Madison Wells

Plagiarism

First and foremost, to understand how to not plagiarize something we must understand what

Plagiarism is. It is clearly stated on Plagiarism.org “plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both

stealing someone else's work and lying about it after”[ CITATION Pla17 \l 1033 ] As you can

already see in my work I have used someone else’s words to help get my point across, is that

considered Plagiarism? No, it is not. This is because I gave them credit for their work and ideas,

I have inserted a small citation to help a reader see who this information came from as well as I

will have a full page at the end of my paper giving all of the information for the original authors

of this work. By doing these things in a paper it gives credit to the original idea maker/s and

keeps you from facing punishment for in my eyes cheating. However, this may not be true with

all things as some people have things such as trademarks to protect their works from being

“barrowed” or used by other people.

Another way to avoid plagiarism is to use an outside source such as Grammarly. [ CITATION

Jen \l 1033 ] This website not only has blogs to help give you tips such as the one cited above, it

also has a “checker”. This tool can be very helpful as many teachers have started using these

tools as well, so if you use one before turning your paper in you will already know if your paper

has been cited correctly or not. I just learned about this feature of Grammarly today so I myself

have never used it but if it is built the same as the Grammar check it should be simple to use and

free to an extent. As with all things in this world nothing is free, so even the things to help with a

paper such as Plagiarism Checkers may come with a small fee. However, when you have a
semester jam packed with classes that require writing it may be worth the $30 to subscribe just

for the peace of mind before turning in assignments.

My final point is how to cite something correctly, although this varies by class and writing style

required for each paper it is fairly simple with today’s technology. Word has a tab in the tool bar

called “Reference” where it gives options on what sources you would like to add, and it can even

build your final Citation page in one click. As for other applications such as Google Doc I am

unsure if this tool is built in, but do not worry as many websites have applications to do this work

for you. Grammarly has one they have named “Citation Wizard” that seems to work well but I

have become accustomed to one I was taught to use in High School although it seems to have

been bought out by Chegg.com (a large book rental company catering to mostly college students)

it still looks and runs the same. All you will need is to have the source handy and to type in this

website https://www.citationmachine.net/. [ CITATION Che \l 1033 ] Applications such as the

ones I have mentioned have helped me a great amount in the past years but it has made me

unsure of how to handle this task by hand.

Works Cited
Calonia, J. (n.d.). How To Avoid Plagiarism. Retrieved from Grammarly Blog:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/5-most-effective-methods-for-avoiding-plagiarism/
Cheg.com. (n.d.). Citation Machine. Retrieved from Citation Machine :
https://www.citationmachine.net/
Plagiarism.org. (2017, May). What is Plagiarism . Retrieved from p.org:
https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism