Plagiarism is probably one of the biggest issues in literature and creative writing. It is one of the main problems when creating movies, songs, as well as other forms of literature. However, most people are only familiar with academic plagiarism, which is the biggest issue for most students. In most cases, students might work on the original content but are caught up in plagiarism. In other instances, plagiarism may be intentional. Either way, when you are caught up in a lie, it affects your credibility. It is, therefore, essential to understand what is considered plagiarism and how to avoid it. Here is a detailed look into plagiarism and how to get away with plagiarism.

What is plagiarism?

There are several instances when plagiarism happens; however, the following three cases are the most common occurrences of plagiarism.

1.    Copy and pasting sentences from a source without editing. When a sentence is copied without editing, you can be sure that it will appear to be plagiarized. This is primarily a sentence that contains more than three words.

2.    Copy and pasting some paragraphs. When you have a lengthy paper to write, and a limited amount of time, there is a chance that you will want a short cut to finish up the paper. One of the short cuts may be copying and pasting whole paragraphs from a source without editing. This will guarantee that a certain percentage of your work appears to be plagiarized on a plagiarism checker.

3.    Taking someone else’s work and present it as yours. This can be work downloaded from the internet or published in hardcopy. The published work, either soft or hardcopy, will show a 100% plagiarism when checked through a plagiarism checker software. However, even without a doubt, this work is copied in its entirety from someone else; therefore, 100% plagiarized.

How do you plagiarize without being detected by plagiarism checkers?

Plagiarism is an offense, especially in academic works, and you should, therefore, avoid it; however, if it is unavoidable, here are some of the tricks to use.

1.    Paraphrasing

This is probably the easiest trick in preventing plagiarism. You will, however, need to do more than just add adjectives and replace words with their synonyms. To paraphrase for academic works, you will need to read an entire paragraph, understand the content, then rewrite it using your own words. You need to keep in mind to maintain the key points of the argument.

2.    Use Wikipedia

If you have been handling assignments, you know that Wikipedia is not considered a credible source. However, this does not mean that you cannot get essential information for your research. Wikipedia is a source with summarized information. This is vital in getting essential points of research work as well as helping you to understand a subject in its simplest language. Furthermore, Wikipedia gives the background or history of the subject before detailing the current position of the subject.

3.    Falsifying citations

As already seen, you can always get credible information from sources that are considered not credible such as Wikipedia or blogs. When this happens, you need to cite credible citations such as peer-reviewed sources. You need to have at least two sources for each page you write. This will guarantee that you do not get caught up in plagiarism related issues.

Plagiarism can get you in trouble with your professor as well as ruin your credibility. It is for this reason that you need to learn how to avoid it at all costs. Above are just a few of the tips you could use for this purpose. Make sure you understand how to use each before applying it.