When you look up a topic on the internet, a lot of material for that topic comes up. But if you observe closely, no two materials written by different people on that topic or idea are alike because; two people can never have the same representation of the same idea.
As writers, whether for academia, poetry, articles, speeches, or any form of writing, originality is as important as the content of your work.
I dare say, more important!
Some writers, especially in the early stages of their writing career lack originality. This may be as a result of improper research on the idea they are writing on or due to ignorance and laziness on their own part.
Writers that lack originality always find themselves unwilling victims of plagiarism. It is important for every writer to avoid plagiarism because it can damage your reputation and bring your career as a writer, to an end.
I'm sure you wouldn't want that.
Every writer ought to know what plagiarism is and how serious of an offense it is. But for the sake of clarity and to serve as a reminder, I will explain to you what plagiarism is and the forms of plagiarisms that exist before going ahead to tell you how it can be avoided.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the act of lifting someone's idea with or without the person's consent, and presenting it without any form of acknowledgement. It can also be referred to as an act of literary theft and fraud.
Plagiarism is considered a breach of journalistic ethics and academic dishonesty. It is a punishable offense which attracts; penalties, including suspension that may lead to expulsion from school or work, fines from courts, and in very serious cases, imprisonment.
It is important to know that unless an idea is common knowledge, you cannot include it in your writing without acknowledging or citing the source.
Forms of plagiarism.
There are a good number of plagiarisms that exist, simple forms which are easily detected such as; copying a literary work word for word, and complex forms, which may not be easily detected or considered as not being plagiarism by "amateurs". Both simple and complex forms of plagiarism attract consequences. The forms of plagiarism are;
Direct plagiarism: This is the most common form of plagiarism. It is an act of copying someone's work word for word, without acknowledgement. If you have to use the exact words from someone's work, you need to put it in quotation mark and cite the source. It is also direct plagiarism to lift and include a paragraph from someone's work, pay someone to write an essay, article or journal, thereafter submitting it as your own work without any reference or acknowledgement.
Citation plagiarism: It is when your citations are missing, or when your sources are cited incorrectly. The most common example of this form of plagiarism is when you do not acknowledge a source because you think that particular idea is common knowledge; a lot of writers are guilty of this. One major cause of citation plagiarism is disorganized or improper research processes.
Paraphrased plagiarism: This form of plagiarism happens when you make few changes; involving sentence structure or arrangement, to someone's work and pass it off as your own.
Mosaic plagiarism: This is a combination of direct and paraphrased plagiarism. This happens when your work has word for word and paraphrased phrases, sentences or paragraphs without the use of quotation marks. Copying and pasting texts or paragraphs from different sources and piecing it together to form your work is also mosaic plagiarism.
Image plagiarism: This involves including an image that was not captured by you in your work without permission and proper citation. For example, using the book cover of a novel in your literary work without citation.
Self plagiarism: Always very unintentional, is an act of lifting an idea from your previous work into your new work without citation.
Non-existence citation or source: It is very improper for you to give a "made-up" citation to an idea or statement because you could not find the actual citations. This is very misleading to your readers, as they would assume your statement is supported by a source. You should avoid doing this.
How to avoid all types of plagiarism.
There are many ways of avoiding plagiarism which include but are not limited to plagiarism checkers and best online paraphrasing tool like spinbot.
Let's talk a bit more on paraphrasing tools. A paraphrasing tool is an article rewriting tool, it changes words and sentence structures without losing its logic. While that is for the most part.
When working using this tool you are recommended to work hand in hand with a grammar checker to confirm grammar was not lost in the journey to a plagiarism free article.
A tropical example of a paraphrasing tool is spinbot article rewriter:
Original Text: "John is a very adventurous young man. He is always getting into trouble because of it. But hopefully, when he is out of his youth, he would have gained wisdom."
Paraphrasing Rewrite: "John is a brave youngster. He is continually falling into hardship as a result of it. Be that as it may, ideally, when he is out of his childhood, he would have picked up shrewdness."
In the case of simple articles, paraphrasing software is relatively straight forward. But when it's a technical article, it may get a bit more complicated.
Original Text: "A wide variety of artificial molecular machines (AMMs) have been synthesized by chemists which are rather simple and small compared to biological molecular machines. The first AMM, a molecular shuttle, was synthesized by Sir J. Fraser Stoddart. A molecular shuttle is a rotaxane molecule where a ring is mechanically interlocked onto an axle with two bulky stoppers. The ring can move between two binding sites with various stimuli such as light, pH, solvents, and ions."
Rewrite: A wide assortment of counterfeit sub-atomic machines (AMMs) have been incorporated by scientific experts which are somewhat straightforward and little contrasted with organic sub-atomic machines. The first AMM, a sub-atomic transport, was combined by Sir J. Fraser Stoddart. A sub-atomic transport is a rotaxane particle where a ring is precisely interlocked onto a pivot with two massive plugs. The ring can move between two restricting destinations with different upgrades, for example, light, pH, solvents, and particles.
This has a number of issues.
First it has changed keywords "artificial molecular machines"
This is where our paraphrasing tool becomes your best case:
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