In this Blog article we’re going to understand about the significance of Plagiarism in research. If you’re diving deep into research for your academic career, the last thing you want is to risk your credibility with unethical practices. Don’t you think that intensive work and research are essential for presenting your noble study?
In the realm of academics, plagiarism can go beyond just copying text, research, and even ideas. This type of unethical academic activity can lead to the devastation of valuable time and effort a scholar has put into their research and report. No matter how deep your information is, plagiarism is enough to put stains on your valuable research work, Agreed or not?
What exactly is Plagiarism in Research?
“Plagiarism in research is referenced as representing someone else’s research, views, or methodologies and not giving them proper credit. This act can lead to a severe decline in the integrity and sophistication of scholars who are pursuing their research and wish to accomplish their academic works.”
Plagiarism can have many types and this includes:
- Copying Text from someone’s resource: Directly copying someone else’s text or ideas without giving them a proper reference, falls under plagiarism.
Research by Springer Nature (2020) indicates that 10-12% of PhD theses are rejected or sent for major revisions due to high similarity and that causes delays in their academics.
Source: Springer Nature Publishing Integrity Guidelines, 2020.
This example shows that copying text from other resources can cause a major plagiarism percentage, which in this case, is 100%.
- Using someone’s Visuals property: this includes images, graphs, or tables created by someone else without permission or citation.
- Self-Plagiarism: Reusing your previous work or published research without proper reference to new research and work, is considered plagiarism.
According to a study by Turnitin (2019), 15-20% of plagiarism cases in PhD thesis involve self-plagiarism, where previously published work is reused without proper citation.
Source: Turnitin Plagiarism Trends Report, 2019.
A study published in Science and Engineering Ethics (2018) found that 20-30% of PhD theses contain some degree of plagiarism, with self-plagiarism being a significant concern.
Source: Bretag, T., et al. (2018). “Plagiarism in Higher Education: Prevalence and Impact.” Science and Engineering Ethics.
As clearly visible, even not giving reference to your own previous work can cause plagiarism.
Why Avoiding Plagiarism in Research is a Serious Concern
Now that we understand what plagiarism is, it’s important to understand why avoiding it should be a top priority in your academic journey. What would you gain from submitting a plagiarized research report ?
Plagiarism in your research might not be a criminal violation, but it’s still powerful enough to cause further delays in your valuable research. Researchers like you always want to avoid such risks, Right??
Now imagine, you are working deeply on a research, and then find out that a part of it is plagiarized. How would that feel? Devastating, right? It’s like watching all your intensive study Collapse into pieces in front of your eyes. But wait—here’s the good news! Instead of letting that happen, you can plan, remove, and reduce plagiarism and it will save your ton of time as well as the PHD journey completion period.
Do you know, that plagiarism can occur unintentionally? Sometimes people plagiarize without realizing it and this is known as “accidental plagiarism”.
How Plagiarism in Research is an Obstacle to Academic Success
Imagine how much it can add benefit and value to your research journey if you become aware of how to avoid plagiarism right from the very start. I bet you’re excited about it! Does it feel like a weight will be removed from your shoulders? Remember the proverb, “Delays are not denials.”
Let’s go ahead with our main objective—how can we avoid plagiarism?
- In our modern academic era of powerful plagiarism-remover tools, the task of how to remove plagiarism is straightforward. Pretty amazing, right?
- But it’s not just about technology; giving credit to the original author can make a huge difference in your career. Remember, some tricks are essential to look unique as everyone does. Meanwhile, tracking and quoting the copied text can make you stand out of the herd and it can work as a turning point in research submission. Special words, definitions, names, and botanical names into quotes can help to a great extent.
- Rewrite: Replacing words or phrases with synonyms or alternative expressions, changing word structure, and converting them from active to passive voice or its Opposite, can significantly make your work plagiarism-free.
- Text to image: In your academic journey you might encounter several events where you found some fixed rules, formulas, and definitions that can’t be modified and are necessary to use as it is. In those scenarios you can use images that reflect the same information and ideas but in the image form.
Top Methods for Avoiding Plagiarism
As we deep-dived into the discussion of why and how part of plagiarism, now let’s discuss what are the top methods that can help to avoid plagiarism. Here are some of the best techniques that can help you write your research plagiarism-free
• Paraphrase with Integrity:
What do you think? Does paraphrasing sound like an effective trick for avoiding plagiarism in research? Well, I believe this approach can help. The idea is simple: paraphrasing correctly makes your research plagiarism-free. For instance,
“Many people believe that exercise is essential for maintaining good health.”
Can be converted “Numerous individuals think that staying active is crucial for preserving overall well-being.”
iThenticate reports that its plagiarism detection software can identify up to 95% of word-to-word plagiarism but may miss subtle forms of paraphrasing or inadequate citations.
Source: iThenticate White Paper on Academic Integrity, 2020.
Paraphrasing can significantly reduce plagiarism if used properly. As the picture mentioned above, rewriting in your own context removed plagiarism completely.
• Always Cite Your Sources: If you reference someone’s work, ideas, or research, give them proper credit. Using the citation style necessary for your domain, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago style can save your research work significantly. The below-mentioned images show how you cite the source of the content.
• Use Quotation Marks: If you’re using someone’s exact words, place them in quotation marks.
As you can see in the first image, a phase change process is a defined process that can’t be changed or rewritten. So whenever encounter these situations in your writing or research, put them into quotation marks (as shown in the second picture).
• Use a Plagiarism Checker: Always run your work through a plagiarism checker before submitting. It’ll help you catch any accidental plagiarism that might have slipped through your attention. You can get your Plagiarism Report through Academic Guru Plagiarism Checking Services.
Both the images show the plagiarism percentage. The first image shows 65% plagiarism percentage and after using the plagiarism tool, the plagiarism percentage declined to a great extent (14% and that is considerable).
• Tool for Organizing Reference: Keep track of all the sources you’ve referenced while working on your research. It’s easy to forget a source once you’re deep into your research. Using tools like Zotero, EndNote, and Mendeley can help manage your citations. The mentioned image below shows the Mendeley tool interface for keeping track of all the references.
• Use Visuals to Enhance Clarity: When distinguishing between concepts or methodologies, incorporate diagrams, charts, or visuals that clearly illustrate the differences. This not only strengthens the clarity of your research but also helps minimize the risk of unintentional plagiarism. For instance, converting paragraph texts into flowcharts and using information-aligned images in your research can help you avoid plagiarism!
Picture one is a very common way of writing steps which is very similar in all contexts and is sensitive for plagiarism, whenever encountering these kinds of scenarios, convert them into flowcharts or diagrams.
The first image is in the form of a table and the second one is an image, if the content is written in table format and falls under plagiarism, in this case, use similar content in the image format, provided content must be yours. Images don’t fall under Plagiarism but they do fall under copywriting if are someone else’s property.
How Can Technology Help in Avoiding Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a serious concern in academic and professional writing. Fortunately, technology comes to save you! You don’t have to be a plagiarism expert. Several tools can help you check for plagiarism and avoid unintentional copying. Some of the best tools include:
• Grammarly: Not just for grammar! It also has a built-in plagiarism checker that scans your text against billions of web pages, which makes it useful for both academic and professional writing.
• Turnitin: A widely used tool in academic settings, Turnitin checks for plagiarism and provides a similarity score, helping scholars and writers maintain their originality.
• Quetext: Known for its simple interface, Quetext offers both free and paid plans to check your work in different settings from essays to articles.
• Copyscape: Primarily for web content, Copyscape helps you detect any copied text on the internet and helps in making your content distinct.
• ZeroGpt: A free tool that helps in finding plagiarism in your content for up to 15,000 characters.
In conclusion, plagiarism is no more a big concern if you follow the mentioned steps. In brief, if you use plagiarism checkers, cite your sources correctly, and are aware of your work, you can keep your research original. Stay plagiarism-free, and let your academic journey shine with integrity!
Academic Guru is one of the popular names that provides end-to-end solutions for making your research and writing plagiarism-free. Along with that we also provide plagiarism checker and plagiarism removal services.