Plagiarism Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Plagiarism - Essay Example Plagiarism is considered an academic crime in academic settings. There is no school, college, or university anywhere in the world that does not discourage the act of plagiarism. The reason is that plagiarism is an academic crime that violates the rules and ethics of creative writing. Such detection tools are available that can easily detect whether a student has copied something from somewhere or not. As Sumerset states, â€Å"with plenty of tools that can spot copied, repurposed or coopted text, attempting to plagiarize other people's material can be an exercise in nothing but getting caught red-handed†. Some colleges and universities even expel such students who commit the act of plagiarism. Such strict standards discourage students from doing any kind of plagiarism in their personal essays and reports. Let us now discuss the ways one may plagiarize in his/her papers, reports, and other documents. How One May Plagiarize Plagiarism is basically of three to four types. Sometim es, writers do not even know that they are plagiarizing or not. However, when they get the results, they get to know the fact that they have plagiarized unknowingly. The best way to detect the occurrence of any sort of plagiarism is to use some plagiarism detection software that can check whole document for plagiarism. One of the main ways a person can plagiarize is by forgetting to put direct quotations within inverted commas. Use of inverted commas for direct quotations or sentences from web and non-print sources is a basic rule regarding plagiarism. Some people forget this rule and commit plagiarism. For example, if a person copies a sentence from somewhere and pastes it in his/her own paper without putting the sentence within inverted commas and mentioning the name of the author and the page number at the end of the sentence and in the references page, it will be plagiarism. Another way through which a person can plagiarize is by changing the words of the copied sentence thinkin g that changed wording does not cause plagiarism. It is true but for short sentences. Sometimes people try to write whole paragraphs using their own words and in the same order of sentences. However, they do not mention the source of the paragraph at the end of the paragraph. This is called paragraph paraphrasing and is plagiarism if not cited properly. Sometimes people just change the order of the words of the copied sentences. They are not aware of the fact that changing the order of the words does not change the original wording of the sentence. This is called Mosaic plagiarism, which occurs due to lack of knowledge of referencing rules (Rajeev). For example, if a copied sentence is ‘A mouse was under the table’. Now, if a person changes it to ‘Under the table was a mouse’, it will be mosaic plagiarism. Ways to Avoid Plagiarism Plagiarism is an act of cheating which not only harms a student’s creative writing ability but also affects the reputatio n of the institute if the paper of the student is caught for plagiarism at any platform. One can take ideas of others for writing a report or any other document but he/she should always mention the original source of that information or ideas in order to make the use of those ideas legal. Moreover, it is not sufficient to mention the source of the information only within the text of the paper. Failing to include complete reference/source in the references page also results in plagiarism. Some