Good writing needs good research and good research needs to be reflected through good referencing. No matter how good your essay is, it will still fail if your professors are able to detect that you are committing plagiarism.
Most of you may not know what grounds call for a plagiaristic act. Plagiarism is defined as the act of taking and using as one’s own the thoughts, writings, theories or inventions of another author or source. If you take any idea or passage from another writer and represent them as your own without giving due credit to the rightful person, you are already plagiarising. Unfortunately, not all of you are even aware that you are committing the act due to the following factors:
- You might not know how to reference properly.
- You might have written phrases and sentences that are exactly the same as some written outputs.
- You do not know how to detect plagiarism on your own.
There are several procedures you can employ if you wish to detect plagiarism on your own. These procedures will also train you to write your essay responsibly and ethically. You can start writing your essay using your own unique approach. The more original your essay is, the lesser it is suspected of plagiarism. This will also enhance your essay writing style in the future.
Do not forget to reference everything that you have taken from another source. If the text you have written is not your own, you have to give credit to its true source. You can also check if your entire essay has similar matches to other online material. You can use search engines and online plagiarism detectors to make sure that your essay has no textual similarities with any output. If your essay is found to have matches, you have to rephrase your sentences to avoid being labeled as a plagiarist by your professor.
