How to avoid plagiarism ?

In order to maintain academic honesty, the author to avoid plagiarism in his/her writing. The writer needs to consult various sources which needs to be properly cited and referenced. On one hand, proper citing and referencing would avoid plagiarism, and on the other, it would show respect to the ideas and information of others.

Some of the ways to avoid plagiarism are:

1.      Integrating quotations into the text: We need to properly quote others' ideas if they are included in the text. Quotations are mainly used for providing support for the writer's argument, giving examples of different viewpoints on the topic, justifying the relationship between the wri.ter's and other's ideas, etc. They are also called in-text citations According to Hamp-Lyons and Heasley (2008), "Quotations are to fulfill their function, they need to be identical to the original word for word, and must be attributed to the author.:

2.      Paraphrasing and summarizing: Next way to avoid plagiarism is to paraphrase or summarize the original source or text in writer's own words. However, it would be honest of him to cite the resources.

3.      Referencing or citations: The sources used for the creation of any academic texts should be properly referenced under the section 'Reference' or 'Works Cited'. The sources are arranged alphabetically by author's last names, or when there is no author, by the first word of the title excluding 'A, An or The' at the beginning. Within the list, if a particular author is cited more than once, then the author's entries are ordered chronologically y date (with most recent first". Mainly two systems are used for referencing/ identifying the resources: MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association):

MLA and APA

A. MLA format

1.      For a book entry

Author (family and personal name in full). Title of Book. City of publication: Publisher, year of publication.

Example:

Bailey, Stephen. Academic Writing. London: Rutledge 2006.

2.      For an article entry

Author (Family and personal name in full). "Title of Article". Title of periodical Vol (year): Pages

Example:

Hamp-Lyons, Liz. "Social and Individual responsibility in Language Testing". Testing System, 28 (2009): 201-207

B. APA format

1.      For a book entry

Author's family and initial name (year of publication). Title of the book. City of Publication: Publisher

Example:

Bailey, Stephan (2010). Academic Writing. London: Rutledge.

2.      For an article entry

Author's family and initial name. Title of the article. Title of the periodical, volume number, pages.

Example:

Adhikari, D. and Rijal, D. (2014). Peer Group support in language learning. The Effor, 2, 20-24.

Also Read: What is citation ? 

Also Read: What is plagiarism? 

Also Read: Why to paraphrase?