In every academic setting, plagiarism is utterly frowned at. No matter how well-reasoned, interesting, and brilliant your academic writing looks, any detection of plagiarism waters down its substantiality. It’s a concept that puts a look of disappointment on lecturers faces and sends shivers down the spine of students. In this post, we’re going to explore what plagiarism is and how to avoid it to in order to write an effective essay.
What is Plagiarism?
Here’s the definition of plagiarism according to the Oxford dictionary:
“The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own”.
Now you’re thinking, “Hmm, so I just have to avoid taking other peoples’ ideas without citing them”. That’s just part of the picture and it’s called direct plagiarism. There are three other forms of plagiarism as well. When you copy ideas from works you’ve done before with acknowledging it, it’s called self-plagiarism. When you quote others without quotation marks, it’s called mosaic plagiarism. When you forget to cite a source, or you misquote it, or you paraphrase without giving credit to the original author, it’s called accidental plagiarism. But who cares if it’s accidental? It shows recklessness on your part and that’s why there’s zero-tolerance for it.
At best, plagiarism can cause you to get a score of zero for your writing and at worse, it can cost you your studentship. That’s why you must avoid plagiarism at all cost!
Best Tips for Writing Academic Essays.
Writing an essay, term paper, research paper or any other form of academic writing can be a daunting process if you don’t know how to go about it. Sometimes, the very nature of the essay even complicates the process. But fortunately, that’s not going to be a problem anymore after you master these tips.
Start with an Outline.
The purpose of any academic writing task is to test if you can effectively synthesize your ideas with other people’s thoughts. To do this, you need to have an independent mind to present novel ideas and at the same time, have a good grasp of what other peoples’ researches entail. An outline is important because it helps you to track the source of your ideas. You can easily achieve this by jotting down the source of every information as you’re gathering them. This will help you to avoid a scenario where you have to sort through all the text, later on, to know where you got them from.
Always use Citation.
It’s a no-brainer for most students that they have to cite your sources. That’s true, but what do you have to cite? To start with, general ideas that are a common fact for the intended audience — for instance, the capital of New York City – doesn’t need to be cited. On the other hand, ideas that represent the intellectual property of an author has to be cited.
There are several citation styles like MLA and APA and you have to know the one to use for your work. You can always find out this information from your professor.
So, how do you use citation? You can incorporate other people’s ideas into your work by either using direct quotes or by paraphrasing. Direct quotes should be used when it is difficult to paraphrase the author’s idea without losing the intended meaning. Either one you choose, make sure you cite the appropriate sources.
Use only Credible Sources.
An effective essay is not only plagiarism-free. It must also contain information that is reliable as well. That’s why you should turn to only reputable sources for your academic writing. When in doubt about the credibility of a source, it’s best not to use it.
Getting Help.
If you’re stuck when you’re writing essays, there are a lot of resources you can tap into. First, you can always ask your lecturer for assistance since they’re the ones that’ll be grading you. It’s usually a bad idea to meet friends for help to avoid a scenario where you’ll plagiarize each other.
Also, having a model essay written by an expert can give you the inspiration you need to get started on your writing. Although it’s wrong to submit essays written by someone else as yours, you can still get valuable insight from a model essay. Professional academic writers can help you at any time you need it with your student essays
However, there are so many wishy-washy writing services that will give you substandard essays. That’s why you need a reputable writing services company like iziPen. We are fastidious when hiring writers and that’s why we have the bests. What this means for you is that you’re assured of receiving top-notch writing. You are guaranteed of an essay that is perfectly suited to meet your requirements. And what’s more, it’ll be 100% unique.
