What Is Plagiarism? How To Avoid It? Tips And Tricks From The Expert

Is plagiarism a crime? One may ask. Well according to popular opinions, plagiarism is an act of using material of someone else’s own. It is about stealing other people’s opinions, work and ideas and presenting them as they belong to you. It is very common in student culture. When I was given an academic assignment and they fail to do it by the given deadline and now running out of time. Students often tend to copy someone else’s work and submit it to their tutor pretending that it is theirs.

It is a fraud that includes the theft of someone else’s ideas, followed by lying about them and presenting them as if they are yours.

At times plagiarism is considered unintentional, Students often don’t know the proper way to give credit to the original creator of any work, especially when they don’t know the appropriate sources to use.

Plagiarism is a strictly unethical act and is considered a very serious offense. Especially in an academic society. And since it is a serious offense that is why it leads to serious punishments and penalties as well.

Copying someone’s sales work just shows how you have failed as a person to uphold your integrity as a person. Therefore, plagiarism must be avoided at all costs. For one thing, when you apply for any educational institution, you must prove what you are capable of doing. They expect you to be able to express your thoughts and ideas after getting a sufficient education. Any institute expects you to have your authentic voice instead of hiding behind someone else’s. They expect you to have your critical thinking and be able to provide your arguments regarding any academic question as well as able to draw conclusions based on your arguments. And that is why students who praise the work of others in their academic career are disrupting the expectations and ethics of their educational institute. Plagiarism work can lead to serious consequences. Ranging from penalties to getting expelled as well. So if you plagiarize your work then it means that you are putting your academic career at great risk.

Types Of Plagiarism

» Complete Plagiarism:

Complete pluralism means copying someone else’s entire work and submitting it as your own. It is the most common type of plagiarism. And students tend to do this alone. They often submit the work of their seniors or their peers as their own. It is like stealing or borrowing someone else’s work and presenting it as their own.

» Direct Plagiarism:

It is somewhat similar to complete plagiarism. Because here as well you are using other’s work and submitting it as your own. But in direct plagiarism. Instead of copying the entire work as you do incomplete plagiarism. You are copying certain parts or sections of it without giving credit to the original author. Students often think that they can get away with direct plagiarism. But it leads to serious consequences as well. And in extreme cases, a student ends up getting expelled as well.

» Paraphrasing:

It is also pretty popular in student culture and they do not even consider it plagiarism. Paraphrasing plagiarism occurs when a student rephrases the work of someone else and explains it in their own words. It is unethical as well because you are not coming up with new ideas and opinions. You are simply borrowing someone else’s ideas, rewording them, and presenting it as your own.

» Self-Plagiarism:

Suppose you wrote a research paper as your academic assignment. And later on, you got a similar assignment related to the similar topic you did earlier. Then a student tends to copy some of the content of their previous work. And they think that it is inoffensive since they are copying their previous work instead of someone else’s. Well, they are wrong because self-plagiarism is just as wrong as any other form of plagiarism and can lead to dire consequences.

» Mosaic Plagiarism:

In this type of plagiarism, you take a chunk of someone else’s work, add some of your thoughts to it and then present it as your own. You may think that it is not wrong since you have added your thoughts to it as well. But it is just as wrong as the other form of plagiarism. Though it is often hard to detect because the work is so nicely rephrased that it can get hard for the tutor to detect it and the student often gets away with it easily.

» Misleading Sources:

This type of plagiarism includes when a person add made up sources, misleading sources, or presents any one source instead of two. It also includes when an author adds inaccurate sources in their work as well. Some of the authors even make up false sources and add them to their research work. Which also makes it hard to detect as well.

» Incidental Plagiarism:

In this type of plagiarism, the author does not realize that they are using the work of someone else. They are unaware of the copy-pasting of other people’s work. And it often includes incorrectly or not citing the sources at all. Or not highlighting the cited work in their paper.

Though it is accidental, it can lead to serious consequences because you simply failed to acknowledge the work of someone else due to your technical mistakes.