Plagiarism is a frequent mistake made by writers at all levels including professionals, although professional writers too are more often not spared as they also commit such acts either with full knowledge or accidentally.
By definition, plagiarism involves copying or stealing information or content that was created by another person and passing it off as your own without giving due credit to the author of the original content.
This is considered as an infringement of intellectual property and may have legal, financial, and ethical consequences for anyone found guilty of the act.
It is always important to ensure that you use your own words and ideas in case you decide to write any form of content in order to ensure that you do not fall victim to the mentioned consequences.
Whenever you decide to write any form of content, you should always be prepared to create content that is worth reading but not stolen from other sources. You should strive to have original and unique materials when writing your articles in the sense that you do not copy and paste another author’s work without giving them credit.
In most cases, research-based work is the most prone to plagiarism. You could have the best-written article, which has been well-researched, however, it could be ruined by just an act of plagiarism which can destroy your whole academic or writing career.
When you incorporate another writer’s words or text without acknowledging them, you discredit your work and people will label you a fraud and a cheat. For new writers, it could prove a difficult task to write an original article, but with regular practice, it can be achieved.
How then, do I ensure that my writing is completely free of plagiarism?
This may seem to be a very difficult task especially when you are not an experienced writer. However, there are several ways that you can use to create original and well-researched content without falling victim to plagiarism.
In most circumstances, when you are still new to writing, it would be a good idea to seek help from professional companies like Peachy Essay if you are not confident about your ability to write.
Such a company is made up of professional writers that will be willing to help you with content creation and advice on how to best achieve this seemingly elusive potential to write. However, you do not have to solely rely on anybody to come up with great papers that are free of plagiarism.
You can actually use your own mind and writing ability to create good content. The below tips and tricks will help in writing content that is free of plagiarism and that can earn you respect from your audience.
1. Use of Quotes
You should use quotations when directly quoting another writer’s work to give them credit for their work. The unspoken rule is, never jot down someone’s words as if it’s your own. When you use quotes, you are able to distinguish between your own writing and another author’s work.
This way, no one will be able to accuse you of plagiarism. You may also indicate the author, book, or article that you are quoting in order to show that you actually read the content of the source and that you are merely using it to supplement the delivery of your ideas to your audience.
Not only is this a professional way of writing, but it also helps you avoid the many issues that are associated with plagiarizing content.
In case you are not able to use quotes properly, you can seek help from professional writers from good companies like this click here who will always be in a great position to offer you valuable guidance on the same. There is no shame in learning new things through seeking for help and no one will castigate you for this act.
2. Add value
Never try to use all the information you get in the course of your research, instead, you should try to add value to the topic by adding your own ideas. This can only be made possible by researching widely to a point where you understand well the information about a particular topic and the ideas flow easily for you to write in your own style. Here, you will be putting down your own words while making sure you state your facts and stays relevant, thus avoiding plagiarism.
You will also be exposing yourself to new styles of writing as employed by different writers. This is important for you since your research should always help you understand a topic and the best approaches towards tackling such a topic.
When you copy another person’s work word for word, you limit your ability to think and play with words to come up with original content. Reading and understanding research materials then adding value to the topic using your independent thoughts and words, however, increases your ability to think in a critical manner and write plagiarism free content.
3. Citing the Source
At the bottom of every document, you need to make a list of all your references, which should include all the details to make it easy for your readers to find them easily. When doing this, you should follow the set guidelines in your institution.
Details about the title, author’s name and the date of publication should be listed in the correct order and format. You should also never forget to include the in-text citations for every full reference that you include in your bibliography.
It is important to understand the various citing formats including APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago and the rest to ensure that you use the correct form in all your work. Poorly cited content does not attract the attention of your audience and if your content is for scholarly purposes, you may end up failing due to incorrect citations.
When you cite content, you avoid plagiarism since you give the due credit to the original owner of the content. You should make sure that you clearly understand how to cite and make clever use of your words and where you place the in-text citations.
If you place all of them at the end of sentences, your content may seem monotonous and boring to your readers. You should, therefore, learn also how to place them at the beginning and in the middle of your sentences so that you can effectively do it in your writing.
4. Paraphrasing
You can easily use someone else’s work and still get away with it by paraphrasing the words well. You can easily achieve this by rearranging the words from your source without losing the meaning. It is plagiarism writing word for word from your source of research, but you can rephrase the same words to bring out the same information.
The best way to do this is by understanding the content and then writing it out using your own words. Do not simply rearrange words like most people tend to do. Go the extra mile and understand exactly what the original author was trying to say and think of the possible way you could put the message across and incorporate it into your own ideas. This is one of the best ways to avoid plagiarism and effective use of paraphrasing can be a powerful tool towards writing better content.
5. Plagiarism checker
Thanks to the new technology, you can find a number of plagiarism checkers online. With this online tool, you are able to check the originality percentage of your article.
By copy-pasting the title of your article and the entire content in the provided spaces, you are able to get the results within seconds. This tool will highlight the copied texts which enable you to do corrections. It will also provide you with URLs to the original content to allow you to crosscheck and edit your content.
These tools are very effective and only take up a few minutes of your time. It is always important to use these tools since you will know if you have been able to create plagiarism free content or not.
In case some of your parts are plagiarized, the tools will highlight them for you and you can easily paraphrase those parts to make your content unique. Never ignore the use of these tools since they may save you a lot of trouble. Most institutions will always employ the tools when you submit your work and heavily penalize you if high amounts of plagiarism are found in the work that you submitted.
6. Internet Source
Information sourced from the internet should also be cited since it is still someone’s original work. Never believe that internet material does not warrant referencing, instead, it should be referenced or cited to avoid plagiarism.
Finding some information on a blog doesn’t mean you can use it freely without giving credit to the person. In fact, always do your best to make sure that you reference all sources that you use either physical or digital.
Most of the writers never obey this rule which has been a huge and negative thing for the past many years. It is all written by someone or it would not exist. Avoid plagiarism in your content by being truthful and giving credit where it is due.
7. Start early
When you give yourself enough time, you avoid plagiarism. The secret is to start early to avoid rushing at the last minute. This way, you will have adequate time to do comprehensive research and pay attention to your content. When you are under pressure, you stand to make mistakes and to avoid that, you are tempted to use someone’s work and end up being guilty of plagiarism.
Accidental plagiarism can ruin professional and academic careers, but this can be avoided by putting into mind the above points. Who said writing an original research article is hard work? It is not easy either but with the proper guideline, combined with the new technology of plagiarism checker, you are sure to write a masterpiece article. With the above tips and tricks to guide you, nothing should stand between you and writing an original article free of plagiarism. If you are a new writer, go ahead and give it a try as you already have all the tips at your disposal.
