Ways to Avoid Plagiarism

Some writers on this platform posted not EXCLUSIVE articles which means that their article or some parts of it were copied somewhere on the internet. Posting not exclusive articles can’t give you points on this platform, so to help you better I’m going to share with you few reasons why you must stop and avoid plagiarism, and later on, I’m going to tell you how to avoid it.

First, what does plagiarism really mean?

Plagiarism is stealing one’s idea and claim it as yours.

Plagiarism is a common act of some students and workers for their researches and projects to make their life easier. But didn’t you know that stealing one’s idea is BAD?

Why you must avoid plagiarism?

As a writer, it is necessary to avoid plagiarism because it can compromise your integrity. In fact, plagiarism is enacting theft that resulted in losing the respect of your supporters and fellow writers while in school it may result in losing leadership roles and respect from teachers and students as well. Furthermore, taking credits from one’s idea can give you lots of trouble if the owner takes legal action against you.

Avoiding plagiarism is actually not so hard as long as you are willing and work to avoid it. Here are some ways to avoid plagiarism in your writing:

• MENTION your sources

Mentioning your sources is one way to avoid plagiarism. The easiest way to do that is by adding a citation in your writing. You must include the last name of the author, the date it was published,e.g., (Philips, 1993).

• SHARE your own ideas

Sharing your own ideas is better than duplicating your source’s ideas. The best way to do this is to ask yourself what unique idea you can share in your article that’s totally from you. This way you may avoid plagiarism and you can practice your writing skill using your own idea.

• DO paraphrasing/rewriting

Paraphrasing is expressing the meaning of someone's idea using different words or text format. Paraphrasing helps you to relay the same idea or information from a source without copying the same text format. But if it was done incorrectly it still may fall into plagiarism. That’s why it is important to improve your vocabulary and grammar knowledge. This way, you are able to write it in your original way. But since you are still using others’ ideas, you should still include a citation to the source.

• ADD quotations/passages/ verses or phrases

This is one of the simplest yet a good way to avoid plagiarism. Adding quotation marks around the text is great to denote that the words aren’t your own and it’s from someone’s idea. But remember that a direct quote should also add a citation for that so, the reader may know who originally wrote it.

• UTILIZE a plagiarism checker

When doing some research about your topics, the same texts or sentences might include in your article. So, when you’re in doubt, using an online plagiarism checker is the best thing to do. There are free plagiarism checkers on the internet. A Plagiarism Checker shows you whether your sentences, texts, or articles are plagiarized. Besides, it also helps you to correct your grammar errors.

A copy and paste action is one way to ease your difficulty when it comes in writing articles, stories, etc. but it may harm you and lose your dignity and pride.

Those mentioned above are few suggestions yet very helpful for you to avoid plagiarism and earn high points on this platform.

A big thanks to @Tunuu and @Dreamer for supporting and encouraging everyone to write quality articles.😊😊