As writers, we worry about someone taking credit for our handiwork. Stealing it and then presenting it as their own. Shouldn't we be careful not to do the same to others?
What is Plagiarism?
The Oxford Dictionary defines it as:
The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.
Let's say you're writing an article for a publication or say your company's newsletter, and you find an article online that's full of great information. So you take several parts of that article, change a few words around and submit it without giving credit to the original author. That's Plagiarism, and it can lead to serious consequences.
In school taking credit for someone else's work could mean you fail an assignment or class or face disciplinary action. In the workplace, this could do damage to your reputation. It could have legal repercussions. You could even lose your job.
Accidental Plagiarism
Even if you have no intention of plagiarising, you may accidentally do it, such as forgetting to cite a source or misquoting someone, which can quickly get you in trouble. Accidental plagiarism could happen to you if you've not mastered publication ethics.
You don't need to panic though. There are a few strategies to avoid that.
How to Avoid Plagiarism
1. Always Cite Your Sources
Showing where you found your information gives credit to the authors and helps reinforce the legitimacy of your content.
2. Quote the Source's Exact Words
When inserting a quote in your article, place quotation marks (") around it, and be sure to include the author's name in the same sentence.
Seatbelts help you drive safely, Quotation marks help you write safely.
There's no author mentioned for the quote above because I just made it up.
3. Be Clear and Upfront
Be clear and upfront about where you get your information and you'll be free to create original content you can be proud of.
4. Rewrite in your own words
When you want to discuss information from a source without quoting it directly, It's important you rewrite that information in your own words. Along with citing the source, use different language and sentence structure, and explore the source's ideas from your own perspective.
Only changing a few words here & there is also considered plagiarism. To paraphrase, understand the meaning of the originally written piece, then use your own words to express that meaning and be careful to prevent any changes in the meaning. If you're not confident of paraphrasing seek help from your co-authors, work buddies, or English speaking colleagues.
This strategy can help you say something new, original, and plagiarism-free.
Tools for Detection of Plagiarism
As a writer, I feel that we should respect other people's work and not steal their ideas. In this aspect, I've found Plagiarism checkers useful. They help us protect our copyrights.
After consulting with fellow writers, I've curated a few tools below:
- Grammarly. Their free plagiarism checker will tell you whether or not your text contains duplicate content. The Premium plagiarism checker on the other hand highlights passages that require citations and gives you the resources you need to properly credit your sources.
- Dupli Checker. All you have to do is paste your text in their search box and submit it for checking. In a few seconds, you get the results. The results are in terms of pie charts which show the percentage of uniqueness, % of plagiarized & relevant text (Text to Uniqueness) as well as the source that it originates from. Piece of Cake, isn't it?. This is my favorite tool, because of the range of free services it provides.
- Plagiarisma. It detects copyright infringement in your essays, research paper, coursework, or dissertation. It supports Google, Yahoo, Bing, Scholar, and Books. It also supports 190+ languages.
Copyscape and Search Engine Reports are some honorable mentions.
Be Original
There is so much information accessible to us at our fingertips. So much that we start to consider other people's thoughts as our own. We become lazy and make a cocktail of information from various sources and conjure an article out of it. We can't really call that our own work, can we?
After collecting all the sources about your topic, take a step back. Take your time and develop your own ideas about it. This will feel like your soul is participating in the activity.
Doing this develops a knack for original thinking. Don't get me wrong, it is always valuable to have other people's ideas as a head start. Your writing will have as much worth as the originality of your thoughts.
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