Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism - Essay Example

?Plagiarism occurs when a purports an idea that belongs to another as his original idea failing to acknowledge the source of information. Plagiarism is intellectual dishonest or theft since one implies to own ideas that are not his own, and consequently commits a form of dishonesty. Plagiarism can take many forms such as direct copy pasting of other students work or sources, and has bad repercussions to students and writers; however, there are strategies to avoid plagiarism that include paraphrasing, use of quotes and employing specific referencing styles such as MLA. Plagiarism usually applies to specific texts that are print published, texts that are online, manuscripts, not forgetting the work of other writers. Thus, if plagiarism is present, either intentional or unintentional, it results to low or poor quality of the paper submitted either by a student or the author irrespective of their rank (Ali et al, 2011). Most students are aware of the consequences arising from actions that constitute plagiarism. For instance, if student copies information that is published into a newspaper and it does not attribute the source for the main purpose of claiming the information is his own, or even the act of turning another student’s constitute plagiarism. Moreover, plagiarism has a negative externalities on students in the form of low grades for students who plagiarize thereby diminishing the education credentials or grade for a student (Dee and Jacob, 2012). Plagiarism may lead to an institution or an individual being sued by the author who owns the ideas plagiarized for breach of intellectual property law. In addition, university authorities should do well not to desist in attempting to dissuade students from plagiarism (Selwyn, 2008); moreover, good college experience for students lies in the synthesizing of the ideas gained in class and reproducing them in their own unique way while avoiding plagiarism Quoting is one of the strategies used in avoiding plagiarism when referring to wordings that are factual or a statement that are hard to change without altering the intended meaning. When using this strategy it is advisable to write the authors’ exact words using quotation marks, and when quoting longer quotes it is advisable to put as in an indented paragraph and the source included either within the text of paper or on the footnote. An example of a quotation would be: “Adam Winkler who studies constitutional-law at the U.C.L.A was able to broadly demonstrate in his book Gunfight how fire arm possession has been regulated in the United States of America” (Jill, 2012). In case of quoting longer sections the writer should use a block quote such as: Adam Winkler who studies constitutional-law at the U.C.L.A was able to broadly demonstrate in his book Gunfight how firearm possession has been regulated in the United States of America. Regulation of firearms has been done in Kentucky and Louisiana through having concealed weapons being passed in these cities. The rules were later implemented in the cities of Indiana in 1820, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama and Ohio by end of 1859. The law was gradually adopted eventually spread to Texas Oklahoma and Florida. The governor of Texas explained that concealing a dangerous weapon is murdering an individual and therefore it is the duty of every one to respect a man who obeys the law (Jill, 2012). Paraphrasing is another strategy used in avoiding plagiarism which involves the putting someone else ideas in your own words at the same time ensuring the words are not rearranged or replaced with few words. In addition, it entails reading, internalizing the ideas presented and then writing them in one’s own words, and eventually citing the source from which the text was read from since the idea was got from that specific source. It is important to note that when a student does not have sufficient time to conduct research essential to effectively complete their research paper they can cite that of another person who did the research, but acknowledge them by placing a citation at the end of the paraphrased sentence. For paraphrasing to be effective, the student has to put in place various factors such as the use of synonyms. This will entail coming up with wordings that are as close to the intended meaning of the original word as possible. Moreover, the use of varied patterns in a sentence is advisable during paraphrasing because it assists in changing the pattern of a sentence and at the same time, it does not alter the meaning. In addition, a student can also paraphrase by changing the order in which ideas appear in the original source, which encourages vigilance by building on various activities that require the student to review and assess their work contributes to effective paraphrasing (Walker, 2008). Furthermore, citing a source using a specific standard form of referencing such as MLA, Harvard or APA is a sure way of avoiding plagiarism even though this strategy is demanding and difficulty because it requires student to focus and provide specific details of the sources they employ in their research papers. For instance, use of MLA citation requires mentioning of various works cited pages clearly, so that the reader is able to understand where a specific theory has come from. Therefore, students are required to write the year in which the article was published, page where the citation came from and the author of the article. Citations are important for students in the sense that it creates currency of ideas in academia, and majority of academics want to accumulate the currency of ideas because they want to accumulate a lot of credit for the contributions they have made academically. Therefore, citations must have clear sources such as journals, books or even newspapers; hence, clear sources and acknowledgements are essential. In conclusion, various strategies are available to assist students in avoiding plagiarism such as use of quotations, paraphrasing and employing a specific referencing style, which are the most relevant strategies students can adopt in fighting plagiarism. They are effective because since they give credit to a specific source that the information was obtained from, despite the capacity to paraphrase. The practise of quoting and citing is evidence that a student has respect for the author’s ideas and it is a sign of honouring the author’s intellectual property. Moreover, authors who are anxious about their manuscripts for various reasons might use the approach of submitting their work through Turnitin (Colquitt, 2012). Besides these, citing a work by a student shows that the student has done sufficient research synthesizing the research into an argument, which assists a student in adding support to the ideas at hand. References Ali Z., Sheikh T.M., Mahmood A. and Ali M. (2011). Conceptual Awareness of Research Scholars about Plagiarism at Higher Education Level: Intellectual Property Right And Patent. International Journal of Academic Research. Vol. 3. No.1: 666-671 Colquitt, J. (2012). Plagiarism Policies and Screening at Amj. Academy of Management Journal. Vol. 55 Issue 4: 749-751 Jill L. (2012). "Battleground America: One nation, under the gun." The New York. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/23/120423fa_fact_lepore#ixzz23FzEpFHd 11 Aug 2012. Selwyn N. (2008). ‘Not necessarily a bad thing …’: a study of online plagiarism amongst undergraduate students. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Vol. 33, No. 5: 465–479 Dee T. and Jacob B. (2012). Rational Ignorance in Education: A Field Experiment in Student Plagiarism. Journal of Human Resources. Vol. 47 Issue 2: 397-434. Walker A. (2008). Preventing Unintentional Plagiarism: A Method for Strengthening Paraphrasing Skills. Journal of Instructional Psychology, Vol. 35, No. 4: 387-395. Read More