here are some best practices for using quotations correctly:
- The name of the author should appear in or at the end of the sentence containing the quoted words
- You can use quotes only, or format the words between the quotation marks differently, depending on the style guide
- Only quote the necessary part- if a shorter quote is enough to pass your message, don’t quote the whole sentence or paragraph.
- If you shorten a quote, use ellipses to indicate that some parts have been omitted.
- You can add your own words to a quoted text to fit the context, but make sure to place the added words in brackets.
Paraphrase Correctly
Paraphrasing plagiarism is a tricky type of plagiarism, and when done incorrectly, paraphrasing can land you in trouble. It is also hard to use different words without losing the original meaning of the text. Use the following tricks to paraphrase correctly:
- Read the text and understand it first
- Rephrase the main points and ideas using your own words, synonyms, and a different sentence structure.
- Consider changing the voice where necessary, such as switching to an active voice if the author used a passive voice.
- Cite the source using signal words like According to John, John says, John argues that, a study by John shows, etc.
Add Your Thoughts/Ideas
Please don’t make your whole paper a literature review of other scholars’ work. The point of writing an academic paper is to portray your critical thinking skills and those show when you pilot your ideas. Forget what Author A says about the topic, what do you think? Why do you think that?
Share these thoughts to make the paper feel as original as possible.
Edit and Proofread
Take your time to edit and proofread your final draft, ensuring it’s well-cited. Also, ensure all in-text citations are included in the reference/bibliography. Sometimes, students will have more in-text citations than the ones indicated in the bibliography.
Use a Reputable Plagiarism Checker
Last but not least, don’t use just any tool to check for plagiarism. While you can find free plagiarism checkers online, these might not be accurate. Most free tools don’t have the resources and infrastructure to check your paper against all published material, so they do a quick check and present false results. I urge you to use a paid plagiarism checker like Turnitin.
Wrapping Up
To avoid plagiarism, manage your sources to ensure you cite correctly. Other best practices for avoiding plagiarism include paraphrasing correctly, using quotation marks, adding original thoughts, and proofreading to ensure all borrowed ideas are credited to the rightful owner. If you need more customized help with avoiding plagiarism, a professional tutor from Paperial can guide you. Ready to get started? Talk to us.
