Understanding plagiarism

Date: 08 Aug 2021

Before getting to how one can avoid plagiarism, first it is important to understand what really plagiarism is and how it can possibly be caused. It is certainly not a new or uncommon term, but, even being mainstream these days, it surely is quite misunderstood. Plagiarism not only means the copy of ideas or someone else or presenting someone else’s work as one’s own. In fact, there is much more to it.

Academic writing is never an easy task. Especially in higher education level, when a dissertation writer or a book report writer tries to compose a manuscript, things get too complicated and may result in plagiarism.

Plagiarism is like a theft of work of others, just that the original work is always out there with the real author. Plagiarism also is the use of illegally downloaded academic content from the web. It also refers to the act of using exact words of another author in your work. Ideas, research papers, articles, journals etc. are the intellectual property of the authors and no author would tolerate the fraud like plagiarism to be done.

There are two types of plagiarism; intentional plagiarism & unintentional plagiarism.

Intentional plagiarism:

• Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V; in simple words, copy paste; this most commonly used command if the main yet a very widespread form of intentional plagiarism. People use this method too commonly that even they don’t realize that they are committing plagiarism.
   
• When you intentionally paraphrase someone else’s work without giving them credits, you may end up committing plagiarism. It is like, using the synonyms of words, changing the sentence structure, writing something in a very different way while retaining the idea but without referencing.
   
• Since the internet became accessible for many, people have been able to download all types of files from the web. Students sometimes download studies/papers and present it as their own to their supervisors. This is a criminal activity where the state can take legal actions against the plagiarist.
   
• When you try to present someone else’s ideas as your own and use it commercially, while knowingly avoiding that citation, this is called mosaic plagiarism. It is the most serious form of plagiarism where legal actions can be taken and the plagiarist can be punished severely.

Unintentional plagiarism

• While studying for a paper or a research, you get to read a lot of papers relevant to your topic and idea. Therefore, it is possible that some sentences might get stuck in your mind and you may use them in your work subconsciously, without citing it.
• Citing the plagiarists is also a very common problem these days. It is hard for people nowadays to determine the original author of an idea if the idea has been stolen by others, and this may lead you to cite the plagiarist instead of the original author.
•  A researcher, dissertation writer, essay writer, assignment writer, or any academic writer requires being attentive while writing. This is to avoid the wrong ways of citation of the forgetfulness during the work. Most commonly, writers fail to reference the definitions of terms while using them in their work. Even if they do not intend to commit plagiarism, they are held responsible for such an act.

Plagiarism is fraud. It is a serious crime which is committed by a huge volume of people without even understanding the threshold of this activity and its effect on them and others who are being plagiarized. Thus, it is very important to avoid plagiarism and to always use tools that help avoiding plagiarism.