Plagiarism is a major problem for students and teachers alike. If you are writing an assignment, it is important to ensure that your work is original and of high quality. Moreover, plagiarism in assignment writing can ruin a student’s reputation.
In this article, we will discuss the different ways that help plagiarism in your assignment writing. We will also discuss the importance of quality assignments and how to ensure that you are producing original content. So, let’s begin.
What Is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is often seen in academic work, but it can also be seen in other forms like speeches, interviews, and songs. In definition, plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s words or ideas as your own. It’s unethical and can lead to severe consequences.
Plagiarism can be intentional or otherwise, and the usual culprit behind plagiarism include:
- Lack of research or laziness on the writer’s side;
- Lack of citation—either accidental or intentional;
- Lack of proper paraphrasing or rewording;
- Lack of subject understanding.
These are some of the most common reasons plagiarism is found in assignments.
3 Effective Ways to Make Your Assignment Plagiarism-Free
1. Track Your Sources When Researching
One of the easiest mistakes to make when writing an assignment is forgetting the source material. This is one of the major causes of plagiarism. Whether you don’t paraphrase properly or forget to cite, it won’t matter.
That’s why it’s important to track your sources when researching for an assignment. The main goal of this tactic is to help you track your sources. You should note down the sources by:
- Remembering the author’s name;
- Remembering the literature/material’s name or title;
- Remembering page number;
- And noting down the date the literature was published.
Thus, when you are doing research, you must keep track of your sources. That’s why you should note down the source and its page number so that you can make your work unique and free of any plagiarism traces. This way, if you need to mention a quote or statistic that came from, then you will have a list of all your sources right in front of you.
2. Paraphrase Properly—Either Manually or With a Tool
The second, and perhaps the most viable, way to make your assignment work unique and readable is to paraphrase properly. And, if you don’t know the basics of paraphrasing, then let’s describe it first. Paraphrasing is the act of restating an idea in your own words.
Paraphrasing can be done by rewording a sentence or paragraph, but it can also be done by:
- changing the order of sentences;
- substituting synonyms for words;
- using a tool to paraphrase conveniently;
- or changing the tense of verbs.
The easiest way to paraphrase is to put it into your own words and then read it over again to make sure you didn’t copy anything from another source. So, how do you do that? Here’s a sentence for example:
“The assignments given to students were out of the ordinary. Even the tips given by college alumnus didn’t help anyone.”
Let’s do it manually first:
Manually:
“Exceptional and uncommon assignments were given to the student. So much so that the former students’ tips didn’t help them either.”
As you can see here, the idea has remained, but the words have changed. Now, if you do the same thing with a tool, the results might be different.
Paraphrasing With a Tool:
To paraphrase the same sentence example by using the online tool, we have to search “paraphrase online” and open the first tool by Paraphraseonline.io:
When we entered the sentence example to paraphrase it, the results are:
The paraphrased text is:
“The assignment given to the students was extraordinary. Even tips from college graduates didn’t help anyone.”
So, does it help us in making our text plagiarism-free? We’ll use a plagiarism checker to find if the paraphrased version is recognized by the tool as copied or not. We’ll be using Prepostseo for this test because it works accurately.
3. Credit the Original Literature/Author
Accrediting the original author is necessary. However, crediting their work is equally important, and that’s why there are academic ways of citing the original source. Failing to follow these formats can also cause plagiarism.
Because citation styles are different ways of formatting the information in a citation. It is important to choose the right citation style for your paper. The three main styles are MLA, APA, and Chicago.
MLA
- The Modern Language Association, or MLA, is a style of writing that is used in most humanities courses. It includes a mix of in-text citations and endnotes for all sources.
Example:
Tolkein , J.R.R. “The first single-volume edition (1968).” original-source.com. Allen & Unwin, 29 Jul. 1954. Web. 9 Jan. 2023.<https://www.original-source.com>.
APA
- The American Psychological Association or APA is used in Psychology, Counseling, and other health professions courses. It uses a specific format for citations with an emphasis on using the author’s last name and year of publication.
Example:
Tolkein , J. (1954, July 29). The first single-volume edition (1968). Retrieved from https://www.original-source.com
Chicago
- The Chicago Manual Style, also called Chicago Style or CMS, was originally designed by the University of Chicago Press, and it has been widely adopted by many publishing houses as well as academic institutions, including Harvard University and the University of California Berkeley.
Example:
Tolkein , J.R.R. “The first single-volume edition (1968).” original-source.com. https://www.original-source.com (accessed January 9, 2023).
Using either of these citation styles will effectively help you in making your assignment plagiarism-free. So, the final, and perhaps the most important, way of making your assignment plagiarism-free is by using one of these citation styles.
Conclusion
These are some of the best ways that can help you in making your assignment free of any plagiarism traces. Not only will they help you with plagiarism, but they will also prevent it if you have already written your assignment. But, if you follow these three methods one step after the other, it’ll help you prevent plagiarism effectively and allow you to submit your assignment with confidence.
