What is Plagiarism
Report writing is one of the main elements and every student has to write at least one dissertation report as their final and culminating stage of academic life. However, whenever students start writing the report, they are advised to avoid plagiarism for it is not ethical and students or any writer can be penalized for committing it.
Plagiarism in simple words is stealing another person’s content without their knowledge. Interestingly, plagiarism is not limited to stealing words but ideas as well. If one writer takes the idea off from another writer’s work and portrays it as their own brainchild, without their information; is also considered piracy. (Viper, n.d.)
Why does plagiarism matter?
Apart from being a serious crime and an unlawful act, plagiarism has negative consequences on the learning side of the students as well.
As discussed above, when a student plagiarizes the content, they are creating a hindrance in their education and knowledge since they are not fully understanding the idea. Therefore, plagiarism takes away the aspects that could be learnt while in the school that can go a long way in forming perceptions, helping in decision-making, and solving complex situations.
For such corrective and moral measures, it is advised to avoid cheating or copying regardless of anything. (Dun, 2014)
Types of Plagiarism
Plagiarism is not only restricted to copying exact words but it has other types as well that the students must be aware of before writing. For example; (Malnik)
- Rephrasing a few words only
- Self-Plagiarism means using one’s own previous work without proper citation
- Incomplete or incorrect citation
- Fake citations
- Copying exact words
All these types of plagiarisms are very commonly found in students’ academic work, nonetheless, there are ways by which it could be eliminated from the report.
How to avoid Plagiarism?
Often times it happens that students either accidentally or intentionally plagiarize the content and get to know after submission with their paper rejected. So how to avoid it? This remains a question.
Although there are numerous online websites like British Dissertation help available that provide the service of proofreading and editing for the students, however, some tricks should be used prior to and while composing the content.
Following are some of the widely used, tested, and approved methods of eradicating plagiarism from any of your academic assignments be it a dissertation, class assignment or a simple report. (Enago, 2021)
Paraphrasing the content
It is understandable that a report cannot be formed without reading the relevant literature about it and taking help from it. However, it is important for the students to understand that copying the sentences and words from the literature falls in the category of piracy as well.
Thus, to save themselves from that piracy, students should rephrase the content they like. Rephrasing can be done using synonyms, adjectives, and adverbs that are not originally present in the content.
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Use quotation marks
Even though it is said not to copy the exact words from any writer, however, there are times in the report where it is imperative to mention the sayings. That is where quotation marks (‘’) are supposed to be used.
Quotation marks indicate that the writer is quoting someone and is allowed to use the exact wordings, therefore, saving them from the accused of theft.
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Keep a record of resources
The student must cross-verify the authenticity of the resources they are using to avoid the fake citations and referencing later in the report. Few things should be considered while using any report or article for citation;
- Author’s name
- Publisher’s name
- Date and year of publication
- City/Country of publication
Other things to be considered are; the blog or report should be accessed from authentic and credible search engines like Google to lower the chances of getting an inappropriate result.
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Use plagiarism checker tools
One of the easiest ways of eliminating plagiarism from your content is to check the report after composing on online websites like master’s dissertation writers which offer plagiarism checking as well. Once the online website highlights the copied content, the writer can correct it before submitting it.
These are some of the highly used ways that can be used by the students, however, there are other aspects that should be polished as it could be helpful for the writer in composing and thus, minimizing the chances of plagiarism even occurring. For example;
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Prior Research
Research is one of the most important factors of dissertation writing because the writer must know everything about the topic they are writing about and the main purpose of asking the students to write dissertations is to gauge their understanding of the topic.
Therefore, it is necessary to conduct research before writing so all the questions or queries that the writer may have can be cleared and answered and the writer can be fluent in composing the draft.
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Take Professional advice:
After writing the first draft, the writer should seek some expert advice who have immense knowledge of the subject. this could help them discover in-depth knowledge and insight about the particular subject that might have been missed while surfing on the internet.
For example; if the law paper is written, it would be good to get it checked by an advocate before making the final submission. In this manner, if there is any ambiguity in the report, it could be figured out and corrected.
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Review
It is always good to proofread the document once the writer is done with the first draft. Proofreading enables the writer to know the mistakes or blunders done unintentionally and have a chance to correct them before submitting. Reviewing and proofreading also makes the writer look professional.
Summary
Plagiarism might not seem that big a crime but the consequences of the unlawful act if caught can be quite intense and profound. The stealer would not only be penalized but can also be revoked from making any further publishing which could be devastating for their writing career.
To save, the students from drastic negative impacts which could also make them forego their studies in between and get suspended from the institute resulting in waste of money and time they dedicated so far.
Therefore, advising from the start to avoid stealing rather than use the proper means of citations, referencing, paraphrasing, and quoting while taking help from the literature to make your paper more professional, authentic, and credible for the readers.
References
Dun, J. (2014). Why does plagiarism matter? Jeremy Dun.
Enago, A. (2021, October 25). How to Avoid Plagiarism in Research Papers. Retrieved from enago.com: https://www.enago.com/academy/how-to-avoid-plagiarism-in-research-papers/
Malnik, J. (n.d.). 7 common types of plagiarism explained. writer.com.
Viper. (n.d.). Plagiarism Definition. Retrieved from scanmyessay.com: https://www.scanmyessay.com/plagiarism/what-is-plagiarism.php
