General Guidelines against Plagiarism - Essay Example

The term plagiarism is derived from a Latin expression, which means, “kidnap”. If anybody plagiarizes, it means that that person has kidnapped or stolen the works of some other person. It is a form of dishonesty relating to the field of academics or any kind of public work. A person, who has done a work putting his heart and soul, will never want his work to be stolen by some other person, who will use it for his personal use.  This activity is, therefore, a serious issue, which must be seriously dealt with.

In common parlance, plagiarism simply implies copying a text from somewhere and pasting it in some other document without indicating that it was copied or, from where it was copied. Such a document is then used for personal purposes. Plagiarism can have serious consequences. The person who plagiarizes can be suspended, barred, his degrees can be taken away, he can be sacked out of his job and thus his career will be ruined. When a student plagiarizes, he or she can be sent away from the university.

Persons, who plagiarize, lard their unimpressive works with the excellent works already done by other people. In the case of academics, plagiarism done by students, teachers, professors, and other staff are considered as academic offenses and they are subject to punishment by their respective institutions. In the case of journalism, plagiarism is supposed to violation of their contract.The most fast growing form of plagiarism in today’s world is the online plagiarism. It is very easy to copy any document from the internet and therefore this problem is fast growing.

Another form of plagiarism is self-plagiarism. In this form of plagiarism, an individual reuses the information from his own work to complete some other work without mentioning that he has done so. Much online software is being developed to limit the offense of plagiarism. Some of them are turnitin.com, duplichecker.com, etc. (Calabrese; McCaldin; What is plagiarism)The way I avoided plagiarism in my assignments:In this week, I did five assignments. The topics were provided to me. At first, I understood what the topic demands me to do.

Then I took help from various kinds of references from the web. I studied the articles that were relevant for my assignment in detail and then I analyzed those articles and finished the assignment writing in my own words. I did not copy directly from the reference that I found. To protect myself from plagiarism, I have set quotation marks around any kind of copied text if any. I have also provided in-text references stating that from which book or article I have done my work. I have also provided web links, which I have access.

After completing my work, I have also used an online software-duplichecker.com to check that none of the words in my assignment matches with any of the information of any web site.