Plagiarism usually means using another person’s ideas and words without assuring any credit to the original author. Plagiarism often involves stealing the work of someone else, but it could also happen accidentally, especially because of forgetfulness or callousness. Hence, whenever you write an academic paper, it is advisable to use different sources of evidence and information. To understand how you can avoid plagiarism, try incorporating the following methods in your everyday practice.
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What Are The Different Types Of Copyright Infringement?
Text and images are usually two common types of copyright plagiarism. Regardless of whether it is academic writing, lyrics, or even stick photos, you can use them without informing the count as any kind of copyright infringement.
Scanning
Scanning or photocopying is usually considered copyright infringement, especially if you have taken the author’s original work and simply copy-pasted it.
Now, this is a type that rarely happens. The person who sends this email tends to hold complete right over the email that has been sent. Hence, if you are printing it or taking it forward without taking the author’s permission, it will also violate the exclusive rights of the author. In such emails, it is important to pay attention to what the copyright has noticed and the warnings of the attachments.
Networking
Any user could infringe copyright by simply posting content on private or public networks for access. This happens especially when others don’t have any access towards them.
File Sharing
This happens when you are downloading or uploading content files for offline services where anyone else can copy them.
Piracy & Counterfeiting
You could make another copy of the content that belongs to someone else and then sell them in a way that looks like pirating the owner’s rights.
Be Very Organized With Your Writing
Students often commit plagiarism by being unorganized with their writing. In other words, they forget where exactly their idea came from and end up unintentionally presenting them on their own. If you want to avoid this pitfall, then make sure to keep your notes well-organized by maintaining a list of citations as you keep writing. You could also label the thoughts that belong to you, highlight those statements that need citations, and then carefully mark any of the text that is copied directly from the source using quotation marks. Give yourself some time to complete the assignment while giving enough attention to credible sources.
Quote & Paraphrase Correctly
If you’d like to share some information or ideas using a source, you could either paraphrase the text or simply quote the source. You have to ensure the argument shines through your own ideas, conclusions, and interpretations. Paraphrasing is a much better idea than quoting, especially if they are being used for much longer passages. It also shows that you haven’t really understood the original text meaning and also ensures that your voice is the one that dominates the paper. Quoting also means copying text from word to word. It also should be introduced within your own words, using quotation marks. Quotes are also considered highly appropriate when you use the exact words shared by the author or find it impossible to rephrase the original text.
Cite The Sources Correctly
Before you paraphrase or quote something, make sure that it includes a footnote citation or some in-text that identifies the original source. All your citations should also respond with the reference list or even the bibliography that is found towards the end of the paper. It will also help the leaders locate the right sources and even learn more. There are various styles of citation & each one of them have their own rules. Some of the most common styles are Chicago, MLA & APA. Your instructor will also have to assign a specific style to use or maybe you could choose.
Make Sure To Thoroughly Check Your Work
Before you submit any paper, make sure that you check it carefully for any efforts that could lead to plagiarism. Some of the common mistakes also include forgotten citations, missing quotation marks, paraphrased materials, sources that are missing from your list, etc.
Use A Plagiarism Detector
Many students use the help of a plagiarism detector to find out any hidden signs of potential plagiarism. Many plagiarisms checkers prefer to scan documents while comparing them to databases of publications & webpages. Using a plagiarism checker is important before you submit any paper. It will help you identify parts that you have forgotten, leaves out the quotation marks, including paragraphs that are very close to the original text. You could also follow the steps in order to understand instances of any potential plagiarism. There are many differences in safety and accuracy between the plagiarism checker.
Be As Creative As Possible
If you want to avoid copyright at any cost, then make sure you are creative with your content as much as possible. Some things to be careful of include
- Scanning: Scanning something by yourself won’t give you the chance to copyright anything. You can’t picture from magazines and then put them on the internet. The other side of this is that scanning something like this within the public domain wouldn’t give any copyright under the resulting scan.
- Taking video screenshots of computer programs usually doesn’t generate copyright. The copyright within the screenshot will probably be held by the holder of the video or even the computer program.
- A few non-creative things can not exactly be copyrightable. For example, plain text logos that come in a generic font. However, you shouldn’t rely on this unless you are fully sure.
If you end up re-using your own imagery or work in old papers, it could lead to some self-plagiarism as well. Usually, you need to give up copyright whenever you are transferring your work to any publisher. Apart from this, make sure you never re-publish any material that s easily available for access in other places. You could also use multiple software tools online to prevent such issues from occurring.