WHAT IS PLAGIARISM AND HOW TO PREVENT IT?
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism came from the Latin word "plagiarus" meaning kidnapper or seducer, but that definition has evolved over the years. Although kidnapping the intellectual property of another writer still applies in contemporary times, it is simpler to say that plagiarism is "presenting someone else's ideas or work as your own." In short, it is cheating and stealing.
As content consumption continuously and exponentially increases online, content creators are compelled to produce new articles consistently.
A lack of new ideas pushes people to take the unconventional, and plagiarize.
Why do people plagiarize?
Plagiarism has many faces and colors. You'll be surprised to know that plagiarism is very popular among students as it is with writers for similar reasons:
Laziness - laziness made it to the top for obvious reasons. They don't want to burn their eyebrows reading and studying, so they copy.
They lack confidence - instead of putting things in their own words and risk failing, they will just copy from a trusted source
They are having difficulty connecting their ideas with that of the resources or of experts. This may be a continuation of having less to no self-confidence in terms of literary composition.
They are confused - this is true for students who have a flair for memorization. They memorize their resources word-for-word and end up confusing themselves about whose words are those or which resource material.
They are trying to learn - Patch writing is writing or rewriting an article by inverting the order of words from the resource material to mimic the style of experts.
They are panicking - Deadlines can really make us cranky. When they are running out of time and have too much left to do, that is when plagiarism comes in.
They lack imagination - they lack the same level of imagination their favorite authors have, so they copy hoping one day it will rub some imagination on their shoulders and start slaying.
They lack integrity.
Among writers though, plagiarism can be serious trouble.
What are the different types of plagiarism?
VERBATIM PLAGIARISM - this is the direct word-for-word copy of someone else’s work (copy and paste), otherwise called Direct Plagiarism. This serious offense became more popular during the rise of copy and paste feature of the word processor in the 70s.
MOSAIC PLAGIARISM - this is by combining materials from unique resources without citation. Normally, we use footnotes or quotation marks to emphasize the exact passage from a resource material that we borrowed, the absence of it is plagiarism.
SELF-PLAGIARISM - this one is moderate. With self-plagiarism, you will violate no one else’s literary piece but your own. This is re-using your own (previously published) materials and passing them as fresh ideas.
INCORRECT CITATION -this violation is to provide a vague citation, thus not giving proper credit to the source. They otherwise called this accidental plagiarism.
GLOBAL PLAGIARISM - this is the most severe of all the plagiarism types, global plagiarism is taking someone else’s entire work and claiming them as your own. This is a whole new level of stealing.
How can you avoid plagiarism?
Not all cases of plagiarism are intentional though, some are just unaware of the existence of original material, in this situation you can avoid plagiarism by conducting rigorous research.
It is necessary to allocate enough time to complete your article. Enough time to search, edit and mention all the resources as clearly as you can to avoid any confusion.
Develop a specific habit (and stick with it) for note-taking so as not to confuse which source came from where.
It's easy to say you create a unique article, but proving it is an entirely different story.
Be cautious about the five-word rule. If you use five consecutive words identical to previously published material, then you are guilty of plagiarism.
According to the study conducted by the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMS) published by researchgate.net, there are five simple rules to avoid plagiarism. My take on this? It pays to be original. There are many references you can find on how to avoid plagiarism, but the simplest of all is, to keep it real, rephrase, use synonyms, and RESEARCH more than usual.
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