Plagiarism is the word which somehow directly relates to theft or stealing. Plagiarism is the way or process of stealing and publishing someone else’s work which can be thoughts,inventions or writings and representing it as one’s own original work. Plagiarism can also be defined as the way of unacknowledged use of published or unpublished data of someone else and representing it to be one’s own. If we talk in simpler terms then plagiarism can be directly related to copying. Copy can be done by either taking the data from already published work or the taking the data from not yet published work.
Sometimes plagiarism is often confused with copyright infringement. Copyright is an issue which is handled legally while plagiarism is somehow a moral issue. Copyright laws cases are punishable while cases related to plagiarism are punishable in professional associations, commercial entities, education institutes, etc. Plagiarism can be of different types. Some of the most commonly used plagiarism are:
- Direct plagiarism: It is the form of plagiarism in which a person takes another’s person idea or piece of writing or inventions and represent without even citation.
- Self plagiarism: It is a type of plagiarism in which your own already submitted work is again copied or published as your current assignment.
- Mosaic plagiarism: It is the type of plagiarism which includes two things. One is quoting somebody else’s work without even putting quotation marks. Second one is using synonyms in someone else’s work keeping all the structure and meaning exactly same.
- Accidental plagiarism:It is a type of plagiarism in which person forgets to put quotation marks, misquote the sources or forget to mention the site sources.
- Mashup Plagiarism: It is a type of plagiarism that contain data copied from multiple sources.
In many of the colleges or universities put a stern eye on the plagiarism check. They use many tools to check plagiarism and if the student is found copying the content severe punishment is given to him/her which can include termination of qualification, repeating the year, he/she can be expelled from that particular university or college.
Certain ways can be used to avoid plagiarism. While writing a research paper or any other writing or doing any invention ,it is necessary to avoid the plagiarism trap every time. Some of the common ways to avoid plagiarism are:
- Paraphrase: Once you gathered the information that you need for your work then you can mould and write it in your own words. More than two words should not be copied from the original data or text. It is generally a process of restatement of someone else’s words. Paraphrasing can be done in three ways which are, either by changing the structures and order of the sentences, by sing synonyms and by changing the perspective’s voice.
- Cite:Citation is the way through which you can tell your user from where you have taken the work from. It can include information about the author, title of the book, page number of the copy from the source, name and some details about the source and your copy and the date on which your copy is published.
- Quoting: It means that if we are copying something from any source then It should be quoted properly within double quotes. Not even a single word should be changed and exact copy is to be done. This is commonly done in case of some lines quoted by famous people, some saying of famous person or some definition given by person or the organization.
- Citing Quotes: It generally contain page number or paragraph number in case of web content.
- Citing your own material: If you are using the work that you have already done or published then that work should also be cited as a reference in your recent works.
- Referencing: It is a way for referring the work you have stated or used in your work. It is a general practice that should be used but in a proper format and way.
- Summarising: It is the way or process through which data can be summarised which means a large data can be compressed in 1-2 sentences or lines.
- Copying: This is the way through which we can copy the tables, graphs, diagrams and so on and after copying we can provide the reference of the work from where it is copied. The reference should be compulsorily given so as to avoid plagiarism.
People usually plagiarise because of some very common reasons like disorganization, poor study or reading and paraphrasing habits, cut and paste culture which is very common nowadays, lack of understanding how serious the plagiarism is, careless attitude, lack of referencing skills. Plagiarism is not a new technique but it is increasing with the demand and popularity of Internet. Student usually copies from the internet and submits the work because they are either “in hurry” or “under work pressure” or “if they are working in deadline” . These are the situations in which student and even normal people plagiarize the data or article, text or any invention from the internet and don’t even try to avoid it by adopting the methods through which they can avoid plagiarism.
Plagiarism is a kind of theft and it should be avoided as soon as possible. It somehow or other effects copyright issues also. In today’s scenario almost 10%-15% academicians and 25%-35% students are plagiarizing. It can be avoided by spreading proper awareness, counselling, following strict research, and by providing some ethical guidelines. Plagiarism should be avoided at every level and there are numerous way which can help to avoid the practice of plagiarism.