Plagiarism is not always a conscious
effort on the part of students. Sometimes it so happens that you pick up the
matter and put it in your paper, without even realizing that you're
plagiarizing. In fact, it’s one of the commonest mistakes that professors come
across in assignments. But common as it may be, it's still a very serious
blunder – one that should be avoided at all costs. In many universities,
plagiarism is considered to be a criminal offense, and it not only affects your
grades, but it also has the power to jeopardize your future and your career.
However, trends show that plagiarism mostly arises when you write your paper at
the last moment. In such cases, you will need urgent advice on how to avoid
plagiarism, and tips from assignment help writers can be of great help.
Writers at assignment help service
agencies are very familiar with working at the last minute since they have to
work on multiple assignments with strict deadlines. They know how to avoid
plagiarism no matter the situation, and you can learn the ways too by through
the ones that have been listed below.
1. Get as much background information
as you can on your topic
Even if you’re tempted to use the
internet for typing ‘write my assignment’
and just get rid of the headache, you have to resist the temptation and search
for your assignment topic instead. You have to familiarize yourself with the
subject of your paper as only then will your chances of writing in your own
words will increase. Read as much as you can so that you understand
terminologies, concepts and theories thoroughly. You can make use of both the
internet and your school or public library for this purpose. The key here is to
absorb information from as many sources as possible to reduce your chances of
plagiarizing unconsciously.
2. Learn the art of paraphrasing
You may feel that eureka moment when
you finally find that information that you need and have been looking for, but
you cannot just copy-paste it onto your paper. The ideal thing to do, assignment
help tutors say, is first to read it thoroughly, understand it and then get
down to writing it in your own words.
However, if you must copy – for example complex jargon that cannot be
changed or names of articles, books, people, etc. – ensure that you still do
not paste verbatim more than two words from your chosen source of information.
If you do decide to copy more than two words, put the entire copied section in
quotation marks and remember to cite the source.
3. Keep track of the sources of
information you’ve gathered
Printed or electronic, you need to make
a list of every piece of information you’ve collected if you want to save
yourself from plagiarism. Keeping a stack of books on your study desk won’t do
as its very likely you’ll get confused about what you took from where and may
not always be able to find the exact page number or the correct passage. The
same holds true for the electronic sources such as PDFs and web articles.
Therefore, you need to keep proper tabs on these or whatever your write can be
counted as plagiarized by your professor. Make a list that contains the page
number, the paragraph number, the book title, the author’s name and the
publishing house and edition date for offline resources. As for online
resources, if it’s a book, you’ll have to put in the same details along with
the URL. The same holds true for web articles, although you can chuck the
paragraph number and edition, and instead write the date of publication and the
time at which you accessed the URL (if your university or school asks you to).
Remember to use this list for referencing.
4. Cite everything appropriately
For this, you’ll need to do a little
bit of research on your own about the different referencing styles and how to
use them. Alternatively, you can even ask your teacher or professor to train
you in the referencing style they want you to use for their assignment. Citing
can go a long way as it is the best way to avoid any plagiarism issue
whatsoever. Although citation may seem like a big challenging at first due to
its apparently complex nature, it's not all that difficult. All it requires is
a little bit of practice and patience.
5. Keep your original ideas separately
Just like we asked to you to make a
list of all the borrowed ideas, you have to make a separate list of all your
original ideas too to prevent mix-ups. For this reason, it’ll be safer for you
to get printouts of the articles you’ve taken from the internet. This will also
help you in annotating correctly and will considerably reduce the risk of
plagiarism. Furthermore, keeping the draft of your essay and your notes
separately is also a good idea. This way you can guarantee cutting and pasting
from the original source directly without giving credit. It’ll also help you
draw a boundary between your ideas and those of others, and will dramatically
cut down the chance of unconscious plagiarism.
6. Finally, know what doesn’t require
citation
It’s ordinary to get nervous and end up
citing every little thing that you’ve come across. While you may call this
playing safe, it’s not really necessary to annotate everything. That can be
very painful to do and can also be a hassle for your professor to go through.
You don’t need to give references for things such as folklore, common
observations, urban legends, famous events in history, your own personal
experiences, and your own works of art etc. These don't count as plagiarism so
you don't have to worry about them.
You can take a look at online video
tutorials if you don’t understand how to cite in different styles. You can also
look up on the different types of plagiarism to have a crystal clear idea about
the concept which can help you to understand when you’re plagiarizing. All in
all, these tips will prevent you from plagiarizing and will save you from
losing valuable grades.
