How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Text
Here you are, typing excitedly the last words of your paper in your text editor. You put a full stop, check the text for typos and mistakes, correct them if there are any, and, finally, run your text through the plagiarism checker. You relax, being fully confident in your paper. Last checking is a pure formality, you know well that you have put all your soul into this text, having searched for evidence, working out the information, categorizing, classifying… You have assiduously placed all the reference upon the citing, and now you are sure your text is an entirely unique piece of writing. Then your eyes catch the suspicious yellow gleam from the screen. 75%? 25% of plagiarism? How could that be? Is there a malfunction of the program?
However, don’t get upset too early. To find out what happened and why your text has proven not to be unique, let us discover first what the plagiarism is.
If you do not have a spare time to delve into the particulars and principles of the plagiarism and of the ways of its rectification, you can always benefit using the anti-plagiarism services of our professional team. We provide the whole range of services in the field, including essay, assignments, thesis, dissertation editing and so for. Check our prices to get the further benefit!
What is plagiarism and how did it appear in your paper?
The history of writing texts reaches more than five thousand years now. The history of written plagiarism is probably a few years younger. However, it did not serve scribblers’ own aims, as it does today. Copying the text helped to preserve it for the future generations, to spread it to other people.
However, as the quantity of the written texts grew up, and the books’ publishing became a manufacturing process, the issue of the author’s rights and their violation has arisen. The written text became a personal property that many other people could use for their profit (printing in the magazines, taking the fragments for their own work and so on). It is then that the notion of the plagiarism appeared, and it has significantly developed until the present time.
Plagiarism is a repetition of someone else’s words and ideas without mentioning the author or the borrowing nature of the idea. It is characterized as a pure negative issue; however let us find out the ways it appears and the circumstances, which it happens in.
Today the plagiarism plays an important part in the following spheres of the human activity:
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Science (academic texts).
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Creativity (pieces of Art, music, writing).
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Internet content (articles and posts on the different websites).
Though the definition above does not highlight the character of the issue, it is important to mention that the plagiarism may be classified with regard to its origin and the writer’s intentions. Basis this ground, the following types of the plagiarism can be featured:
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Intentional. When you determinedly take a part or the whole text (or another creativity product) by another author, it is an intentional plagiarism. You realize the idea of the text belongs to other person, and use his or her idea for you own goals. If doing so you fulfil the requirements of the author (e.g. placing a link to his or her website, a reference to the author’s work), or have the author’s permission to use his or her ideas, it can be quite a normal practice. However if you borrow the text from the others without indicating the real author or representing the text as yours, it can entail the unpleasant consequences, including the legal ones.
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Unintentional. This is the case we have spotted in the preface to this post. You have written the work yourself, you’ve put all the references into their proper places, you did not write off from any source, and yet the plagiarism checker shows your work contains plagiarism. It may well happen that your ideas have been already shaped by someone else in writing. It is also possible that another person used the similar phrases in his or her text, earlier than you did. They could be writing on a completely different topic, though! See the following passages:
The causes of the similar events lay behind the general knowledge. – about ethical matters
The reasons of such reaction lay behind the general experience. – about the chemical reaction.
This type of plagiarism, though not coming of the author’s intention to borrow anything, can still be punished in accordance with the Law and the educational institution’s regulations.
If you spotted a large amount of plagiarism in your text, we are certain your case relates completely to this second alternative. However, it still needs to be modified in order to meet the requirements of your college. Check what all-encompassing support you can get from our anti-plagiarism online essay proofreader service. Make sure you get your loyalty discount, check the website now! -
Forced. Some fields of science and almost all fields of creativity allow for a certain liberty of expression. However there are the spheres where citing of the previous achievements is necessary and obligatory. Such spheres are justice (quoting laws, regulations, court decisions), natural sciences (quoting general principles, basics, universal laws), mathematics (quoting the laws and theorems, equations and the way of their decision etc.) and many others. If you write in such spheres, it will be next to impossible to avoid a significant level of plagiarism in your work. Our editors will help you to decrease the grade of plagiarism, and also ensure the grammatical character of your text https://essay-editor.net/blog/how-does-our-college-essay-editing-service-work.
Whatever is the type of the plagiarism found in your text, it is most likely you will need to revise it in order to reach the required uniqueness percentage. Remember that you can use our professional support any time of the day. To learn more about the ways our anti-plagiarism techniques work, check one of the useful articles in our blog https://essay-editor.net/blog/we-are-ready-to-revise-a-paper.
The plagiarism relates mostly to the general phrases, common in everyone’s speech. “There is no good result without a good work”, “I’d love to become a student of this college and to develop my interest in science within its walls” etc. That is why the plagiarism is often detected in the admission essays and is rather rare in the research papers, where students describe their individual work. By the way, should you need a research paper editor’s service, our experienced editors are ready to assist you. Just place your order on the website.
The plagiarism spotting and proving has been a problem until the electronic means of its detection were invented. It required a thorough search and a good memorizing to spot the text where the fragment or the whole text were taken from, and then the expert checking should had been performed to prove the origin and the character of the plagiarism. Today, when the worldwide Web contains billions of texts and the special electronic programs have been worked out to detect the plagiarism, it became much easier to spot it, on one part. On another, it made the writing of the texts quite a difficult task, for both new authors, and the experienced ones. Indeed, it is quite difficult to go without such words and phrases as “value added tax”, “general principles”, “differential equation” and so on, if you write for the dedicated topic. Rephrasing such word-combinations or using descriptive method would lead to unnecessary wordiness and possible misunderstandings. That is why the notion of the text uniqueness has been introduced. This criterion shows the proportion of the unique content and plagiarism in your text. It is also used as the setting requirement for the paper writing. In some fields, such as philosophy, philology, Art the percentage of the uniqueness may be set as quite high – up to 100%. In others, such as math, physics, Law it can be much lower – about 60-70%. Each educational institution and each professor can also establish their own requirements basis the nature of the task and its purpose. The uniqueness level for the admission essay can be set as 90-95%, considering the individual character of the task. Meanwhile the dissertation cannot be completely performed without citing and paraphrasing from the other works; however in certain fields even for these texts the unique requirements can reach 100%.
Check our posts on editing that might help you to make your text grammatical and avoid the constructions likely to be spot as plagiarism:
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How to Edit Revise of the Paper
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Get the Needed Help from Our Dissertation Editor
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Are You Looking for Proofreading Services Online?
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Why Should I Write and Edit My Essay?
Ways to detect plagiarism
Now that we know enough about the origin and the characteristics of the plagiarism, let us talk about the ways to spot it – and, likewise, the ways to determine the uniqueness of the text. As we already mentioned, the specific electronic programs – plagiarism checkers, perform such tasks. Learning the principle of their work, you can understand the ways the plagiarism comes into your work – and, subsequently, the ways to fix it.
The plagiarism in written texts can also be classified as to the means of its application and/or expression. By this parameter, the plagiarism can be:
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Word-to-word plagiarism. It is the most frustrating type of plagiarism to be found in your paper. It proves either you have written off your work from someone else, or that you use the same phrases and words to relay your ideas, that were already used before. This can prove the reign of the stereotype thinking and is certainly not the way you’d like to surprise your teacher. The word-to-word plagiarism can differ in the quantity of the words repeated and their position in the sentence:
Luckily, the right conclusions were made, and the situation was resolved successfully.
Luckily, I made a right decision and resolved the situation successfully.
Such plagiarism is easily detected by the plagiarism checkers. Learn how to decrease the level of plagiarism with a proper proofreading https://essay-editor.net/blog/proofreading-for-students-articles-in-english.
Any type of plagiarism found in your text can become a frustrating situation. However, as we already mentioned, it doesn’t mean you’ve become a criminal or acted dishonestly. If you wrote your paper yourself, reread it and make sure you’ve put a reference to each indication of someone else’s thoughts, even if you do not cite word to word. However if detected plagiarism concerns the ideas you derived from your mind, the solution would be to rewrite the passage. Check ho our professional editor’s service can help you with this task https://essay-editor.net/blog/choose-the-best-cheap-rewriting-service. -
Mosaic plagiarism. This type corresponds fully to its name – its shape is mosaic in its nature. It includes the borrowed fragments mixed with the unique ones. The difficulty of its detection is determined by the way the original text is connected with the non-original one (whether they match or clash, follow each other or are dedicated to opposite or non-related things), and the length of the fragments. The more your text contains the unique content, the less is the chance the program will spot any plagiarism in your work. Let us see how it works. For example, you are planning to introduce the following passage into your essay on philosophy:
The principles of constant motion and the Absolute formed by Aristotle were not unique, following the specific analysis.
The mosaic weaving of the passage can look as follows (the borrowed fragments are underlined):
During our research, we have used the principles of the specific content analysis. It proved the principles formed by Aristotle have had their analogues before. For instance, the Absolute doctrine and the constant motion principle were already partly described in the works of other philosophers and thus, were not unique. -
Paraphrasing. This is the most popular method of the plagiarism (both intentional and unintentional one). Instead of copying some fragments from the other authors, you can relay their ideas or conclusions in other words. Here the chances the plagiarism will be detected in your text are inverse to your level of the language mastering and of your writing skills.
If you are not a native English speaker, it won’t be easy to avoid the standard cliché phrases like “In my essay, I would like to reveal the following”, “Science is international” and so on. The solution will be to improve your level of the English language’ skills until you can relay your thoughts freely without consulting the accustomed utterances. Use the communicative approach to learn English; it will help you to diversify your knowledge and speaking skills in the different areas.
Paraphrasing can get to the level of the quality rewriting. In this case, it will be almost impossible to detect the plagiarism with the plagiarism checker. However, if you paraphrase the well-known work, there is a big chance your professor is also acquainted with it. The example of the paraphrasing:
Game theory by von Neumann is constructing and examining the mathematic models of the conflict.
The conflict described by means of the mathematic models, is a core notion of the game theory, as described by von Neumann.
The modern programs for plagiarism detection aim to spot any similarity between the texts. However, as we said before, such striving may lead to the detection of the passages that have no other correct way of expression. It also comes to an issue of the quality of the text and of the borrowed passages. It would be reasonable not to mark as plagiarism the solid constructions such as the fall of the fixed assets, correlation Subject-Predicate, by information of the mass media etc. Yet if such expressions make an essential part of the text, that does not relay any idea of its own; it should be certainly marked as plagiarism.
Spotting plagiarism in your paper and realizing your ideas are not unique is not a pleasant experience. Yet it is even worse if your teacher informs you of the poor uniqueness of your text. To detect the deficiencies including plagiarism passages, timely use the reliable proofreading service for students. It is not expensive, however is able to save you time and effort, as well as spare the unpleasant situation of being accused, even indirectly, of the plagiarism.
But why even the most brilliant and creative academic papers can be labelled as not unique? Let us get to the principles of operation of the electronic programs called the plagiarism checkers. Here are some secrets concerning their work.
The plagiarism checkers are especially keen on checking:
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Book, textbook, manual titles – if you mention one, always give a link to its electronic copy or supply the proper reference;
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Laws, regulations, legal orders titles – do the same;
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Fragments of the laws and other legal acts – always use the correct quoting, to get more tips on that consult our article on punctuation;
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Cell and tab names (in tables and Excel files) – even if all the other cells have unique content, the whole document may be marked as plagiarism. Rephrase the cell names or see our advice how to correct plagiarism below;
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Cliché phrases, such as sayings (As the story goes), idioms (Beating around the bush), well known quotes (World is a theatre), lyrics (Now or never) and so on. It is better to avoid such phrases in the academic texts.
The actual way of screening the text and determining the grade of the plagiarism can be grossly described as follows:
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Text purification. The text is being cut of the words not bearing the sense function. These are interjections (Oh, eh, jeez), prepositions (in, at, above), particles (not, well), auxiliary verbs (be, have). Some checkers also exclude the conjunctions and even adjectives, as they do not add significant meaning to the text: The beautiful yards were swept and cleaned. – yards swept cleaned. Some of the checkers also establish the initial grammar form of the words. Nouns and pronouns are put in the single number, nominative case, Verbs are put into the infinitive forms: yard sweep clean. Some checkers even cut the endings and prefixes, leaving the word roots only: re-assuming – assum-. You can learn more about the initial forms of the words checking the recent articles on our website.
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Separation of the shingles. The text is automatically divided into the multiple small fragments that are called shingles. Usually it takes about 3 to 9 words per shingle. The less words the shingle contains, the more thorough the analysis would be. For example, the sentence The team of students has won in the rafting regatta, having skillfully overcome all the whirlpools and dugouts. If we take the shingle size 5, we’ll have the following ones: team students has won in rafting, students has won in rafting regatta, rafting regatta having skillfully overcome and so on.
If your text shows a good result with the 5 shingle size, however doesn’t correspond the requirements when it is narrowed to 3, try to revise slightly your paper. It is unreasonable to completely rewrite it, as it will take time, and there will be no guarantee the result would show the better digits for the anti-plagiarism. A mild online essay revision, mostly engaging the synonymizing, is the right tool in such situations. Make sure you order from the reliable and competent service! -
The shingles are taken from the intersection of the fragments, too. The second word of the fragment becomes the first word of the next fragment. For instance, the sentence She hurt her leg riding the bike will be broken into six shingles of the 4 size: she hurt her leg, hurt her leg riding, her leg riding bike, leg riding bike and so on. So the shingles overlap each other in order to provide more accurate analysis of the text.
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The shingles are compared with the ones stored in the database of the program. Certainly, the different programs have different database. Besides, they can have different algorithms, as we outlined above (cutting or leaving conjunctions, adjectives, using the initial forms of the words or leaving the sample ones). Also, the programs are set for different number of coincidences to be referred to as plagiarism. It is understood that such phrases as yard sweep clean can appear quite often, so the further analysis of the text must be conducted to verify its uniqueness.
Though the plagiarism checkers are constantly updated with the new texts and developed method of checking, they are still quite imperfect. The checker can consider as plagiarism the sentences relating to completely different subject and connect your linguistic text to the gardener’s site. The checker also does not always correctly determines the priority right, and it may happens that the plagiarist texts are marked as primary sources. Then it will turn out that the real author has copied his own stolen texts. To avoid such troubling circumstances, always use a help of the competent dissertation editor online, for any of your academic papers.
Understanding these deficiencies, the educational institutions and other primary bodies have worked out their own requirements for the percentage of the text uniqueness. As we already mentioned, it may vary depending onto the character and purpose of the written work, as well as the status of the performer. However, in general the requirements for the text uniqueness look as follows:
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Academic texts – 70 – 90 %
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Internet sites – 80 – 95%
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Media and creative spheres – 90 – 100%
As follows from the above, the modern standards and operations of the plagiarism and text uniqueness checking are far from being perfect. However, it is useful to know the ways the plagiarism checking is performed in order to confront it, or even better, to avoid plagiarism in your text. We’ll talk about the ways to do it in the next clause.
We hope that the reason you are reading this text is a pure curiosity, and your academic papers were always graded 100% uniqueness. However, even if it’s not the case, you can always use the assistance of the competent editors for rectifying the plagiarism and improve the uniqueness of your paper. Learn how useful we can be for you, by means of the recent articles in our professional blog:
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How to avoid and cure plagiarism in your text
Having found plagiarism in your text does not automatically mean you have deliberately used someone else’s ideas. After all, the Earth population makes more than 7 billion now, and it is no wonder some person out of the 7 billion have got the same idea as yours. There is also a concept of the multiple discoveries in science, stating people are able to make the same discoveries absolutely independently, without copying each other. Did you happen to have exactly the same thoughts on the subject as your friend, be it the universal absolute functions, or “It’s time to order the Hawaiian pizza”? The same situation can happen with the ideas, too.
However, proving your idea and your text were created independently turns out a difficult work with no success guarantee. The best way to deal with the situation would be either to find another idea or to relay the one you already have in the other words. If you need help with this task, learn how our dedicated team of professional linguists can assist you to revise your paper https://essay-editor.net/blog/contact-us-about-the-online-essay-revision. However, if you feel confident in your linguistic skills, you may well perform the uniqueness upgrade yourself. For that, use the following techniques:
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Present the reporting documents in the picture format. Upon finishing the audit, stocks’ revision or the marketing analysis, change the format of your document into the JPEG or simply Print Screen it and insert as a picture;
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Add pictures into your text. The picture isn’t detected by the program and is considered as a unique object. Diagrams and unique tables will do as well.
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Modify the text. There are several ways to modify your text to correct its uniqueness’ grade:
- Synonymize. One of the simplest ways to avoid plagiarism claims is to change your words and sentences to the synonyms. Exchange patient for tolerant; catch for grasp, his for Nigel’s. You can make the sentence with the same sense; however, the plagiarism checker would consider it the other one. However, it can be also estimated as not unique, so be careful to double check upon synonymizing.
- Rephrasing. Some of the modern checkers are high-quality ones that will detect your synonyms and won’t be misled by them. However, if you rewrite your text in entirely other phrases, it might be a good solution to your plagiarism problem. The plagiarism checkers do not deal with the sense of the text, only with its form. So, there is a good chance the rewrite of some brilliant idea will be considered as a unique original text. Such technique is sometimes used in the document editing. You can check the particulars in the interesting articles on our website. The following sentences, for example, have the same meaning but different shape:
The chemical experiments have shown the quantity of the substance’ molecules being thrice above the norm.
The molecules proved to exceed the established quantitative norm in more than three times – such was a result of the experiment held in the chemical laboratory.
- Inserting unique fragments in the mosaic order. Some checkers are not sensitive to the grades of plagiarism. Adding the unique text fragments may mislead them and let them consider your text a completely unique one. As we already know, it also depends on a size of the shingle that was chosen for the checking. For example, adding some fragments to the sentence The record showed no evidence of the raised voice will increase the grade of uniqueness checked with the shingle size 4:
The record discovered during the investigation showed clearly, there was no evidence or proof to the raising voice. -
Linking to the source. If you put a proper reference to all the fragments considered non-unique, it won’t be considered as plagiarism in the academic sphere. However, be careful not to site some citing sources, always look for the original one.
Remember if you got stuck, and the more you revise your text, the less unique it becomes, it is time to take a break. Distract for the other occupations, preferable involving the physical activity (walking, making exercises, cleaning). Then try to rephrase your text again. If further tries are of no avail, probably it is time to contact the knowledgeable editor. Choose the one having the most voluminous and difficult tasks on their service lists. Such marker shows the editor is an experienced and efficient one and is well aware of the existing anti-plagiarism techniques. For example, the following article reveals the dedicated team can accept the challenge of the dissertation’ work out https://essay-editor.net/blog/choose-the-best-dissertation-services.
Now that we listed the ways to correct the already traced plagiarism, let us talk of how to avoid it completely and make your texts the 100% unique ones. The following methods may be of help:
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Use the unique sources. If you use the sources of the general access for your essay, it is most probable that someone has already done the same before you. However, citing or rephrasing the unique sources, available in selected electronic libraries or journals, can increase the value and uniqueness of your paper significantly.
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Use the data available in another language. If you know of some reliable scientific research not available in English, you can well use its data in your paper. A good practice would be to reference the source, in this case. Contact our thesis editing specialists if you need advice on the academic referencing procedures. If you need a proof of our work, browse our unique plagiarism-free writing samples and the articles on the popular topics.
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Avoid clichés and regular phrases. Cut all the Our experiment showed the following result, Socialism is a declining political and economic formation, Let me introduce and others.
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Use unique words and phrases. If you have a good knowledge of the English language and proper writing skills, you are not likely to encounter the issue of the total plagiarism. Add some rare or individually shaped words and phrases, where appropriate, to improve the uniqueness of your text: This theory became his cherished heartthrob; he constantly revised and elaborated it until it became impeccable as a diamond.
Improving your level of the mastering of the English language can help you greatly in avoiding plagiarism in your papers. The ability to put your thoughts clearly and in correspondence with the grammar rules will develop the markers of your individual style in your writing, and lessen the possibility for the plagiarism detection. Get to know how learning English can be fun and profit, and let no more plagiarism into your texts!
Summing up, we can say the plagiarism in writing is an unauthorized citing or rephrasing of the text written by another author, without adding the proper reference to this author. Though the system for plagiarism detection are being elaborated and developed gradually, they still do not provide for the objective result. The copied texts may be considered the unique ones and the ones written entirely “off the mind” may come as plagiarism. That is why it is important to know the methods and techniques to avoid plagiarism in your texts and the ways of correction of the already detected one.
Avoiding plagiarism is important; however do not forget that an elaborated and sufficient language skills will guarantee you a high uniqueness grade for your texts. Get to know how to develop your level of mastering English, and also what editing services can help you in this task:
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Essay Revision Service – Pros and Cons
Have you encountered with plagiarism in your academic activities? How did you manage to rectify it? What’s your idea on the further development of the plagiarism and non-plagiarism techniques? Let us know what you think – type your data in the contact form on our website.