Assignments and thesis are the must-haves of academic courses for the students. Conducting research on the concepts and worrying about the deadlines is not enough, you also have to look after plagiarism.
Though the term directs to copying someone else’s idea, it cannot bring the same outcome for you. The aftermath of plagiarism is not limited to academia as bloggers, businesses, and artists need to ensure uniqueness in their work.
Even if you know about the need to deliver unique ideas in your assignment and content, you must also be well-versed with different facets of plagiarism.
That makes it essential to learn to avoid any trouble with your assignment and content. In this blog, we will emphasize different concepts related to plagiarism, the types, and ways to keep away from it.
What is plagiarism all about and what aftermath can it have?
The simplest way to define plagiarism is the act of using some other individual’s work as your own. The concept and the allegation of plagiarism can include using the same sentence structure, not providing the citation, or giving the wrong citation.
As per the definition found in Merriam-Website online dictionary, plagiarism includes stealing and sharing the ideas of someone as your own. If you attempt a literary theft, fail to credit the other person and present an older idea as new.
As a fraudulent act, plagiarism includes the wrongful act of thieving the idea or work of someone else. It can bring you serious repercussions as well. Here follows the list of aftermaths you can face being a plagiarist in college:
Academic Penalties
As a student, you can face severe consequences if you submit plagiarised work in your assignment. These can include grade penalties, expulsion, course failure, and suspension. You may even have to deal with disciplinary action, which can be as bad as a ban for extracurricular activities. In worst-case scenarios, you may even fail to get admission to some other academic institutes.
Damaged reputation
Being scarred by an allegation of plagiarism can be challenging for your academic career. That is because publishing is considered a requisite of a reputed academic career. If you lose the ability to publish, it can wreck your academic position. Acts like these can affect the foundation of your profession.
Hindrance in future contribution and research
For any attempt of plagiarism in research or academic program, you can get a ban from contributing to journals in any possible way. It can even disable you from getting sponsorship if you have plans for further research. As a result, it can be hard for you to find a way of smoothly pursuing the course ahead.
Lack of learning opportunities
Preparing assignments by yourself can familiarize you with the fundamental concepts. However, if you plagiarize, you step ahead with your career after missing out on the basics. You can even fail to learn about performing research, providing citations, and structuring a paper or an essay. You will also not be able to learn how to voice your thoughts.
Distrustful environment
Having a good student-teacher relationship is necessary for a positive learning environment. An accusation of plagiarism can ruin your respect, and teachers can lose their confidence in you. It can leave you in a learning space that is nothing but negative and cynical.
What are the types of plagiarism?
Plagiarism is not limited to using the third person’s work as your own, it has different forms. Here follows the list of the most common ones:
Complete plagiarism
Complete plagiarism can occur if you copy someone else’s work and submit it as your own. This form is nothing less than stealing thieving. Paying a third person to prepare the assignment can also come under plagiarism. To understand the situation better, you can consider the situation where a student hires academic writing services to complete his thesis.
Direct plagiarism
The concept of complete plagiarism is quite similar to that of direct plagiarism, except for a few things. Direct plagiarism refers to copying every word of a section of someone else’s work. Where complete plagiarism includes plagiarising an entire assignment, direct plagiarism is about certain sections or paragraphs. An example of this plagiarism is copying and submitting a 10-year-old research paper as yours.
Self-plagiarism
Self-plagiarism is also known as auto plagiarism. You can commit self-plagiarism if you submit an old work of yours or add some parts from it in the absence of permission from all the involved professors. Though self-plagiarism is not illegal in most cases, it can lead to ethical issues because it is an act of dishonesty and even literary theft. In several instances, it is nothing less than an attempt to save time and effort. However, nothing replaces the importance of citing the previously submitted.
Paraphrasing plagiarism
Paraphrasing revolves around using your words to present someone else’s idea without crediting them. Many students might not be aware that even paraphrasing is considered plagiarism. Whenever you present another person’s idea without citing them, it becomes stealing their work. Now, there are different ways to paraphrase a piece of text, including changing the sentence structure, adding synonyms, changing the voice of the text, and many others. Here is an example you can consider:
The actual sentence: Penny is a waitress in the Chinese restaurant on the avenue. It has been two years that she is working with them. She wants to support her parents and pay for her college.
The paraphrased sentence: Penny has been serving the Chinese restaurant as their waitress for the past two years. She pays for her college and extends financial support to her family also.
If you are in a state where you have to save time and effort, you can use paraphrasing tools like Smodin. To avoid any dispute, you must provide the acknowledgment to the original author.
Patchwork plagiarism
Also known as Mosiac plagiarism, Patchwork plagiarism refers to taking phrases, ideas, and sources from different sources and putting them together to present as a new text. Though this plagiarism can seem a subtle attempt with lower chances of getting caught, plagiarism checking tools such as Turnitin can detect it. The best way to describe patchwork plagiarism is by writing a paragraph for a paper that describes at least 3 points from 3 different sources.
Sourcework plagiarism
Source-based plagiarism can be hard to understand because it is about citations. It occurs when the writer cites the sources correctly but fails to present them. You can understand with an example: A student has taken a reference from a secondary source, but instead of citing it, they used the primary source. The primary source is what is used to create the secondary source. Situations such as citing incorrect sources also come under this kind of plagiarism.
Accidental plagiarism
Just as the name states, accidental plagiarism is what happens accidentally or without intention. It can include a failed attempt to understand the guidelines from the university, forgetting to cite the sources, or failing to add the quotes around the referred material. Though occurring unintentionally, even accidental plagiarism can have severe aftermaths, which can go as worse as a student failing the assignment.
How is accidental plagiarism different from intentional plagiarism?
Just as their names suggest, you can understand the difference between these kinds of plagiarisms through their titles. Where accidental plagiarism is about misusing the resource, intentionally occurring plagiarism is a form of cheating.
Instances, where one makes some changes to someone else’s work or combines their work without associating them with the original work, are also intentional. Accidental plagiarism can, however, include missing out on citation and attribution.
Frequently asked questions on plagiarism
What is the difference between paraphrasing and plagiarism?
As mentioned above, paraphrasing is rewriting the thoughts and ideas of some other person in their own words. Plagiarism is about copying someone else’s idea or words as your work. In paraphrasing, you can provide citations and references to the original source, plagiarism can include wrong or no citations. Another difference is that many plagiarism tools cannot rectify the properly paraphrased content but can identify the plagiarized ones.
Though paraphrasing can be seen as plagiarism, one can escape the acquisition by providing citations to them.
- How is plagiarism detected?
There are different ways university instructors can detect plagiarism. Firstly, a plagiarized section can have a different tone in comparison to the remaining text, which the professors can identify. If you have submitted assignments previously, they can also check your writing style in the previous ones. Moreover, there are plagiarism detecting tools like Turnitin, which can catch plagiarism.
- How to avoid plagiarism?
As a student, you must know that plagiarism can have serious repercussions. Nevertheless, with proper measures, you can avoid plagiarism and its aftermath. Here follows the list of the same:
- Do not copy: When using other people’s ideas, describe their influence and importance in your text. You must avoid the cut and paste option provided by the electronic mediums as you may get carried away by the ease of effort.
- Use quotation marks: If you want to use the exact thoughts and words from others’ work, you must use quotation marks to present the direct quotes. Use them in restricted formats, avoid texts in large amounts, and give references.
- Make notes: When making notes from the sources, use quotation marks and keep a track of sources. Apart from avoiding plagiarism, this technique can also help you gather references easier in your writing.
- Use many sources: You must refer to many resources to prepare your assignment. It can even show your efforts of using multiple references, and you have created your ideas accordingly. Saving from plagiarism is already a win-win.
- Use plagiarism checker: There are many online plagiarism checkers which you can use to identify the percentage of plagiarism in your text. We recommend using Smodin Plagiarism Checker. If you found plagiarism beforehand, you can change the text before submission.
- Cite properly: You must always cite references and check them thoroughly before submitting them. It can save you from unintentional plagiarism attempts and showcase your efforts properly.
Final Thoughts
Just as essential as it is for you to submit assignments on time, ensuring the delivery of unique text also holds importance. After all, nobody would want to deal with the aftermath of plagiarism. In this blog, you have just become versed with the concepts of plagiarism, their consequences, and how you can deal with them.