Plagiarism is the theft of other people's texts, ideas and decisions, and their subsequent use by thieves for mercenary purposes. The word "plagiarism" is used in the context of copying fragments of foreign scientific works in dissertations without indicating the source. The word plagium is a Latin word that means "kidnapping". In some areas, such as commerce or copyright, plagiarism is a criminal offense. There are many tools available that detect plagiarism but mostly they are not trustworthy. Many companies that offer Academic Writing Services to students, helps you to avoid Plagiarism in any field of writing. Such trusted companies are very less, but the one that I know is Academic Helpers.
There are several procedures to avoid plagiarism:
1. Always take the data from the source from which the information is obtained. Plagiarism is often due to poor organization of the bibliography we have collected for a job, we must always take the data from the source clearly and carefully transcribe them well.
2. Cite the phrase or paragraph directly from the original and accredit the authority and source by means of a quotation or bibliographic reference.
It is about using the words of the author. But the appointments:
- They have to be justified
- Of a reasonable extension, rather short
- Always in quotes
- They must be perfectly distinguished from the rest of the text (italics, independent paragraphs, tabulation ...)
- Must be accompanied by an explanation or interpretation of that appointment
- The author must be accredited by a bibliographic reference
3. To paraphrase the original words of the author and to accredit the authority by means of an appointment or bibliographic reference.
To paraphrase is to use the ideas of another person, but putting them in your own words. It is not simply to change the text superficially, or to redispose or replace a few words; is to read the original, understand what the author says, synthesize the information and write it with our own words. The resulting text has the active participation of the student, evidencing that they have knowledge of the subject.
Paraphrasing incorrectly is one of the most frequent incidental errors, together with the absence of citations or bibliographical references to the original authority; even if we use our own words, the original idea is not ours and we must, therefore, quote the author of the same and always recognize the source of information.
To paraphrase an effort must be made to transform the sentence into one that retains the original meaning, but as different from it as possible:
- Use synonyms for all words that are not generic
- Change the passive voice to active or vice versa
- Change the structure of words, sentences or paragraphs
- Summarize phrases and paragraphs
