Plagiarism is a serious and sensitive issue, and it is very common nowadays. However, it is also common for schools and universities to use special software in order to detect it. If your paper is plagiarized, be sure that your teacher or professor will find out, and you will get in trouble.
Still, you need to use certain resources in your paper or refer to scientific articles. Not to mention that the topic of your essay has already been debated thousands of times before. In this situation, it is perfectly reasonable to wonder what are some ways to avoid plagiarism or simply order it from writing service.
Effective ways to avoid plagiarism
In some cases, when your instructor tells you that your paper contains plagiarized parts, you can’t figure out how this was possible. You did not use copy-paste, and you wrote the entire essay by yourself. So, what is the explanation for this? You can make mistakes without even realizing, such as not citing your sources or using phrases that belong to someone without noticing. To avoid this, read further to find out what are the best ways to avoid plagiarism.
- Keep your notes and your drafts separate
When you take notes, you usually copy some phrases or sentences exactly as they are in the resource. This is not wrong because you get the main ideas on a separate piece of paper, which will help you to understand the support better and decide what ideas to include in your essay. But too many students use these notes as drafts and, this way, they end up with plagiarized fragments. In order to avoid this, keep your notes separate from your drafts.
- Don’t forget about quotation marks
An excellent way to avoid plagiarism is to use quotation marks any time you write a few words, a phrase, a sentence or a full paragraph from your resources. No matter if you write this in your notes, drafts, or essay, it is important not to skip this step. This way, you avoid a lot of troubles.
For example, when you take notes, you may use your own words from some ideas while for others, you will use the author’s words. This happens especially when you study a technical or scientific article. But when you’re writing an essay, how will you know what notes you can use as they are and which ones you need to rephrase? Using quotation marks is the solution to this issue.
Moreover, a phrase or a fragment that you quote and for which you cite the source will not be considered plagiarized. This kind of reference is very common, and it can improve the quality of your essay, making it much more reliable. But without quotation marks and the cited sources, they will be perceived as plagiarized.
- Make use of paraphrasing
When it comes to ways to avoid plagiarism for students, one of the best options is to paraphrase carefully the ideas you take from your resources. As it was already mentioned, most probably you have to use some specific sources or refer to particular academic articles when writing your essay. But of course, copying them in your paper is not the right solution. You must rephrase the information you find. To do this properly, you must make sure you understand the text well, and then put it in your own words.
- Avoid writing blind
Writing blind means to start typing words or even whole phrases that you have read or heard and do not belong to you, without even realizing this. This usually happens when you are too tired or in a hurry, and you can’t focus enough on your piece of writing. Also, when you do this, it is very likely to write in an ambiguous way or introduce fluff content.
