In your academic life, you can never run away from writing essays and research papers. Imagine you have an assignment to write a research paper your final examination. The research paper will require you to do thorough research in libraries, and laboratories, and access electronic resources, which involve the reuse of other borrowing ideas from other author’s work. How will you know if you have plagiarized the source?
With the rise of the internet in today’s digital era, the concept of reusing someone’s original work is likely to spike more excitement rather than resentment. In institutions, with the rise and spread of the internet, a world overflowing with information has been born. The internet has made it easier to obtain and access information available in cyberspace thus making plagiarism a matter in question that is becoming prevalent in the academic world today.
Exploring the term plagiarism
What is plagiarism? Before you begin any research, you need to understand what plagiarism is. Well, the concept of presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, and incorporating it into your work without citing or giving edits to the author is considered plagiarism. However, it is ultimately important to understand that plagiarism does not only present itself in copying other people’s work, but it can also include reusing your work without citation.
The essential requirement is to acknowledge other people’s work and ideas not only applies to text but also in other media such as computer codes, graphs, and illustrations. Additionally, it applies to published data and text drawn from books, and journals, and to unpublished texts and data, whether from lectures or fellow students’ essays. Attributions should also be included for text, data, and other resources downloaded from the website.
Imagine your lecturer has assigned you a research paper, which involves research from multiple resources, therefore, you need to understand the best tips to cite your sources to avoid plagiarism. Several tips can guide you as a student to avoid plagiarism, one of the most effective ways of steering clear of plagiarism is to employ good academic practice from the beginning of your university career. It does not only involve referencing or paraphrasing but rather it is about deploying your academic skills to make your work as good as it can be.
Plagiarism is like an incurable disease in most institutions thus students can benefit from taking an online course that has been developed to provide a useful overview of all issues arising from plagiarism and practical ways to avoid it.
