How to Avoid Unintended Plagiarism While Writing a Masters Dissertation
Thursday, November 12th, 2009You may be well aware of the definition and consequences of plagiarism and do your best to avoid it while writing an essay or a masters dissertation, but you may still unknowingly fall into its trap as avoiding plagiarism becomes a challenging task while writing a research based academic papers or essays. Therefore it is essential for an essay writer not only to be careful in conducting research and taking notes but also to be aware of the ways in which plagiarism occurs, why it occurs and how best to guard against it.
Common types of accidental plagiarism that occur while writing.
1. Improper citation: Unintended plagiarism occurs when you use your research notes and documents in writing an essay or dissertation without proper citation.
2. Typing Errors: You may miss quotation marks while typing and this leads to plagiarism. Also, when paragraphs are cut pasted within the document, there are chances that you miss the source information.
3. Formatting Errors: Many times students are not aware of the required format and the way it should be used. Improper formatting occurs when a student is ignorant about formatting style and thus skips the source information while quoting or expressing ideas from a reference text.
4. Paraphrasing: This is the most common form of unintended plagiarism. It occurs when students paraphrase an author’s idea in their own words and call it their own. Sometimes they keep most of the printed words in their text which is called paraphrase or patchwork plagiarism. It also happens when students write research papers in second language. Thus in an attempt to avoid grammatical and structural errors they unintentionally copy the author’s ideas and words.
Ways to Avoid Plagiarism in your writing.
1. Proper Citation: Academic standard requires student or research scholar to follow the MLA/APA/Harvard/Chaicago format of writing where the name of the book, author, page number and other details are mentioned with the quotation and in the Works cited section
2. Adopting a Good Research Method: Proper documentation is a must to avoid unintentional plagiarism. When students forget to put quotation marks or details of the book from where the notes are made, they often tend to mistake the words for their own. It is thus important to keep separate columns for author’s ideas and own comments and notes.
3. Proofreading and Editing: Make sure to proofread or edit your final draft before submitting. It is advisable to keep proofreading subsequent drafts as on-screen errors like missing quotation marks and other omissions are not easily conspicuous. Students tend to miss out on self made errors, thus proofreading and editing services are of great help.
Whether you want to write an A level coursework or wish to obtain high SAT scores, you must make your writing plagiarism free. Buying Plagiarism free essays and Master dissertations from custom essays UK is always a better option than copying someone’s else’s work because of lack of time or skill.
