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Tips to avoid plagiarism while conducting research

Simply said, it’s impossible for you to write about all you’d like to in your essay. Deep investigation and analysis of already published facts are necessary for an article. Rarely does someone approach to gather first-hand information for an essay or research report. The likelihood of you being found guilty of plagiarism increases when you use web materials or the writings of another author for your own work. To keep your reputation and that of your work, plagiarism prevention is important. Your work’s uniqueness is both your strength and your brand. As a result, you must tamper with your writing to prevent losing all of your writing credits.

Understanding what plagiarism is the best approach to avoid it. We must thus refrain from plagiarising unintentionally or deliberately. However, we first establish three more terms: quote, paraphrase, and summary.

 

How does plagiarism work?

Plagiarism occurs when a writer borrows another person’s idea and spreads it under the guise of being their own. It is a serious intellectual misconduct and a sort of academic dishonesty. Whether it is deliberate or accidental, plagiarism in research is never acceptable. Avoiding plagiarism is crucial when writing research papers because doing so will cost you a lot if your work is found to have been copied.

This might result in a failing mark for the student, and it could harm the credibility and reputation of the researcher. There are several forms of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, paraphrasing plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, and direct plagiarism. We won’t go into great detail about the many forms of plagiarism and what they include in this post. Instead, we’ll talk about how to utilize other people’s ideas without plagiarising anything.

 

Why to avoid plagiarism in online exams?

The worst kind of academic misconduct is plagiarism. You should never just copy and paste information from your sources, not even if you’re a graduate student racing against the clock to write a report. It’s essential to do more than merely repeat what other professors have said without giving them credit in order to thoroughly understand your study field and form your own opinions. It’s crucial if you wish to earn a passing grade as well!

Both students and academic scholars can gain from avoiding plagiarism. No matter what level of academics you are at, it is advisable to prevent plagiarism in research for the following reasons:

  • By using your own ideas and not just stealing them from others, you may raise the caliber of your work.
  • When you avoid getting found plagiarizing, you avoid the humiliation and disgrace that might otherwise follow.
  • It improves your capacity to accurately paraphrase the meaning of widely held beliefs and principles.
  • It can help you avoid serious and detrimental professional outcomes.
  • You don’t need to be concerned about accidentally plagiarizing another person’s work if you can grasp communicating your thoughts (there are a lot of plagiarism fixers available online that can help you do this).

Avoiding plagiarism in your research is important and advantageous for you for many reasons, not the least of which are the ones listed above.

 

Tips to avoid plagiarism

1.      Understanding that it’s wrong

Plagiarism is the practice of appropriating another person’s words, ideas, or phrases and presenting them as your own – which is wrong. Plagiarism in academic writing can take many different forms. Whether you provide credit or not, it can involve anything from stealing a sentence from somebody who is published or unpublished work to borrowing so many words or concepts that they form the majority of your own work.

It is critical to be aware that all of these instances of plagiarism are prohibited by U.S. copyright law and constitute serious violations of the academic honesty principles enforced by the majority of institutions and universities. At any school, they may face harsh consequences.

 

2.      Try Paraphrasing – but not too much

Don’t presume that since you are not exactly quoting the complete original sentence that you may omit the quotation marks. In the context of Seton Hall Law, plagiarism is defined as the act of copying 15 or more consecutive words without putting them in quote marks. This implies that when paraphrasing a lengthy piece. You must include any 15 consecutive words that remain unmodified from the original in quote marks. Remember that 15 words might be shorter than one sentence.

 

3.      Cite with care

Keep an ongoing list of the sources you come across while doing your study. It’s a good idea to use your desired citation style to really document things because it will aid you later. In this manner, the citation will be completed when it’s time to create your bibliography! When you begin working on your thesis or project, keeping a list of your sources will also make it easier for you to locate your material should you need to return to it again.

 

4.      Read & Observe

Make an effort to broaden your knowledge by reading across a range of topics. Reading works by writers whose writing is renowned for its excellence will enable you to take in a range of sentence structures, and a wider vocabulary will make it simpler and more effective for you to paraphrase. Reading is a worthwhile decision that will pay off in the future, so your time spent reading is not wasted at all.

 

5.      Avoid cut & paste

It is simple to fall into the habit of copying and pasting relevant material from online sources into a text document. Then utilizing that document as the foundation for your original draft. This is quite risky since you may unintentionally mix up your unique writing with plagiarized stuff.

If you have to copy and paste something, be careful to place any copied text in quote marks. Make sure you can clearly see where it came from.

Even better, use a different color or font for any text you have copied and pasted so that you can distinguish between your own actual writing and other people’s.

 

6.      Always use plagiarism checkers

You could use plagiarism-checking tools if you are unsure of your capacity to produce or successfully paraphrase sentences. These will enable you to discover whether your manuscript contains any passages that may be regarded as plagiarized. And, if so, to take the proper and timely action. For instance, you can find plenty of them over the internet that offers extra features like unlimited rounds of plagiarism checking for a whole year in along with high-quality language and developing editing.