5 Effective Strategies for Students to Eliminate Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the main concern of many students. Students of every level have to develop writing skills. Writing is a basic skill for distance learning students. Students are evaluated based on their written work. Originality and integrity are supreme in every piece of written work.
E-learning has a great scope in this era. More people are enrolling themselves in online courses and educational platforms. In this digitized learning platform, students are assessed by being given writing tasks. E-learning is flexible and accessible. However, there is a major issue associated with it, and that is plagiarism.
Graded assignments, theses, and research papers are required to be plagiarism-free. Unique and accurate data is required to be included in assignments. This is a challenging task to think out of the box every time.
Students can use some strategies and hacks to remove plagiarism. For that, you need to understand what plagiarism is and its root cause. In this article, we have listed five effective strategies to eliminate plagiarism from assignments.
Understanding Plagiarism and Its Causes
Plagiarism is caused by duplicating or copying someone else’s content. The Internet is full of informational and educational websites, so it is quite easy just to copy and paste anything.
Duplicating someone else’s work and showing it as yours lies under plagiarism. In academic writing, it is seen as misconduct. Plagiarism damages the credibility of the student. If a small section of the text is plagiarized, the whole thing will be seen as copied material.
It is fine to quote someone by giving them credit. Adding references is a good practice in this regard. However, nobody can copy ideas or content from someone and call it their own. It ruins the authenticity of the whole work.
Causes of Plagiarism:
Here are some leading causes of plagiarism for students:
- Duplicating directly from websites or online resources.
- Copying from classmates’ assignments.
- Low confidence in their ability.
- Using the wrong syntax for citations and references.
- Not adding references and links to the resources.
- Adding quotations in the wrong format.
- Short deadlines and hectic routines.
- Not abiding by all the rules.
- Using shortcut methods and techniques.
- Accidental plagiarism in the written work.
Accidental Plagiarism
Plagiarism can be purposeful or accidental. Purposeful plagiarism occurs when students copy and paste the whole thing intentionally. Accidental plagiarism is when a student unintentionally commits plagiarism.
Different factors can cause accidental plagiarism. Writing on common topics may accidentally lead to duplication. Not including citations and references, using the same content pattern, or excluding quotes may cause plagiarism.
5 Strategies to Avoid or Remove Plagiarism
Plagiarism can be avoided by using some strategies. And if there is any accidental plagiarism, you can remove it by rephrasing the text. Here are five tried and tested techniques to avoid and remove plagiarism from any text.
1. Avoid Copy Pasting
Copy and pasting of data comes under duplication. Duplicated content is never a good idea when you are writing an assignment. Students must use the study material to take inspiration. It is difficult to remove plagiarism when the whole thing is copied.
Try to present your own ideas and thoughts. Read books about the subject or topic that you are assigned. Related websites must be visited to get a better idea. Use the online resources as study material, read thoroughly, make notes, and write in your own voice.
2. Critical Analysis & Research
A thorough research can help to present ideas in a new and fresh way. Research helps to find accurate and up-to-date knowledge about the subject. Read books and relevant articles to get a better idea of the topic.
Use that information to critically analyze. Critical thinking will allow you to sharpen your writing skills. It helps to get innovative methods to present ideas. Saturated topics and titles can be presented in a unique way.
3. Use a Credible Plagiarism Remover
Using a smart and credible plagiarism remover can be another escape. Well, it can be technically hard to find a self-reliant, credible plagiarism remover sometimes, but ample research can suffice and help find such a tool. A smart plagiarism remover will help sort the issue within seconds.
What this tool actually does is rephrase or reword the entire content, leaving no room for plagiarism. In fact, some AI-driven plagiarism removers even go to the extent of offering diverse writing styles and modes to match the unique requirements of the user. For instance, it may offer formal, SEO, creative, and academic writing modes to sync well with the tone comfortably.
So, instead of manually going through each word and sentence, these plagiarism removers do wonders with a mere click. You simply paste content or upload the file, and the tool recreates the entire write-up, removing the minutest possibility of plagiarism within seconds.
4. Add References to Resources
A common mistake made by students is not adding credible resource links. Referencing is an important part of academic writing. It supports the idea of the students. Adding both citations and references is important.
A citation is a short text that helps the reader know the source quoted in the written work. It can be added as additional information. A reference is the full details of the source you have cited. References are added at the end of the paper.
Use double quotes to quote someone directly. If you are adding any definition or saying, make sure to write in double-quotes. Keep resources organized, especially if you are working on a research paper.
5. Proofread Before Submission
Proofreading is an effective strategy to improve the overall quality of the content. It can help find any errors or mistakes. Incorrect format of the citation, missing references, redundancy, etc., are commonly overlooked mistakes.
You can overcome these issues by checking and reading the assignment or research paper beforehand. The structure can be improved. Irrelevant information can be removed.
If you properly research the topic, you can proofread the content yourself. Or you can get help from your friends or classmates.
Wrapping Up
Academic writing is a crucial skill for students. Plagiarism is a common challenge faced by students and learners. There are certain strategies to avoid and remove plagiarism. Effective proofreading can help educators improve their writing skills.
Eliminating plagiarism can be effectively done by using the rephrasing techniques. The content structure is changed to make it unique. Use the above-mentioned techniques to eliminate plagiarism. Have confidence in yourself and rely on your abilities.
