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Category FAQs Search : Plagiarism

Question: How to avoid plagiarism?

Answer: If you are a student at a university, then it is imperative that you avoid plagiarism in your work; otherwise, you may face sanctions that could see you fail your assignment, be suspended from your academic institution, or even be expelled. There are some very clear rules to follow in order to ensure that you don’t plagiarise the work of other people, but there are also some more nuanced elements that must be understood. For example, one must certainly not copy any text, word for word, without including quotation marks and providing a source for the work. This is a very easy thing to understand and something that most students grasp and comprehend. However, there are some more ambiguous aspects of plagiarism that can equally get you into trouble, such as offering information that is not common knowledge and not providing a citation. This is less clear, as one person might think that certain information is common knowledge, and another might not. Therefore, if in doubt, then it is probably better to provide a source. Thus, it might not be necessary to include a source to refer to the First World War of 1914-1918, as this is a really well known historical event. Nevertheless, it might be wise to include a source if referring to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which arguably served as the catalyst for this global war, as this is perhaps less well known. As such, it is important to develop an understanding of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in academic writing, and in order to do this, reading academic papers and journal articles can be of help.

(Source: Viper, 03 Sep 2021)

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