How to avoid plagiarism?

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Plagiarism is actually referred to as stealing intellectual property, in forms of ideas, thoughts, or anything that you hear, see and capable of making a copy.

It is to breach the ethics and copy someone's work to get the financial benefit without crediting the original owner by representing it as your own.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, Plagiarism is:

“The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own”

Protect your content by following a plagiarism guide or use some of the following measures to avoid plagiarism: 

Context understanding 

From the reference paper, don’t just copy-paste and avoid word to word copying. Just paraphrase the idea in your own words. Understand the concept to restate the text properly. You can paraphrase your text by free online paraphrasing tools

Quote the author 

Quote the person or source from which you are taking the text or idea. Quote properly with clearly mentioning the source you are taking the text from.

Here is a text as an example:

“Therefore, the content you check on Prepostseo is 100% safe and secure. you don’t have to worry about the security of your content.” Source: Prepostseo

Mentioning the source name is not enough you have to cite it properly. For further details, read "manage citations" section.

You should be clear what should be cited and what not

Things that you copy from other sites or any source must be cited. If you are taking text or ideas from your own previous text you must cite yourself. If not, this will be self-plagiarism.  The scientific proof you gather round after accomplishment of your tests should not be cited. Facts and universal truths need not be cited if you are not sure to include a reference. 

Manage citations 

Manage the record of references you mention in your text. Use citations software to manage easily.

Here are some examples of popular citation styles that you can use to manage your citations:

MLA citation (8th Edition) For website 

“However, intellectual property like trademarks, photos, and logos can be protected using our reverse image search tool” (Shehzad)

Citation

Shehzad, Asad. "Plagiarism Checker - Free Online Tool To Check Plagiarism". Prepostseo.Com, 2019, https://www.prepostseo.com/plagiarism-checker

MLA citation (8th Edition) For Journal 

“This is a phenomenon that may not be as permanent nor as wide ranging as earlier conceptualisations that concerned themselves with a more structured management of interstate behaviour, but, nonetheless, it increases the possibilities for achieving an international order based on the rule of law.” (Greener)

Citation

Greener, B.K. "International Policing And International Relations". International Relations, vol 26, no. 2, 2012, pp. 181-198. SAGE Publications, doi:10.1177/0047117812438064.

MLA citation (8th Edition) for Books 

"when you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it" (Coelho, and Irons)

Citation

Coelho, Paulo, and Jeremy Irons. The Alchemist. Harper Audio/Caedmon, 2001.

Chicago citation (17th Edition, author-date) For Website

“However, intellectual property like trademarks, photos, and logos can be protected using our reverse image search tool” (Shehzad 2019)

Citation

Shehzad, Asad. 2019. "Plagiarism Checker - Free Online Tool To Check Plagiarism". Prepostseo.Com. https://www.prepostseo.com/plagiarism-checker. 

Chicago citation (17th Edition, author-date) For Journal 

“This is a phenomenon that may not be as permanent nor as wide ranging as earlier conceptualisations that concerned themselves with a more structured management of interstate behaviour, but, nonetheless, it increases the possibilities for achieving an international order based on the rule of law.” (Greener 2012)

Citation

Greener, B.K. 2012. "International Policing And International Relations". International Relations 26 (2): 181-198. doi:10.1177/0047117812438064. 

Chicago citation (17th Edition, author-date) For Books 

"when you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it" (Coelho and Irons 2001)

Citation

Coelho, Paulo, and Jeremy Irons. 2001. The Alchemist. New York: Harper Audio/Caedmon. 

APA citation (6th Edition) For Website

“However, intellectual property like trademarks, photos, and logos can be protected using our reverse image search tool” (Shehzad, 2019)

Citation

Shehzad, A. (2019). Plagiarism Checker - Free Online Tool to Check Plagiarism. Retrieved 2 December 2019, from https://www.prepostseo.com/plagiarism-checker

APA citation (6th Edition) For Journal 

“This is a phenomenon that may not be as permanent nor as wide ranging as earlier conceptualisations that concerned themselves with a more structured management of interstate behaviour, but, nonetheless, it increases the possibilities for achieving an international order based on the rule of law.” (Greener, 2012)

Citation

Greener, B. (2012). International Policing and International Relations. International Relations, 26(2), 181-198. doi: 10.1177/0047117812438064

APA citation (6th Edition) For Books 

"when you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it"(Coelho & Irons, 2001)

Citation

Coelho, P., & Irons, J. (2001). The alchemist. New York: Harper Audio/Caedmon.

Harvard citation for Website

“However, intellectual property like trademarks, photos, and logos can be protected using our reverse image search tool” (Shehzad, 2019)

Citation

Shehzad, A. (2019). Plagiarism Checker - Free Online Tool to Check Plagiarism. [online] Prepostseo.com. Available at: https://www.prepostseo.com/plagiarism-checker [Accessed 2 Dec. 2019].

Harvard citation for Journal 

“This is a phenomenon that may not be as permanent nor as wide ranging as earlier conceptualisations that concerned themselves with a more structured management of interstate behaviour, but, nonetheless, it increases the possibilities for achieving an international order based on the rule of law.” (Greener, 2012)

Citation

Greener, B. (2012). International Policing and International Relations. International Relations, 26(2), pp.181-198. 

Harvard citation for Books 

"when you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it" (Coelho and Irons, 2001)

Citation

Coelho, P. and Irons, J. (2001). The alchemist. New York: Harper Audio/Caedmon. 

These are the most popular styles often used by people worldwide which you can use to properly cite a source to avoid plagiarism and allow your audience to access the source. Furthermore, there are other styles as well like Turabian, OSCOLA and IEEE.

Use plagiarism checker

There is vast increase in accidental plagiarism. A must-do task is to double-check your work with online plagiarism checkers to have a quick review of your text.

The need of this tool has increased a lot. People with original content faced issues. 

The easy way is to just go and copy-paste the content or upload it and here you go, within a glimpse of an eye, you have the results. These tools just not only tell you how much your content is plagiarized but also give the source or similar texts matched with your text. 

There are thousands of websites offering the use of this tool. Some are offering free and some paid. 

Summary 

Plagiarism is stealing of someone else’s text and claiming it as one’s own.  There are different types of plagiarism; the severe type is complete plagiarism and a common one is paraphrasing.  Consequences of plagiarism can be lethal, plagiarist may get suspended, banned or not allowed to write anymore. The reputation of the writer is destroyed whether he is a student or a professional writer. People can avoid plagiarism by proper citation, by quoting the source precisely, by using tools to check plagiarism before submission.