With the abundance of reference material ready available online, it’s incredibly tempting to put the ever-reliable cut-and-paste to good use. When time is running out on your paper’s deadline and you’re finding it awfully hard to string the words together, the prospect of copying five paragraphs verbatim from Wikipedia is just too difficult to resist.
But You Must Resist
Regardless of whether you’re writing for a class or a professional publication, plagiarism just isn’t something you want to be associated with. While it might seem harmless to you (you’re just “borrowing”), most don’t look at the situation that way. Plagiarism can be cause for a professor to give you a failing mark and you wouldn’t have a sensible response for it. Professionally, it can completely ruin your reputation and credibility.
Paraphrasing
Instead of outright lifting text off a reference, it is more acceptable to rewrite the idea in your own words, while making sure you give credit where it is due. If you’re having a difficult time putting your own spin on things, try gauging your understanding of the subject. Most of the time, it’s probably because you just don’t have a working grasp of the topic just yet. Try to make use of your English writing software to help you recreate certain ideas – you may be surprised by how well it can aid the process.
Quoting
Alternatively, you can quote relevant information directly, adding your own thoughts about it either to introduce it or as an afterthought. This way, you don’t have to work nearly as hard to rewrite something while staying within the proper guidelines of use. Just make sure to refrain from quoting too much – if all you’re going to fill a page with are quotes from other reference materials, what’s the point of reading anything you write?
Tags: original copy, plagiarism
