Do you know the mortal sin of a writer? It is the act of copying the work of others and presenting it as if it is your own original idea — in other words, plagiarism. In this industry, taking someone else’s work is definitely one of the forbidden things. Committing plagiarism either intentionally or not is like self-destruction. Your writing career is at stake the minute you chose to copy and paste a great concept of someone without proper crediting because readers and literary critics definitely have hawk eyes that can easily detect a copied work.
Hence, becoming an author is quite difficult especially that many have already published their remarkable ideas before you. These concepts already have copyrights, which made it impossible to incorporate them in your book without formal citations. Plagiarism is absolutely a pretty serious issue. How utilizing the books to proper knowledge by Van Arsdale — a promising author-editor, is truly necessary to maintain your credibility and integrity as a writer. Thus, if you are looking for the best ways to avoid plagiarism, then here they are.
Understand what plagiarism is
Having enough knowledge about the subject is vital. The information that you have collected will help you know its nature, pros, cons, and other essential things revolving around plagiarism. The ability to get a better grasp of plagiarism must be given attention because it can make you nurture awareness that copying one’s work is never okay. The measures of using somebody’s creative works differ in many aspects. In the U.S, the copyright rule does not safeguard the concepts or facts; however, the law does protect the certain authentic expression of a concept either in the form of pictures or words the moment that they are being carried out in a tangible figure. That said, you should know the nature and consequences before trying to commit plagiarism.
Summarize an idea
Having to summarize a lot of words can be daunting; but, it is the price that you need to pay to avoid your work being tagged as a copied content. Most summaries drop some details or parts of the idea to create a more direct concept. Taking out a particular aspect of a published work and uniting it into a more comprehensible concept using your own words is the main purpose of summarizing. It allows you to extract the most significant factors from a paper, book, or the likes and shorten them but still maintaining the main point.
Paraphrase concepts
Whether you are a seasoned writer or a newbie, you always hear about the word “paraphrase.” It is the act of utilizing the general concepts of a particular author but restating them using your own words. This is, in fact, the best way to prevent plagiarism. You will be required to rewrite the parts or the entire piece without altering the meaning of the original work. For better paraphrasing, you may change the whole sentence structure, use synonyms, split the sentences, and more. What is crucial is that the words do not duplicate the original text, but the meaning remains the same.
Make use of quotation marks
Using quotations might be old school to you, but it is one of the essentials to avoid being called a copycat. You probably have read multiple books that use direct quotes from famous authors and public figures but noticed that the works weren’t tagged as plagiarized. Quoting is definitely a significant technique utilized to incorporate data from external sources in academic and creative writing. In using this technique, you must also indicate the original source or where you got the quote. This doesn’t only increases your credibility but also enhances the reliability of your work.
Cite your references formally
Indicating your sources is one of the basics of writing papers and creative works. This act constantly helps you prevent plagiarism and enhances the quality of your work. Moreover, citing your references enables you to recognize the contribution and the intellectual property rights of the other authors. Depending on the writing format that you have, such as MLA, APA, and the likes, make sure to write the source correctly. Also, do not forget to put references by using footnotes, citations, and bibliographies.