Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism - Essay Example

?PLAGIARISM Introduction Giving credit to source and people from whom we pick ideas, words and research concepts do not defeat our scholastic credential of being insightful but rather promotes our academic credential of being resourceful. There indeed exists several students who have a feeling that once they acknowledge the sources from where they take concepts, ideas and points to write their own essays, it means they are not original and cannot be insightful with coming up with their own ideas and thoughts. Because of this, they prefer to keep their sources undisclosed. This is however a serious academic liability that has come to be known as plagiarism. According to the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), plagiarism is “both the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another’s work” (Tucci and Galwankar, 2011). In simple terms, the use of another person’s work without giving due acknowledge to the source constitutes plagiarism. The first step towards avoiding plagiarism is to admit that adhering to the strategies for avoiding plagiarism makes a person no less of a great writer. The following paragraphs of the essay are used to lay out how students can strategized their writing to avoid cases and instances of plagiarism in a wake of an era when plagiarism is gaining more and prominence throughout universities in the world. Strategies for avoiding Plagiarism One of the first strategies to avoiding plagiarism is to identify the appropriate mechanism instituted in the selection of a group of words belonging to another person. By academic provisions, a student is expected to either paraphrase a group of words belonging to another person or bring quotation marks when the words are taken verbatim (University of Michigan’s Scholarly Publishing Office, 2006). This means that for a group of words that are used in the exact manner as were used by the original owner, the person who is reusing those words is expected to put the words in quotation marks. An example of this is “plagiarism is an aspect of academic dishonesty”. Where the writer does not use the same words as those of the original writer but takes out the central idea to form his or her own sentence, what is expected to be done is called paraphrasing. An example can be cited with the same example above to read as ‘plagiarism remains a critical component of academic dishonesty’. From the structure of the paraphrased sentence, it can be seen that the central theme of the original message is maintained while keeping about the same number of words. It is in light of this that the Durkin University (2012) states that “a paraphrase is the rephrasing of a short passage from a text, in about the same number of words.” The next strategy to paraphrasing and using quotations is much related to paraphrasing and using quotation and this has to do with using in-text citation. In-text citation simply refers to a provision whereby the writer states the name of the original owner of any quotation or paraphrase made Durkin University (2012). In most jurisdictions, it is expected that the writer will also state the date of publication of the said source. The general idea behind in-text citation is therefore for the writer to state the name of original owner and the date of publication. However, depending on the referencing format or style being used by the writer, there are difference ways in which in-text citations will be made. Some of the referencing styles are APA, Harvard and Oxford. It is very important for a student who wants to avoid problems with plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty to have a fairer idea of how to use in-text citation for the different referencing styles. In a typical APA referencing style, a write who indicates the name of original owner and date before the quotation or paraphrase will be expected to write the surname of the owner and put the date in parenthesis. Example is Gardener (2011). If the source is an institution, it is expected that the full name of the institution will be indicated. In case the citation comes after the quotation or paraphrase, the citation is put in parenthesis with a comma separating the name and date. Example, (Environmental Protection Agency, 2009). The last strategy to be discussed is on the use of plagiarism software to check for the level of plagiarism in a completed work. Essentially, the use of the software comes in to complement all the other strategies that have been outlined earlier. This is because it is never sufficient to use the software all alone without regards for the first two strategies (Gillespie, 2012). There is software such as ‘Turn It In’, which has the potential of identifying portions of a work that have been copied from other sources, especially the internet. A student who uses such software gets his or her attention drawn to all such portions of the paper that are not the original knowledge of the writer. It the writer has not referenced these sources as a result of forgetfulness, he or she gets the attention drawn to the need to do as such. There are also cases where a university gives a quote of amount of quotations or external sources to use. In this case, even if all the sources have been referenced, the software draws the student’s attention to how many of such sources exist so that if it is necessary, the student can eliminate some of them. Conclusion According to Gillespie (2012), “ignorance is not an excuse for plagiarism”. This means that students have no reason for which they have to break the rule of plagiarism. As long as plagiarism comes with substantial degree of liabilities, it is important that students will continue to learn about ways of avoiding plagiarism. Universities and other academic institutions should also be tasked with the need to giving students detailed orientation about how to avoid plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty. Such orientations may be particularly necessary for international students as the population of international students keeps increasing with most of them not knowing exactly what the law says about plagiarism. The final decision would however continue to rest with the students, who must have a will power to adhere to the principles of plagiarism and keep coming out with personal steps on how to avoid plagiarism so as to have successful academic seasons that are free from academic litigation acts. REFERENCE LIST Durkin University (2012). Summarizing, Paraphrasing and Quoting. Accessed September 7, 2012 from http://deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/study-skills/handouts/ideas.php Gillespie G.M (2012). Guide to Advising International Students about Academic Integrity. Accessed Septermber 6, 2012 from http://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2012/03/guide-to-advising-international-students-about-academic-integrity/ Tucci V. and Galwankar S (2011). JETS policy on plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Journal of Emergency Trauma Shock. 2011 Jan-Mar; 4(1): 3–6. University of Michigan’s Scholarly Publishing Office ((2006). plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification. Accessed September 7, 2012 from http://www.plagiary.org Read More