How to Avoid Plagiarism in Essay Writing: Idea and Word Plagiarisms

Plagiarism and Academic Honesty

Plagiarism is a serious academic offense and usually results in zero grades. Mostly. Students caught plagiarizing or cheating on assignments (discussion posts, essays, etc.) usually face the Office of Student Conduct. This article highlights simple ways to avoid plagiarism.

 The two common types of plagiarism are:

(a) Improper use of someone’s words and

(b) Improper use of someone else ideas.

Both result from inappropriately acknowledging the author’s words or ideas

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism occurs when you use someone’s exact words or ideas without offering proper credit. According to Purdue Writing Lab (2022), plagiarism is improperly using an author’s ideas, phrases, or words without professionally recognizing them. Plagiarism arises from copying information from online articles, blogs, or books. However, our online academic writers have knowledge and experience in writing original papers that are 100% plagiarism-free.

How Plagiarism Can Occur in Writing Research Papers

a) Failure to acknowledge the author’s ideas or words in academic writing amounts to plagiarism. Try to use quotation marks when quoting someone’s words/ideas.

b) If a student does not Paraphrase scholars’ ideas and liberally cut and paste sources into the student’s text without attribution.

c) Plagiarism occurs intentionally and unintentionally. Unintentional plagiarism is forgetting to cite outside sources and excluding a bibliography list.

d) Intentional plagiarism occurs when a writer copies online materials and applies a scholar’s ideas to improve personal work. All forms of plagiarism are unacceptable in essay writing homework.

Word Plagiarism

It occurs when you use another author’s words or ideas without adding quotation marks.

– Always try paraphrasing sources instead of quoting them directly from scholarly journals, books, and online papers. That increases the risk of word plagiarism.

– Only use direct quotes sparingly when necessary to produce what and how it was said.

– Ignoring in-text citations when writing from online sources results in word plagiarism.

– Incorporating personal words from previous research work in new essays can cause word plagiarism.

– Not focusing on original words when writing university assignments attracts word plagiarism.

– Another common type of word plagiarism is patchwriting. It occurs when students mistakenly think they have paraphrased an author’s words by simply adding or removing some words in a text or replacing them with synonyms.

How to Avoid Word Plagiarism

1. Paraphrase scholarly works in your own words.

2. Write notes in your sentence structure with selective words from a source.

3. The main ideas from a source should be paraphrased and cited.

Idea Plagiarism

It occurs when you present ideas from another source(s) without citing the author(s) and date of publication. Incidents of idea plagiarism are common in academic essay writing and may include:

1. Failure to put in-text citations when sourcing from someone’s ideas is claiming such statements as your own.

2. A blatant form of idea plagiarism occurs when students find a good idea or argument from an online source and present it as their own without citing it appropriately.

3. Idea plagiarism also occurs when students cite sources incorrectly because of following improper in-text citation guidelines.

Example:

Students may write a whole paragraph about a study and then cite the study's author and year in the last
 
sentence in parentheses, thinking that the citation covers the previous sentences. Instead, the in-text 

citation should appear at the beginning of the paraphrased passage to establish its origin at the outset.

4. When students remember and use the ideas and concepts learned in class and integrate them into research without proper citations results in idea plagiarism. Establishing the origin of a scholarly idea should be a priority for every student conducting research.

How to Avoid Idea Plagiarism

a) Use signal phrases like “I believe that” to designate your idea or put an in-text citation to a source to credit someone else idea(s).

b) Prioritize in-text citations whenever you retrieve ideas from an online source.

c) Review broad literature before narrowing the findings of a research study to minimize idea plagiarism.

d) Paraphrase sources and minimize direct quotes in your essays. However, using direct quotations should be supported by in-text citations to acknowledge the source.

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Video Guide on How to Avoid Plagiarism in 5 Ways

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Repercussions of Plagiarism

1. Plagiarism is academic dishonesty that is discouraged in professional essay writing. Moreover, fabrication, cheating, and sabotage can put students on academic probation, have low grades in class, and be expelled.

2. Plagiarism affects the credibility of a research study.

3. Most English University departments may disqualify students for consistently plagiarized papers.

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Academic Writing Styles that Can Help You Avoid Plagiarism

It is good to acknowledge how others contribute to your work. Learning citation styles like MLA, APA, Harvard, and Chicago might be helpful.

Students should cite the following to avoid plagiarism:

a. Ideas and words from computerized educational programs and websites.

b. Information derived from interviews should be accredited.

c. Exact words copied from online materials.

d. Reprinted illustrations like pictures, diagrams, and charts from scholarly sources.

e. Data from reposted digital media.

Information that may not require accreditation includes:

– The writer’s experiences, thoughts, and observations are common during reflective writing.

– Writing assumptions from a field experience.

– In personal artworks and photographs.

– When integrating common knowledge in research, like historical events and stories of legends.

– Names of places and cities

Preventing False Accusations of Plagiarism

Content prepared by a student, researcher, or scholar is intellectual property and demands safe documentation. The following tactics are valuable and can help reduce plagiarizing academic content:

1. Save papers using a specific ID to avoid uploading multiple versions of the same content online.

2. Identify secure media locations to store academic draft copies to prevent theft.

3. Create strong passwords to secure computers storing written content.

4. Using cloud-based platforms to separate drafts and ensure future editing becomes easier.

5. Update passwords to protect files fully.

Conclusion

Efforts to reduce plagiarism would increase the originality of words and ideas used in writing. Knowing the types of plagiarism prepares students and researchers to avoid committing such academic offenses. Also, emphasizing learning in-text citation and paraphrasing online content help avoid plagiarism.

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