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Plagiarism is a huge issue in academics. And it’s also widely misunderstood by students. Plagiarism basically occurs when students intentionally or unintentionally fail to give proper credit to their sources.

The key word here is “unintentionally.” More often than not, plagiarism happens unintentionally. And while the consequences are the same, the fact that it can happen by accident due to a lack of knowledge or technique, make it unlikely that instructors and professors will automatically regard those particular students as cheaters.

The important thing is to learn from your first mistake and to never repeat it again. Get a tutor and do what it takes to really learn how to cite your sources properly and use information responsibly. The sidebar of this blog has a couple of good resources to brush up on your plagiarism knowledge.

Plagiarism avoidance tip list:

• Use quotation marks and in-text citations properly. If you do not quote your sources or cite them in the text correctly, even if you have a Bibliography or Works Cited page at the end, you can be noted for plagiarism.
• Are you including some data or statistics? Cite them. A clear signal that something is plagiarized is when seemingly random knowledge appears in a paper without any reference to a source.
• Provide proper balance. Is more than 30% of your essay coming from an outside source? That’s a warning sign that your essay is imbalanced and you might be letting another source speak for you. While this isn’t always plagiarism, it can lead to other issues that result in major losses in points for the assignment.
• Beware of overly relying on “common knowledge”. Brush up on what it means to include “common knowledge.” There are actually very few pieces of information that can be incorporated as “common knowledge” without citing your source. Knowledge is not as common as you think, and just because you know it doesn’t mean everyone else knows it.
• Get a tutor. There is a stigma attached to getting a tutor, and it’s one of the silliest things that sets students back. A tutor can be used by anyone – weak and strong students – just to gain another perspective and even provide a “study partner.” Use all your resources to get the most out of your education.
• Your instructor is not out to get you. When professors check for plagiarism, they are doing their duty to the school and to the broader academic world. It is not a personal vendetta.
• Your instructor does not “hate” you now. Professors should not and do not attach personal judgments toward students. It’s a business relationship. So do not disappear or shrink away if you make the plagiarism mistake. Work with your instructor, tutors and advisors to make sure you understand what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future. Everyone is on the same page when it comes to the desire to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

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