Skip to Main Content

Avoiding Plagiarism: Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of another individual's ideas and words and presenting them as your own without attribution. Learn how to identify and avoid plagiarism in this guide.

Identifying Plagiarism

There are several ways to identify plagiarism. A subject matter expert may recognize ideas and expressions as they read a work submitted to them. In addition, many readers are familiar with the tone and voice of the author of a work. When a passage of text seems to change in style from the author's traditional writing, plagiarism may be suspected.

Google, or a similar search engine, is often employed as a quick and free way to compare a passage of text suspected to be plagiarized to passages found online. Fee-based services, such as Viper, Turnitin, or Writecheck, allow either readers or writers to compare a piece of writing against the service provider's vast databank of text for similarity.

Avoiding Plagiarism

These online tutorials teach users how to identify plagiarism and understand how and when to attribute work. Those that contain a quiz allow the user to test their skills and earn a certificate of completion are indicated.

Writers can avoid plagiarism by maintaining careful notes and providing appropriate credit to original authors as writers create their own work. Citation management software, such as EndNote, assist writers in creating citations and bibliographies.

Plagiarism Detection Services

Subject Guide

Profile Photo
Alison Rollins
Contact:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4839-2050
301-319-4039
Website

Related Content

James A. Zimble Learning Resource Center • 4301 Jones Bridge Rd. Bethesda, MD 20814 • Main Number: 301-295-3189 • AMI Helpdesk: 301-295-3358

USU Logo