Avoiding Plagiarism

Academic writing is a very specific field that is familiar to all college students as a means of communication with teachers and expressing one’s thoughts. In addition to stylistic, grammatical, formatting, and other requirements, avoidance of plagiarism is one of the key characteristics which professors use in assessing a paper. Plagiarism is defined as presenting somebody else’s ideas as one’s own. It is vital that plagiarizing be avoided in academic writing and all the resources used in the research cited properly. However, sometimes students tend to plagiarize unconsciously because of lack of knowledge about what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. In this article, I'll try to concentrate on some of the reasons why students cheat and on some of the effective means and tips on how to avoid plagiarizing in college writing, which should be essential for all the students who want to succeed in their studies. Important note: use plagiarism search (https://plagiarismsearch.com) to check your articles before submitting them.

Plagiarism and academic cheating have become problems of major concern for instructors. According to Jones, 92% of students cheated at least once or know somebody who cheated while 59% indicated that they cheated intentionally. As far as Internet plagiarizing is concerned, 50% reported the cases of plagiarism and 67% admitted to intentional plagiarizing. These statistics show that most students are aware of their dishonesty but are prompted to do so due to some specific reasons. Thus, Jones indicated that three top reasons for plagiarizing are grades (92%), procrastination (83%), and lack of time (75%). Surprisingly, a recent Internet poll revealed that 77% of students do not consider plagiarizing a serious matter. Indeed, sometimes it is a challenge for a student to balance his/her studies and personal life, but the light-hearted attitude to plagiarizing should be changed on a wide scale. That is why educational establishments are interested in originality and personal achievements of students, which makes them create plagiarism and cheating policies.For example, at the University of Central Florida (https://www.ucf.edu/) instructors disseminate knowledge about plagiarism and cheating by issuing academic integrity policy; reviewing and checking students’ understanding of this policy; providing the relevant tutorials; using plagiarism detection software; establishing citing requirements and teaching proper formatting; raising students’ academic ethics, etc. It is essential for an educational establishment to make students aware of the requirements for plagiarism and dishonesty before punishing them for not fulfilling them. Means of reaching this goal might vary from institution to institution, but the scope of such a policy should be to disseminate knowledge about plagiarism and reduce this phenomenon to a minimum. It is equally important to establish an atmosphere of high ethical and learning standards so that students could feel responsible for their actions, grades, etc. In this case plagiarism will cease as being beyond one’s dignity.Baker highlights the importance of seven Rs in expressing one’s opinion and avoiding plagiarism: responsibility (the author should be responsible for the content and cite properly); review of the literature (allows duplication of thoughts, prevents unconscious plagiarizing); relevance (interpretation of other people’s thoughts should be appropriate and accurate); rights (it is legally important to observe the author’s rights for a publication); recording (incorrect citing is also considered to be plagiarism); revising (is important for detecting possible drawbacks in writing and cases of plagiarism); repercussions (is an inevitable process that should be controlled by authors, editors, etc.). Indeed, Baker’s seven Rs might be used effectively as a checklist for students; nevertheless, it covers the key features of plagiarism avoidance but does not provide a step-by-step instruction of how to train oneself to express one’s thoughts without plagiarizing. In this regard, it is important to refer to specialized staff – librarians, instructors, editors, etc.– for prompt assistance. It is also essential that students are taught not only how to avoid plagiarism but how to research effectively summarizing the key information from the bulk of data available. Thus, the credibility of sources is of utmost importance: blogs and non-official sites are inappropriate for academic writing.Burkill & Abbey add some other useful ways of avoiding plagiarism, such as keeping notes and records about the sources; proper use, and citation of Internet resources; including the bibliography page at the end of every assignment. The authors also recommend the active use of plagiarism-related resources, using every opportunity to communicate with tutors instead of cheating, and citing properly. As far as proper citation is concerned, it should not be a problem for a student because many online resources provide the ready-made citation in one of the three most popular styles; in other cases, online educational resources provide information on the correct citation of journals, magazines, sites, books, etc. Luckily, modern students cannot complain of lacking knowledge about plagiarism, as there are numerous tutorials, useful sites, and other resources to teach this matter. Instructors, in their turn, complete various reference materials, set creative assignments where intentional plagiarizing is almost impossible, use plagiarism detection software, etc.All this is done in order to induce students to avoid plagiarism, which is an important ethical, social, and academic matter. Overall, in order to ensure the high quality of education and instruction, each student should be aware of the definition of plagiarism in academic writing and how to avoid it. Out of numerous tips on how to avoid plagiarism, one seems of utmost importance: it is vital that any thought or idea which does not belong to the author of the paper is properly referenced. If this premise is fulfilled, there will be no problem with such a paper, even after it is checked with special plagiarism-detection software.