How to Effectively Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of taking somebody’s ideas or words and putting them into your own work without acknowledging them (Das, Natasha, Monica & Panjabi, 2011). Hence it is making it unscrupulous. Nevertheless, it is not a walk in the park to add an idea or information into your own work without an attempt of falling into the trap of many types of plagiarism. These types of plagiarism include self-plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, direct plagiarism, and accidental plagiarism (Fair, Kuhn & Wagner, 2015). Furthermore, it is a serious academic misdemeanor to add peoples’ idea without mentioning them (Winston, Wayne, Jeffrey & Goldberg, 2004). Therefore, the essay addresses various way on how to effectively circumvent plagiarism, and gives an in depth ways on how paraphrasing, summarization, and citation can be used as ways to successfully avoid plagiarism (Landau, Druen, Arcuri & Jennifer, 2002).

One of the ways to avoid plagiarism is by paraphrasing the context of the article into your own words (Roig, 2001). Paraphrasing can be achieve by understanding an article, and rewriting the same idea from the article into your own words. Additionally, some lines in an articles may change the general meaning when paraphrased in different wordings. Therefore, the lines should be quoted and quotation marks to be used in order to avoid plagiarism. Furthermore, even though the writer might prefer coping some subject words from the source article to avoid in losing its overall meaning, it is always advisable to copy at least two words from that particular article. Therefore, one should be able to rewrite the same idea but in their own word. In addition, when paraphrasing, it is not necessarily that it is shortened, it could be of the same length as the original phrase.   

Secondly, effective avoidance of plagiarism can also be done through summary (Elander, Pittam, Lusher, & Payne, 2010). When summarizing an article, it is important that you only shrink the original version of the text. Furthermore, this can also be accomplished by using your own words while condensing the original article. Through doing this, your work will express the same idea but using a different version and shorter. This will make your work to be original, and simultaneously a different approach to the same situation. 

Lastly, plagiarism can be effectually avoided by citation (Landau et al., 2002). When citing an article, it should be according to the formatting guidelines as use by the research institution you are working for. Through citing an article, the reader will be certain that the writer has not committed plagiarism because of the recognition of the author of the article used to get the ideas. In addition, after every in-text citation there is a referencing page where the reader is certain to find the exact article where the writer got the idea. Furthermore, the referencing page is very fundamental because it contains the author’s details. Using these information, the reader is able to get the original article where the writer got the ideas from.

In conclusion, it is very important to acknowledge that plagiarism is an academic offence. Therefore, the above discussed points should help an individual to effectively avoid plagiarism. Additionally it is similarly very important that the writer is able to summarize, and paraphrase an article carefully without using the similar word. This can be achieved through proper understanding of the article and deriving new Ideas from it. Furthermore, when an idea cannot be paraphrased or summarized, it should be quoted or cited and later referenced.

Reference

Das, N., & Panjabi, M. (2011). Plagiarism: Why is it such a big issue for medical writers?

Perspectives in clinical research, 2(2), 67.

Elander, J., Pittam, G., Lusher, J., Fox, P., & Payne, N. (2010). Evaluation of an intervention to

  Help students avoid unintentional plagiarism by improving their authorial identity. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 35(2), 157-171.

Fair, P., Kuhn, G., & Wagner, M. J. (2015) Types of Plagiarism. Retrieved from Cordem. Org

Landau, J. D., Druen, P. B., & Arcuri, J. A. (2002). Methods for helping students avoid plagiarism. Teaching of Psychology, 29(2), 112-115.

Roig, M. (2001). Plagiarism and paraphrasing criteria of college and university professors. Ethics      & Behavior, 11(3), 307-323.

Winston, W. L., & Goldberg, J. B. (2004). Operations research: applications and  algorithms (Vol. 3). Belmont^ eCalif Calif: Thomson/Brooks/Cole.