The Education Week and Psychologic Record studies say that 54% of learners, who have had to write academic papers, admit to appropriating materials from the Internet into their own works. And no one can claim that this statistics is exact because there is no guarantee that all the students told the truth while participating in the research. But we both know that plagiarism is a common thing now, especially in academic writing because the deadlines have become tighter and the tasks harder. However, this doesn’t mean that stealing someone’s work is a solution. On the contrary – such move can bring serious consequences for your whole life, so you need to avoid it at all costs. And in order to do that, you first need to understand which forms plagiarism can take:
- Using parts of the texts without citing.
- Adopting someone’s ideas without giving the credit.
- Including images, graphs, tables or any other graphic material that hasn’t been created by you and hasn’t been credited.
- Creating derivatives from works that are copyright protected.
- Plagiarizing accidentally – even if you copied something without being aware of it, you would still bear consequences as if it is a regular form of plagiarism.
That’s how this phenomenon is defined, and you must do everything possible to keep away from it.
4 Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism in Academic Writing
We know that copying and imitating are the easiest ways to deal with the reality. But you have gone to college because you have chosen the hard-way path, so embrace it and go above and beyond to be original in the eyes of your professors.
1. Get Good at Paraphrasing
Well, it’s obvious that almost all your ideas, thoughts and opinions are based on someone else’s concepts. Does that mean that you’re plagiarizing on every step that you make? Fortunately, no – the plagiarism rules are not that absurd. The skill that helps us be more individual is called “paraphrasing” which is widely used in academic writing.
If you spot a statement that appeals to you and to your assignment, think it over and rewrite it in your own words. Try to avoid appropriating more than two lexemes in a row from the original source not to fall under suspicion.
For example: “The Internet is a global phenomenon that has changed the way we communicate, do business, shop, and live our lives in general.” Your version can be: “New technology has influenced the way how we approach our lives”.
2. Add Your Own Ideas
The main goal of writing academic papers is to teach you how to perceive information, analyze it, make conclusions and use them in similar circumstances. For that, you need to be able to form your own arguments and statements basing on critical analysis of the data. And when you produce text as a result of such contemplations, it comes out as a combination of your ideas and someone else’s ones.
For instance, if you write about the television and its influence, you may share some statistics that TV promotes aggression and violence. Use them as arguments if you decide to emphasize negative impact of the television.
3. Take Citing Seriously
We mean it: don’t neglect the fact that you need to cite all the sources and quote all the words that you include in your writing and that are not the products of your thinking. Make it your main rule to check whether you mentioned all the links and references that have kindly provided you with ideas for the content of your paper.
You can automate it: Ctrl+F every cited author, press “Find further” till it hits the end of your writing. Mark the entry bold, and do the same with the next cited author.
4. Order a Model Paper from a Writing Company
Our writers working for academic agencies produce 100% original texts and follow all the major citation rules. By getting a sample written by one of our professionals, you will have a chance to see how to paraphrase, state your own ideas, interlace the thoughts of scientists with your own ones, and, most importantly, how to cite properly.
We hope that this article has persuaded you that plagiarism is not a way out of a difficult situation with academic papers. Consider our advice and avoid copying as much as you can.
