How To Avoid Plagiarism

As education becomes more widespread, so too does the crime of plagiarism, especially in the university sector. Of course, there are students who will actively and knowingly choose to plagiarise, but not all those found guilty of plagiarism were intending to commit a crime. Lack of understanding or ability with regard to paraphrasing and summarising are often responsible.
Definition of Plagiarism
To plagiarise means to present someone else’s work as one’s own. In college or university terms, plagiarism is revealed in written assignments when students have included sections of text which have been copied from the Internet, a textbook or other students.
Avoiding Plagiarism
For the majority of topics, when students do research, they will find much available, both in textbooks and online. Often, they will feel they can’t describe or explain a topic any better than it has been presented by others. This, can lead them to be tempted to use text from references found, which they feel explains a difficult concept or aspect clearly. However, using even a sngle sentence from someone else’s work can result in a student being found guilty of plagiarism.
Many students feel that changing key words and replacing with them with synonyms is safe because it presents the information differently. However, it’s important for students to understand that not only must key words be changed, but the sentence structure must also be changed. If key words are changed, yet the sentence structure remains unchanged, a student is just as likely to be accused of plagiarism as if no changes were made.
How to Paraphrase
Paraphrasing is a skill that every student needs to develop if they are to avoid plagiarism. Essentially, paraphrasing means giving the same information but in a different way, i.e., presenting information in one’s own words. To do this effectively, students should read around their given topic thoroughly. Once they have a clear understanding of the topic, they should read the most useful articles a second time in order to extract and make notes of key words (not phrases or sentences) as well as any vital numerical data.
Before beginning to write, all reference materials should be removed from sight. Then, with nothing more than key words and numerical data that has been recorded from original texts, students can begin to write. As a guide, successful paraphrasing will not significantly alter the word count from an original document as paraphrasing is simply a way of presenting the same information in one’s own words.
How to Summarise
Summarising means to present only the key points of any topic i.e., all supporting detail should be eliminated. It is a skill that students will find useful when they come to present the main ideas on a given topic. As less information is being presented in a summary, there is less of a risk of falling foul of plagiarism rules. However, it is still essential that key points are presented by students using original text and form, so the guidelines given for paraphrasing should still be followed.
Detecting Plagiarism
As plagiarism is considered a serious crime, i.e., theft of intellectual property, mechanisms are constantly being developed to detect offences, and universities are increasingly using them to identify cases of plagiarism. “Turnitin” is one such system that universities use.
Essentially, when an assignment is received, lecturers are required to run it through the university’s chosen plagiarism system. The systems search the Internet with amazing speed and will identify every element of an essay that is structured identically to every other article that exists on a given topic. Not only is plagiarised text identified, but the systems identify exactly where the text has been “stolen” from. Searches are not only carried out on original documents produced in the home country; these systems are extensive, which means a worldwide search is carried out.
Warning for Students
Many students, fearful that their work will be considered to be plagiarised, will run assignments through online plagiarism detection systems before submitting them to their professors in order to ensure they are considered “clean.” However, students should be warned that once a piece of work has been put through any online plagiarism detection system, it will show up as plagiarised when a university professor submits it for testing.
Eliminating Concern
As universities strive to “clamp down” on plagiarism, students are becoming increasingly concerned that they will fall foul of detection systems; however, employing the skills of paraphrasing and summarising and faithfully presenting a topic in one’s own words, should eliminate the need for concern among students as it is very unlikely that anyone will choose exactly the same words and structure as another, no matter what topic is being discussed.

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