How to Avoid Plagiarism in your Assignments?
Plagiarism means copying one’s work and presenting it as yours. Plagiarism in your assignments is considered as an act of cheating in the field of academics and is dealt with very strictly. If plagiarism is found in academic assignments, students generally loose valuable credits and have to rewrite their assignments again from the scratch. In some cases students have also been failed by their teachers due to plagiarism in their assignments. Hence it is a necessity of the highest order that you should stay away from plagiarism in your assignments. This article explains the ways to avoid plagiarism in your assignments and will help students ensure that their assignments are free of plagiarism.
Definition of Plagiarism
Often students wonder “what is plagiarism?” when they check the guidelines of their assignments. Plagiarism is copying or using someone’s work in your own content without any modifications or additions, and not giving them the credits in your content. Plagiarism in your assignments is the theft of someone’s intellectual property and an act of cheating in the field of academics.
Plagiarism can be classified into various forms:
- Using other’s work without citations
This occurs when some texts, images or data have been collected and used in exactly same form without acknowledging the author in the new content. To prevent it to happen, it is always advised to add citations for any content or information which has been taken from a different source.
- Copying without any modifications
Plagiarism is detected when the content is copied from a source and published without any modifications. Plagiarism in your assignments can be avoided by changing the words with their synonyms, changing the structure and format of the content, adding relevant information which are missing in the original content.
Steps to avoid Plagiarism in your Assignments
- Going through numerous academic articles to gather information and writing them in your own words while adding your own ideas in the content will almost certainly negate the chances of plagiarism. One of the best ways to avoid plagiarism in your assignments is to have a good knowledge of the source from where the information have been collected.
- Research should be carried out from all possible high authority websites and keep a track of the citations used on those articles. Same citations are to be provided in your own work to give credit to the authors of the original content. One should be careful not to collect information from dubious websites, as those websites may lack proper citations.
- Sparingly quoting someone in your content is another way to avoid plagiarism in your assignments. One should try to quote somebody in their content when those words bring more value in the work rather than using own words. This would reduce the chances of plagiarism.
- It is always a good idea to approach the author and seek his/her permission to use their article in your content before publishing your work. Keep a copy of the same to avoid any kind of false accusations in the future.
- Before publishing your work check it on websites like Turnitin, Copyscape, or Grammarly for plagiarism. If you happen to find any plagiarism in your content, replace it with your own ideas or some other piece of original content. These tools are an excellent way to avoid plagiarism in your assignment, as they help the author identify the plagiarised content using AI.
FAQs
How to know if my content is plagiarized?
If you have quoted somebody or have used an idea or content from any source without citing them in your work, then it is plagiarism. Even paraphrasing an idea in your own words without citing the original source would result in plagiarism. Even if you have not referred to any other content while writing your work, you should check your content on tools like ‘Turnitin’ for any possible plagiarism.
Does paraphrasing a content lead to plagiarism?
If you have paraphrased a content without citing the source and author, then it would result in plagiarism. Citations are not just required while directly quoting someone other’s work, but also required if an idea from any source has been used in your content.
Is using charts and figures from another source in my content plagiarism?
Yes, using charts and figures from another source in your content would lead to plagiarism in your assignments, if you fail to cite the resources properly in your content.
Can I use my own written content from another course?
Ideally using your own written content cannot be held into plagiarism, but if it has been taken from a different course, then it is better to cite the source. Content from a different source will be treated as alien and a generally require to be cited properly.