Â鶹¹ÙÍø

The term ‘plagiarism’ is widely used in the world of research and scientific publications. There are words and phrases like ‘academic dishonesty,’ ‘ethical offense,’ ‘stealing,’ ‘copying,’ etc. that are used to define plagiarism.

 However, in plainest sense it is an academic misconduct of using somebody else’s work or idea without acknowledging the original source or author (Pun, 2021). It is a false assumption of authorship instead of giving due credit to the author. Gibaldi (2004), defining it as an “intellectual theft,” considers this act of “passing off another person’s ideas, information, or expression as your own to get a better grade or gain some other advantage” (p. 66) as a fraud. Masic’s (2014) definition coincides with Gibaldi when Masic uses it as “stealing, [or] copying others’ works” without caring its consequences of disciplinary action such as suspension or expulsion from the university, revoking an academic degree, loss of a job and many more according to the context and the severity of plagiarism.

As plagiarism is a serious issue in academia, it is very important to work to avoid committing this offensive act. Whatever the forms of plagiarism— direct plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, paraphrasing or plagiarism of idea, self- plagiarism, and incomplete citation plagiarism— there are ways to avoid them:

• Give credit for every research you use: Either the authors quote, paraphrase or summarize others’ ideas, the best way to avoid plagiarism is to cite the original resource in a proper way.
• Cite own materials: Authors can use their own previous works but while doing so also, they should cite those works. It becomes self-plagiarism if the information is borrowed from one’s own previous works.
• Follow the reference guidelines strictly: Different journals and funding institutions follow different formatting styles like Modern Language Association (MLA), American Psychological Association (APA), Chicago style, American Medical Association (AMA), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) among many others. These formatting styles guide help authors to properly cite the references and give credit to the original sources.
• Use of plagiarism detection software: It is authors’ prime responsibility to produce plagiarism-free documents. But in the modern world of technological advancement, it is not a big problem as there are many payable and free and open-source plagiarism detection tools available online. The payable software is more advanced and reliable than the software available free of cost online.

References

Gibaldi, J. (2004). MLA handbook for writers of research papers (6th ed.). Affiliated East- West Press.

Masic, I. (2014). Plagiarism in scientific research and publications and how to prevent it. Mater Sociomed, 26(2), 141-146.

Pun, M. (2021). Plagiarism in scientific writing: Why it is important to know and avoid. Journal of Political Science, 21, 109-118.

BACK PAGE

BACK TO WRITING HELP ONLINE