Introduction to Plagiarism
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is defined as the use of someone’s ideas, thoughts, language, expression, content as your original work without acknowledgment.
It is mostly used in the academic field to express the stealing of another author’s academic content for personal gain without acknowledgment.
In many instances, plagiarism has been understood to mean the act of copying another person’s content and using them as your own. However, this is just one of the many types of plagiarism.
The main issue with plagiarism is that it is often considered a violation of academic integrity. When you plagiarized, your academic integrity is soiled, and you stand to be punished if found guilty.
Many students plagiarize because they do not want to work hard, but instead choose to use shortcuts to finish their academic assignments.
What causes plagiarism?
From the definition, the main cause of plagiarism is the appetite to use another person’s work and present it as your own. For example, you may be assigned to work on an essay topic then go online and find a beautiful essay on exactly the same topic.
You will then be attempted to copy it so that your work also looks presentable as that one. The act of copying that other essay now results to plagiarism.
Another cause of plagiarism is when you are given an assignment to work on but choose to work on its last minute. You find yourself in a situation where there is very limited time but the work to be done is so huge. Since you are not in the position to work on it within the stipulated deadline, you choose to copy paste in order to beat the deadline. In other words, lateness in doing assignments is also a major cause of plagiarism.
The other cause of plagiarism is ignorance. You find that a student does not know that failing to cite a source is plagiarism. Other students also do not know that relying on one source while handling that academic work is plagiarism. Another student also might not know that submitting a paper that was already submitted previously is also plagiarism. In this regard, the lack of knowledge on the many types of plagiarism is also a serious cause of plagiarism among the students.
What are the many types of plagiarism?
#1. Clone Plagiarism
Clone plagiarism is the type of plagiarism that usually happens when the student submits another student’s work, word by word, without rewriting it or even changing anything else. As long as the first student had already submitted his work, the second work will automatically be flagged 100% plagiarism by Turnitin (see how to remove it this video).
#2. CTRL+C Plagiarism
This is a type of plagiarism that happens when the student work contains a large portion of texts from a single source. It simply means that the student has not done extensive research, but instead has largely borrowed from one single document with little or no alterations.
SEE ALSO: What is the acceptable percentage for Turnitin?
#3. Find – Replace Plagiarism
This is a type of plagiarism that takes place when the student changes key words and phrases within a text but retains the essential content of the source.
#4. Remix Plagiarism
Remix plagiarism usually happens when the student sources phrases from different sources, then combines them to make a sentence or a paragraph.
#5. Recycle Plagiarism
Recycle plagiarism is a type of plagiarism that takes place when the student borrows heavily from a previous student without putting proper citation.
#6. Hybrid plagiarism
Hybrid plagiarism occurs when the student combines perfectly cited sources with copied passages without citation.
#7. Mashup plagiarism
Mashup is a type of plagiarism when the student decides to mix material content copied from multiple sources.
#8. 404 Error plagiarism
This is a type of plagiarism that takes place when the students put proper citations to non-existent or inaccurate information.
#9. Aggregator plagiarism
Aggregator is a type of plagiarism that takes place when the student puts proper citations to a work that is not original.
#10. Re-Tweet Plagiarism
Re-tweet is a type of plagiarism that takes place when the students put proper citations in his work but relies too closely in the original wording of the borrowed ideas.
#11. Repository Plagiarism
Repository plagiarism is that plagiarism that happens when the paper is submitted to the Turnitin database. It is called plagiarism because such a paper cannot be used again not unless it is removed from the Turnitin repository. It mostly happens accidentally when the student uses a repository Turnitin to check plagiarism instead of non-repository Turnitin to check plagiarism.
What is the best plagiarism checking software?
There is close to 50 plagiarism checking software out there. Each of these software will lie to you how their plagiarism checking capabilities is the best.
To get the best plagiarism checker, we need to ask yourself these two questions.
What is the most popular plagiarism checking software? The most popular plagiarism checking software used by universities and colleges around the world is Turnitin.
For Turnitin to get the trust of most universities across the world, it means that they already tested it in terms of quality and reliability.
Another questions we need to ask is this.
Which plagiarism software can detect plagiarism in a student paper that was submitted last semester?
Only Turnitin has that capability.
From the above explanation, we can conclude that the most popular plagiarism checking is Turnitin.
You can get Turnitin one year subscription license from us at a small fee of $29.99
Our Turnitin student subscription comes with the following benefits
- It is a non-repository Turnitin (no risk of your work being stored in the Turnitin database)
- We provide 24/7 technical support (no risk of your classes expiring for long hours due to Turnitin update.
- It is safe, secure, and privacy is guaranteed (we only set up the account using your email and a unique password that you can change anytime to keep off intruders).
- The Turnitin checks are unlimited (you can check as many papers as you want on daily basis).
If you are a student and the first and the second options does not work for you, then we highly recommend you try this one.
It will save you lots of problem related to plagiarism.
What are the consequences of plagiarism?
There are three main consequences of plagiarism depending on the plagiarism percentage and your university policy, the level of education, and the type of paper you were writing.
The three main consequence of plagiarism are
- Low marks
- Paper being rejected
- Probation or Expulsion
When the plagiarism is not so high in your paper, let’s say 45%, your teacher can just to punish you a little by deducting some marks.
When the plagiarism is so high, let’s say 80%, your paper can be rejected.
When you have done no work and your paper is 100% plagiarism and you are in the highest learning levels such as master’s and PhD, then you can be expelled from the university. As a serious academic student, you really need to know the acceptable plagiarism percentage.
How can plagiarism be removed?
Removing plagiarism is possible. The first step in removing plagiarism from your document is to have the plagiarism report. For you to have a comprehensive plagiarism report, you need a powerful plagiarism checking software like Turnitin. We already mentioned above how you can get access to Personal non repository Turnitin account.
When you have the plagiarism report, you just need to check the highlighted areas then rewrite and cite the sentences in those highlighted areas.
If you are having problems removing plagiarism, then you can contact us for professional plagiarism removal services at a small fee. Even the plagiarism that result from a paper being stuck in the Turnitin repository can be removed.
How can Plagiarism be avoided?
As a student, you have no otherwise other than to avoid plagiarism as much as possible.
Avoiding plagiarism entails doing lots of writing best practices as listed below.
- Cite all the borrowed ideas
- Write everything in your own words
- Starts your writings early enough to avoid the last minutes rush and temptation to copy to beat the deadline
- Never submit a paper that had already been submitted before
- Never rely on one source in your writing
- Cite all the charts, figure, illustrations and diagrams
- Check your draft paper with Turnitin plagiarism checker and only submit if the plagiarism report shows a plagiarism percentage below 15%
Final Thoughts on Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the use of someone’s ideas, thoughts, language, expression, content as your original work without acknowledgment. The main causes of plagiarism are recklessness, ignorance, tackling assignments late, and laziness. The best plagiarism checker is Turnitin. You can get in touch with us if you need non repository Turnitin account. The three main consequence of plagiarism are low marks, paper being rejected and probation or expulsion. Plagiarism can be removed but the best thing is just to avoid plagiarism during the writing process by observing the best practices we mentioned above.
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