Personal strategies for preventing plagiarism during academic writing
Abstract During the assignment writing process, the relevance of other people's ideas, views as well as opinions cannot be overstated. To come up with a concise and balanced research piece, one may be required to draw on the ideas of others from time to time. In this text, I come up with a plan detailing how I will prevent plagiarism in the rest of my program. More specifically, I highlight personal habits, resources as well as methods I will utilize to avoid plagiarism during the assignment writing process.
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Preventing Plagiarism: A Detailed Action Plan
During the assignment writing process, the relevance of other people's ideas, views as well as opinions cannot be overstated. To come up with a concise and balanced research piece, one may be required to draw on the ideas of others from time to time. In this text, I come up with a plan detailing how I will prevent plagiarism in the rest of my program. More specifically, I highlight personal habits, resources as well as methods I will utilize to avoid plagiarism during the assignment writing process.
Preventing Plagiarism: A Detailed Action Plan
According to Sutherland-Smith (2008), plagiarism does not have an assigned definition that has a universal application. However, the author presents a number of definitions commonly used to define the same. Plagiarism according to the Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary has got to do with taking as well as using "another person's thoughts, writings, inventions as one's own" (Sutherland-Smith 2008). Though it is inevitable to use the ideas of others as one seeks to complete a given assignment, there is need to attribute such ideas to their rightful owners. It is important to note that when it comes to the avoidance of plagiarism, there exists a wide range of strategies which may ideally be utilized. In this text, I will divide my action plan into three parts comprising of strategies I will employ to avoid plagiarism before, during as well as after the assignment writing process.
During the Assignment Writing Process
During the assignment writing process, I will ensure that all the sources used are cited appropriately. A citation according to Menager and Paulos (2010) is "a statement of the source of an idea, a conclusion, or a specific collection of information…" It is important to note that in this case, the resources I utilize will be acknowledged both in the body of the text as well as at the end of the assignment. Secondly, at this stage, I will also utilize paraphrasing as an approach to avoid plagiarism. However, paraphrasing in this case will not be the mere rearrangement of words or replacement of the same with synonyms. In seeking to paraphrase, I will simply read the relevant texts and then present my understanding of such texts in my own words. Paraphrased ideas will still be attributed to their original owners.
After the Assignment Writing Process
After am done writing a given assignment, it will be reasonable to go through the text so as to ensure that all borrowed ideas have been attributed to their rightful owners. During this stage, I will check to see that all the cited sources are also included in a separate references page. Further, it is also during this stage that I will seek to ensure that all the direct quotes in the text are identified using quotation marks.
Conclusion
Whilst colleges impose strict fines for those whose assignments are found to contain plagiarized materials, correctly attributing sources to their original owners can be seen as an obligation from both an ethical and moral perspective. It is for these reasons that I will employ the above strategies to avoid plagiarism in any of my assignments going forward.
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