2023 Don't ruin your writing career by plagiarizing: How To Avoid Plagiarism

Your writing career can be destroyed by plagiarism. Discover what constitutes plagiarism and take these actions to safeguard your reputation.

"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" author and motivational speaker Stephen Covey asserts that "Trust is the ultimate level of human motivation." Your greatest strength as a writer is trust. Our confidence in and respect for you are simply expressed through your reputation. Sadly, plagiarism is the quickest and easiest method to undermine that confidence. It's a little more complicated than most people realize when it comes to preventing plagiarism.

Sometimes, accidental plagiarism happens due to incorrect citations or failing to include the necessary link. Additionally, plagiarism can be a serious problem for any form of writing, including blog posts, journalism, sales copy, and even scientific or medical writing from authors who created a idea. This manual will outline practical methods for avoiding plagiarism and describe what plagiarism actually is.

What Exactly Is Plagiarism, And When Is It Not?

A formal definition is provided by Merriam-Webster. Plagiarism is the intentional act of stealing someone else's ideas and presenting them as your own. But it's crucial to understand what counts as plagiarism and what doesn't. If the writing is original or if they cite their source, adopting one's ideas or even explaining them does not necessarily constitute plagiarism. For instance, if I create a brief blog post on the basics of SEO in my own words, I am not required to acknowledge or attribute the individual who initially coined the phrase SEO in order to avoid plagiarism.

The exchange of ideas is crucial for any field's knowledge base to grow. For instance, Nietzche's early thoughts might be seen to have been influenced by Schopenhauer without the latter explicitly citing the former. Anything else that is widely known also wouldn't count as plagiarism. I don't need to mention a source if I say Joe Biden is the president of the United States. Furthermore, one need not cite Caeser when using phrases like "crossing the Rubicon."

Plagiarism, on the other hand, is when content is copied practically verbatim from another person's work without giving due credit. Therefore, it would be intentional plagiarism if that last statement were copied and pasted into a blog. Furthermore, plagiarism may occur even when a message's words are changed but its ideas and meaning are practically verbatim those of another person's writing.

What Makes Plagiarism Bad.?

The statement "plagiarism is wrong" is so widely accepted in our culture that it practically doesn't need to be spoken. However, there are several ethical and practical arguments that should be emphasized against plagiarism:

It represents intellectual theft. It jeopardizes the author's credibility and reputation. Ignoring plagiarism creates a negative example for all fields of the arts and sciences. Plagiarism weakens your writing abilities and reveals your laziness as a writer.

When it occurs to you, it is unpleasant.

Having said that, I think the majority of instances of plagiarism result from ignorance or haste rather than some kind of malicious deed. common plagiarism sources, By making plans in advance and using new techniques, plagiarism can be readily avoided. For instance, a lot of academic students plagiarize because they put off doing their tasks or don't know how to correctly cite sources.

Some typical places where plagiarism appears are:

Intentional theft. Unreliable quotations. Research that was poorly paraphrased. Citing anything with a broken link. Not realizing that something isn't widely known. Use previously published work without acknowledging or properly referencing it. I've provided seven useful guidelines you may incorporate into your writing process to assist you to avoid plagiarism and maintain the integrity of your work.

1. When citing sources, take notes

Before you start writing, if you're anything like me, you probably open up a dozen or more tabs to do research on a subject. Plagiarism frequently results from merely neglecting to cite something you may have accidentally jotted down or added to a draft. Because of this, it's crucial to correctly document all the sources you cite, especially if your piece contains any direct quotes or you need to cite a study or statistic.

By adding comments, underlining, or hyperlinking to any content you are using from other people, you can keep track of what you're sourcing. If you're unsure if anything needs a source or not, include a hyperlink or citation just to be on the safe side. Linking to reputable third-party websites is regarded as best practice from an SEO perspective, regardless of.

2. Add in-text citations or links

The next step is to determine how you will credit the sources you use in your essay. Currently, a large portion of academia demands APA citations, thus you must include a footer after any quote from your source or a parenthetical citation, (Lieback, 2023). A simple citation for fields outside of academia can be made by placing a hyperlink over a section of the anchor text that refers to the source.

For instance, I might have used "Zeus," "CNN," or "the world's largest dog" as my anchor text for the source link if I was quoting Zeus as the largest dog in the world, according to CNN. Finally, in less formal domains outside of academia, including quotes and identifying the author or source's name can also be a sufficient kind of reference. For instance, quoting Steve Jobs as saying, "Stay hungry, Stay foolish," is sufficient without a formal citation or link.

3. Information With Original Thoughts

In most cases, especially in less formal writing, you won't need to cite sources if you are not reproducing someone else's ideas exactly. Ideally, I advise my writers to try paraphrasing concepts while yet presenting them in a fresh way. Use the information you learn from your study to bolster your own opinions and judgments, which you should come to independently once all the information is acquired.

This not only guarantees that your writing is clear, but it also develops your critical thinking skills. What good is it to write about someone else's thoughts if you aren't going to present a fresh viewpoint, one must question themselves. To ensure that you never plagiarize, treat the information you paraphrase as just that information, not as gospel.

4. Carry out Thorough Editing And Proofreading

The simplest method to avoid plagiarism is to identify it before a paper is published. Editing your writing and citations will help to guarantee that your work is clear and free from potential ethical lapses. Once more, make sure the writing is original and that the author came to their findings on their own. You'll become a better editor as a result of this.

5. Use A Plagiarism Checker Like Grammarly 

Plagiarism tools are tremendously beneficial for spotting mistakes that humans aren't likely to notice. I copied and pasted some text from a recent SEJ article into the Grammarly editor to test the plagiarism detection feature. The content I pasted matched what was written in the SEJ article, according to Grammarly. To use as a reference or citation for the content I pasted, it even provided a link to the SEJ article. The majority of webpage material can be found with tools like Grammarly, but they might not be able to find the text from books, PDFs, ebooks, or other stuff that hasn't been indexed by search engines.

6. Make a plan in advance

Procrastinating will prevent you from having enough time to edit your writing and compose your outlines. This enables you to keep track of all of your sources, determine how to properly reference them, and prevent additional mistakes.

7. Ensure that you only present original ideas.

This last topic discusses the ethos of writing. You won't ever have to be concerned about plagiarism if you make a resolution to be an independent writer and thinker. Most significantly, it will make you lot more successful. Avoiding plagiarism doesn't have to be tough, but it does involve strategy and dedication.