What is academic plagiarism | effects and how to avoid

The term plagiarism is not confined to the academic world only; it is something that goes with you even after your graduation.

Plagiarism is not just a simple word that means copying someone else’s work and representing it as yours. In general, plagiarism is serious misconduct either it is in the form of written text, multimedia including images, graphics, videos, and music.

Everything that you use in your content without proper attribution of the original author is considered plagiarism and theft.

So, before going to the side effects of it, first, as a student, you need to understand what is academic plagiarism and why is it a big deal in academics.

So let’s get started.

What is academic plagiarism and why is it a big deal for students?

As we have stated above that, plagiarism is the use of someone else’s proprietary content without attributing his or her efforts.

You may have heard this term more often by your university fellows and professors but still, a question pops up in your head every time that why is plagiarism a big deal in academics?

Everyone thinks that right?

It is important to be assured that the assignments, thesis, or research papers you are submitting to your professors are highly unique and self-written. Otherwise, you will not be passed in exams or get poor grades.

The severity of plagiarism and its accusations is dependent on the case you are dealing with. However, it is not a strictly illegal or criminal act to be plagiarized in your papers.

When you try to complete an assignment by copy-pasting content from the internet, taking some information from the book or some online journals, or cheating your fellow students’ work, it is considered academic plagiarism.

It is not as risky but when it comes to copying something that is highly restricted by trademark or copyright, you are in serious trouble, Man! The original source has the absolute right to fine, sue, throw penalties at you, or even put you in jail.

Therefore, you must be very careful about choosing content for your assignments and research papers. Furthermore, if you want to prevent plagiarism every time you compose something, you need to learn those basic tactics that help you stop yourself from pledging morally debatable misdeed.

Avoiding plagiarism

In academics, most students do not even realize that they are composing a plagiarized paper, it is called unintentional plagiarism. No matter what type of plagiarism you are committing, its consequences are the same everywhere.

So, it is important for students to learn the basic tips that can help them generating original and plagiarism-free content. Keep reading to learn some practical ways to avoid plagiarism in your assignments.

1.    Cite the original sources to avoid plagiarism

Using someone else’s words or thoughts as if they were your own is known as copyright infringement. And as an act of academic dishonesty, plagiarism can result in expelling from the university as well as dropping the project and the degree.

You are liable for the work you contribute, and you are also responsible for properly and fairly portraying the content of others. To represent someone else’s words or ideas as your own is theft, regardless of whether you intended to plagiarize or not.

Therefore, citing the original sources is the only way to get through it. Just because you mention the original sources doesn’t guarantee they’re accurate.

To avoid plagiarism, you need to verify the writer’s demands and stick to them precisely while working on them. Even if you’re doing your best, things might go wrong, so be careful about that.

How to add references to your paper?

You must acknowledge the source of your information twice when using proper reference techniques:

• When you borrow someone else’s ideas in your work, you must reference or cite them in-text.
• finish your paper with a reference list, which is a list of sources you used.

Referencing has the following objectives:

• Simply acknowledging other people’s work, you can protect yourself from being charged with plagiarism.
• to make it easier for your reader to find the concepts and references you’ve mentioned.

2.    Read carefully before writing

You must have a thorough understanding of someone else’s ideas before you can effectively incorporate them into your own writing.

For instance, it may be necessary to read a journal article multiple times in order to fully comprehend the argument being made.

• The first time reading is important to catch the idea of what the author is trying to say.
• After the second reading, you can examine the assessment of the evidence supporting the author’s claim.
• After a third reading, the argument’s structure may be analyzed so that you can start composing your own concepts about the subject matter clearly and precisely.

3.    Paraphrasing correctly

However, there is another simple method to avoid utilizing someone else’s work without removing the acknowledgment and it is paraphrasing.

Paraphrasing is a method of recomposing an already existing piece of content into your own words without altering its original meaning. It is one of the best ways that help you preventing plagiarism in your papers.

If you are a brilliant student, rewriting a paper is not a big deal for you. However, in case, you have the bulk of assignments to submit before the weekend and your writing style and vocabulary are not good enough, paraphrasing tools come in handy.

You can use free paraphrasing tool to rephrase a sentence or a complete essay without losing any of its original meaning. You must recheck once you have done paraphrasing, it must seem like in your own words; you cannot simply swap out one word for another in the paper.

4.    Add value to your paper

Adding value to your paper plays a significant role to achieve better grades in your finals. You can do this simply by using every bit of the information you have from the original source.

Not just that, try to do your best to contribute some worth to the discussion by expressing your own thoughts into it. You’ll get better grades this way.

It demonstrates that you are well competent in the subject matter. This can only be accomplished by conducting a detailed study up to the point when all of the facts make sense.

5.    Check plagiarism before submitting your paper

There are a variety of effective online tools for detecting plagiarism in your papers. You must check your paper for plagiarism before submitting it. A good plagiarism checker scans your paper for all kinds of duplicated and copied content.

You can use the plagiarism checker in terms of avoiding plagiarism. To be on the safe side, run your paper through any plagiarism checker tool and see the results in percentage.

If your content is detected as copied or duplicated, it will be detected and highlighted in red lines and you could rewrite it carefully to make your content 100 percent original and unique.

6.    Discuss with your professor

Discuss everything with your professor about your paper and make sure you understand the standards for the paper you’re researching. To save your efforts and time, ask questions about the points you are uncertain about in the project.

Make sure you understand what’s expected of you before you begin writing. As a result, you’ll be more prepared when you start working.

To sum up

Teachers frequently blame plagiarism solely on their students, but this ignores underlying problems in the educational system that might work as triggers for plagiarism.

Students who are asked whether their professor’s teaching approach encourages them to plagiarize usually say no. but still, they fall within the realm of plagiarism.

To avoid students committing plagiarism, it’s important to excite the student’s interest in the matter so that they are motivated to complete their assignments on their own.

Students are often burdened with the bulk of assignments and truly they don’t bother if they are producing plagiarized and duplicated content when they have to produce 10 papers in one month and 0 in the next.

Plagiarism in the educational system is, therefore, a serious issue. However, we have mentioned a couple of best tips to avoid plagiarism that may help you get original and unique papers. Hope this guide will help you.