Plagiarism is the theft of someone else's written works. Plagiarism can happen when sources are not properly cited, an idea is taken, or the content is copied. As a writer, it is important to know what plagiarism is and the lasting effects it could have on you if you are accused of plagiarising. It is something that all writers should be particularly careful of. Whenever information is cited, the source should be cited as an in-text citation or as a footnote unless the information is common knowledge or is a generally-accepted fact. Not citing the sources is a violation of the author's intellectual property rights and the writer may be sued for copyright infringement.
Plagiarism can be avoided by knowing how to use citation styles correctly. There are many citation styles such as APA, MLA, Harvard, Turabian, Chicago, etc. These are different styles of citing sources and the style that would be used would depend mainly on the requirements of the paper or the writer's preferences. Citing is the most common rule for avoiding plagiarism but the use of quotation marks is also recommended. Whenever you use a writer's original words or coined terms, it is imperative that you use quotation marks followed by proper citations. All sources should be cited even if it is an Internet source to avoid plagiarism.
Before, it would take tedious examination to detect plagiarism but technology has provided new means of detecting plagiarism. Simply searching some keywords in Internet search engines such as Google for matches could determine if there is plagiarism. A new method for detecting plagiarism is through the use of plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin.com. This is however not very reliable since it detects similar texts from different sources and human jurisdiction should decide whether a plagiarism report from Turnitin or any other plagiarism detection software is really plagiarism.
Plagiarism can be avoided by knowing how to use citation styles correctly. There are many citation styles such as APA, MLA, Harvard, Turabian, Chicago, etc. These are different styles of citing sources and the style that would be used would depend mainly on the requirements of the paper or the writer's preferences. Citing is the most common rule for avoiding plagiarism but the use of quotation marks is also recommended. Whenever you use a writer's original words or coined terms, it is imperative that you use quotation marks followed by proper citations. All sources should be cited even if it is an Internet source to avoid plagiarism.
Before, it would take tedious examination to detect plagiarism but technology has provided new means of detecting plagiarism. Simply searching some keywords in Internet search engines such as Google for matches could determine if there is plagiarism. A new method for detecting plagiarism is through the use of plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin.com. This is however not very reliable since it detects similar texts from different sources and human jurisdiction should decide whether a plagiarism report from Turnitin or any other plagiarism detection software is really plagiarism.
