Plagiarism is an intentional appropriation of ideas, inventions, words and masterpieces, created by other people and passing them off as one’s own. Plagiarism is prosecuted by the law and very much disrespected by people in general.
There exist several types of plagiarism, known nowadays:
- Stealing the ideas or words of another person and passing them off as one’s own.
- Using the results of other person’s work without indicating the origin they were taken from.
- Stealing a piece of literature.
- Representing an already existing idea (product) as a new and original one.
Of course, while writing any type of research, it is impossible to build your own ideas and assumptions without considering the researches on the same topic, held by other people. But to avoid plagiarism, one has to follow simple, but necessary rules. They are such as following:
- Whenever you use the words of another author in your research, use quotation marks and make proper reference.
- Do not paraphrase. Put into words your own ideas and thoughts the way you would do that, and not the way some respected author does.
- Don’t be ambiguous in revealing the author of the words you are using.
- Develop you own style of writing and do not try to be a spitting image of the author you are fond of. Imitation is always obvious for an experienced reader.
- Never start writing on a topic you do not understand. Deep understanding of an idea you are trying to convey in your research paper or an essay is the best assistant in finding your own proper words and expression, that will build up you style and make you a gifted author.