How to avoid plagiarism in essay writing

What is plagiarism?

Essay writing is a major tool that instructors usually use to gauge students’ conception of subjects taught.

When developing an essay, one may be prompted to seek and gather further information from academic sources such as books, journals, previous academic-related workings, and internet sources.

This process enables one to fuse information from different sources to develop quality essay papers. In such occurrences, information from these sources is not always their original works.

When writing an essay, the writer ought to provide citations that give credit to the original author of the information which had been used.

Plagiarism, therefore, is referred to as the use of information to write essays without acknowledging the original author whose work is pending or currently published in different academic sources.

Due to the stringent measures by the university policies of the administration in monitoring and providing proof of quality education, it has become important that students avoid plagiarism in essay writing.

Types of plagiarism

Plagiarism exists in many forms, and this mandates that a student or a researcher understand its many forms in order to avoid it. Types of plagiarism can be classified in terms of intent or in terms of style. For instance, when categorizing forms of plagiarism in terms of intent, there is direct and accidental plagiarism.

Plagiarisms of intent

• Direct Plagiarism
• Accidental Plagiarism

Direct Plagiarism

Direct plagiarism refers to the type of plagiarism in which a person deliberately copies a text or a part of a text word-for-word, and in which the transcript is not enclosed within quotation marks to indicate that the text was borrowed from a different author.

Accidental Plagiarism

On the other hand, accidental plagiarism refers to the form of plagiarism in which an author writes something in one’s essay that is similar to an earlier published text.

Unlike direct plagiarism, accidental plagiarism may rarely exceed a sentence since the author’s intent is not to copy the original text. In most cases, a writer may never be aware of accidental plagiarism in one’s essay, and it can be usually pardoned.

 The process of detecting whether an essay had deliberate or accidental plagiarism is an intricate and sensitive affair, but it is not difficult. Experienced instructors are able to quickly detect cases of direct plagiarism as well as cases of accidental plagiarism, which are usually pardoned.

It is notable that the availability of plagiarism software has enabled easy elimination of accidental plagiarism in such a sense that reviewers do not cast doubt on the originality of one’s work as well on one’s ability. When forms of plagiarism are classified in terms of style, direct and accidental plagiarism are included.

Mosaic Plagiarism

However, other forms of plagiarism such as mosaic plagiarism also exist. Mosaic plagiarism occurs when a student uses phrases from another work without placing quotation marks. Another way in which mosaic plagiarism occurs regards finding synonyms for certain words in a phrase or a sentence while maintaining the structure and the meaning of such a statement. Mosaic plagiarism may also occur when a writer uses facts and information that cannot be attained firsthand and does not cite the respective sources. Researchers ought to note that this form of plagiarism is academically dishonest and is subject to punishment just as direct plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism

Furthermore, self-plagiarism occurs when a student submits one’s previous works or parts of one’s previous work as fresh work. This form of plagiarism may also occur when a student submits an assignment of one class to another class.

Why should you avoid plagiarism?

The idea of avoiding plagiarism should not be focused on avoiding punishment. Rather, it should be focused on enhancing the output of research work.

This suggests that one should learn the essence and importance of academic work as a foundation for future research activities. Most students are rarely properly inducted into the college system. Still, this does not warrant another person’s work. Instead, a person who delves into an academic career should understand the tenets of research work before embarking on the process.

In this sense, it is essential for students and researchers to learn that the importance of the academic field.

• To promote generation of new ideas
• To promote refinement of existing concepts
• To highlight new facts
• To honor individuals who came up with new ideas and concepts. Respect other researchers’ efforts
• Knowledge Assessment.
• To Learn how to develop one’s thoughts.

To promote generation of new ideas, promote refinement of existing concepts and highlighting new facts

The research process, therefore, is structured to grow, and anyone who interferes with such linearity denigrates the very essence of academic work.

Plagiarism impedes or reverses the process of research by copying ideas that have already been developed instead or refining them. Understanding the essence of academic work also suggests appreciating the efforts of those who have come up with new ideas.

To honor individuals who came up with new ideas and concepts. Respect other researchers’ efforts

Research or thinking is a painstaking process, and individuals who arrive at new ideas or concepts should be given the honor and respect they deserve. One of the ways of respecting the content from other authors lies in citing their work. In this way, the researcher’s contributions to the academic field and to society are respected and lauded.

Knowledge Assessment

Knowledge assessment is a critical process in learning in which instructors gauge students. The presentation of concepts from the learner’s perspectives facilitates learning. The presentation of ideas must seek to promote originality. This builds the development of ideas hence much of interpretation and thinking is exploited. Writing of academic essays ought to be original, concise, and brief to the point hence exploring the rubric of the question theme currently in question. The steps one may employ range from paraphrasing and adhering to guidelines moments in which one may be prompted to copy information directly from its source. Plagiarism can be avoided by paraphrasing, quoting, and summarizing the original idea relevant to the topic the writer is to address.

Develop your own thoughts

Summarizing involves intense browsing and making notes of the key points that facilitate the development of the topic.

Taking notes is a critical process in which an individual’s own thoughts are recorded and later provides a knowledge base for essay writing.

Summary promotes the development of writer own thoughts in regard to the task. When summarizing ideas, it is important to consider the length of the article and paragraph.

Summary though made in the writer’s own thoughts has to contrast and in line with the ideas from the original source.

Paraphrasing also works to promote the use of the writer’s own thoughts however, the writer could minimize the number of words from the original source.

Quotation involves using someone’s or an author’s words. It requires the writer to quote and place the passage they are using in quotation marks, and document the source according to a standard documentation style.

Education has built emphasis and dependency on the use of various academic sources for the development of knowledge and quality writing in address topics. It is an inevitable process for students to use his or her firsthand information on a particular theory to address a topic in a paper.

The writer has to refer and acquire the knowledge through primary sources like books on which make it possible to gather knowledge and make notes from them. In order to fuse and use this information in their essays, it prompts them to paraphrase the texts thus will entail that the information and text be written in the writer’s own wording addressing the points hence making sense not to lose the meaning of the information (Diane 56).

This information and texts derived from these sources ought to be cited to acknowledge the academic contribution from the previous authors whose information had been used to build the meaning of an essay.

To facilitate a good presentation in the understanding of the text, it prompts the writer to include in-depth explanations which will aim to prove that indeed the concept was captured and analysed but to their understanding and individual reasoning to complement the cited work. In doing so it would be hard for the instructor to penalize the student on plagiarism since the content and understanding are expressed during the explanations (Robert 96).

There are instances on which the guidelines of essays provide for the opportunity in which the cited texts may be presented from its original source as it is. During such instances, writing will entail that not all the information copied directly will be consistent in the whole essay.

The writer ought to limit the direct presentation of these texts in their essays. When writing essays, part of the information in a sentence can be copied thus not necessarily interchanging the words which could change the meaning.

It is also important when writing an essay, the writer shows the information copied in indent thus avoiding plagiarism. It shows that particular information is copied but it does not necessarily belong to the writer’s firsthand information.

Avoiding Plagiarism: Organize your work to avoid plagiarism

Organizing one’s work is one of the tools for avoiding plagiarism.

1. When writing an essay, it is first essential to understand the purpose of one’s writing. This serves as a platform for understanding the tools and sources that one will use in completing a task.
2. A researcher should always note the sources that will be used beforehand. Besides, a writer should understand the kind of facts that one will need in an essay. In the process of research, one may note down facts gathered as well as the sources from which they are extracted.
3. A writer may note down an outline that one will use in writing a draft. In this sense, it becomes easy to construct a draft, which acts as a platform for writing an essay.

Although a writer may employ different routes in organizing the process of one’s work, it is notable that such an organization helps in avoiding the pitfalls of academically wrongful acts such as not citing someone else’s content. The organization helps in the avoidance of plagiarism since a writer easily knows the sources of information.

Referencing

Writing a good essay that avoids plagiarism also requires that the writer indicates either use footnotes or referencing technique to acknowledge the source of information and text that were used to piece an essay together.

The footnotes consist of notes that are labeled below essays usually located at the bottom of each page in the essay. These notes are important as they also help cite the working of authors thus avoiding plagiarism.

It also helps the reader know where the information exhibited in the essay was found.

The footnotes can also provide further insights to the readers in which they may develop the interest to further their understanding of the essay written with the sources.

Since the exploitation of the footnotes would provide a basis for a non-plagiarized essay, the instructor will effectively assess the essay since it is an in-depth analysis of the subject matter.

Essay writing should also have reference information which includes:

• The author’s detailed name
• Year of publications
• Book title from which different and relevant information was obtained to develop a topical question in an essay.

Essay writing aims to facilitate the expression of individual opinion in related issues or topics of the essay.

The writer gathers relevant information from various sources and exploits the use of statements to express and present the opinion or thoughts in their own thinking. This enables one to express fresh and new ideas that are unavailable from previous author publications thus minimize the chances of plagiarism.

Furthermore, when tasked to develop a free plagiarized essay, it is important that the writer develops an outline that will help constitute a systematic procedure under which the essay will be crafted and developed.

The information on the essay topic should be thoroughly scrutinized and understood hence facilitate the writer with the know-how on which they may present and express the information on their own opinion (Diane 63).

Avoid copy and paste

The awakening era in which students have developed a high dependency on the internet sources and texts to build their essays has also exposed them to the menace of plagiarism.

Through the irresponsible computer use of cut and paste options has made students vulnerable to the use of texts and information without actually acknowledging the authors.

The quick availability of information on the search engines has made students hand in much of academic work which does not constitute their understanding of the essay topic.

This has made the assessment of instructor difficult since most essays are plagiarized and are captured in various author’s work. It is important that developing essays entail that the student provides original work in writing essays.

The internet information could form a guide base for writing hence one should avoid the use of copy-paste or the cut paste options.

Use software to detect plagiarism

The development of the computer world has also welcomed the development of software that could detect plagiarism in essays.

The vast storage of information on the internet has provided a database that such software explore to detect plagiarized text in their essays. To avoid plagiarism, therefore, the effective use of software such as Turnitin and Grammarly would minimize the submission of assessment essays that are plagiarized.

One pastes essays to such software to proofread and provide recommendations through comments on the plagiarized section. The continuous use of Turnitin software provides the ground for avoiding plagiarism.

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