Is Plagiarism illegit? Tips on how to avoid it

Plagiarism is the biggest problem for students and writers in this modern world. It has become hard for a person to write something that has no matches on the internet. 

No doubt, excessive data availability has made it hard for someone to be unique. According to stats, around 2 billion websites are available on the internet. 

You can estimate how hard it would be for you to write on the topic that is being discussed by hundreds of websites already.

 According to research, 80% of students from various colleges have admitted that they were plagiarizing their assignments. 

These stats show that it has become a major problem to deal with. Many students are getting failed in their subjects just because of the submission of plagiarized work. 

In this blog, we are going to tell you what is plagiarism, whether is it illegal or not and how to avoid it. We will go step by step in this guide to show you the above-mentioned sections. 

By reading this, you might be able to understand why you should avoid plagiarism in your work. Let us take you to the next section for showing you some facts about plagiarism. 

What is Plagiarism?

It has become common to think about every copied line as plagiarized. The reason is many people don’t even know what plagiarism is. Mostly, we simply get to know that plagiarism is a duplication of someone’s content from the internet. 

Keep in mind plagiarism is not duplication but it is duplication without credit to the original author. It means if you are citing the source of the author or book from where you have taken the statement, you might not be plagiarizing. 

Similarly, there will be no plagiarism if you are copying the statement of a law or principle from your subject and reading it with the name of the person or law. So, you should have to keep these facts in your mind while dealing with plagiarism. 

An online plagiarism checker will display the above-mentioned lines in the plagiarized text tab. But you have to be clear and put those lines in quoted format. By doing this, you will be able to dictate to the tool, search engine, and your professor that it is the statement of a law or principle that can’t be changed. 

Now, you must have got an idea about what is plagiarism and what is not. It is time to move toward the next step and learn whether plagiarism is illegal or not. 

Is Plagiarism illegal?

With the above-stated facts, you must have got an idea about the consequences of plagiarism. But you might be thinking is it illegal? If you have been from a writing field, you must have heard that plagiarism is an unethical act. 

It is because you are violating copyright rules and regulations. There is no doubt that plagiarism is an unethical act that can lead you towards a dead end in your career, doesn’t mean educational or professional. 

But it can also lead you towards legal notices that can damage your reputation too. Yes, Plagiarism is considered illegal activity but in certain conditions. 

It will not be considered illegal under all conditions but it depends on the type of plagiarism and the type of document in which you are doing. 

For instance, if you are working on an academic paper with someone but don’t mention his/her name in the paper, you will face legal action. Similarly, there are many other conditions in which your work can be considered illegal if caught plagiarizing. 

What are the possible consequences if you have been caught plagiarizing?

When you have learned about legality of the plagiarism, it is important to know the expected conditions or actions. We all know that plagiarism is a copyright infringement and the author can take action. 

But it is not limited to this action only. Many online writers think that DMCA is the only way to take action against plagiarism and the maximum penalty is the removal of that page. 

Keep in mind that plagiarized academic writing can harm you more than you expect. It can lead you to a court that can take action against your work as well as punish you for months to years. 

In 2012, the former Vice-Chancellor of Delhi University was put in jail because he has copied his colleague’s paper and submitted it as his own. 

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Similarly, a Polish professor has been sent to jail for three years just because he plagiarized some content from national law in his book. 

In short, you can be labeled as a criminal if you have plagiarized your content in some particular conditions. The most critical situation to take care of duplications is when writing legal documents, books, educational papers, and journals. 

These are the conditions that can lead you towards a dead end in your career as well as you may have to face court hearings. 

Tips to avoid plagiarism 

With the above discussion, you must have an idea of those conditions in which plagiarism can be an illegal action. Now, it is time to learn how to avoid plagiarism and keep yourself and your career safe. 

Here we have enlisted some tips that can help you in writing unique content and avoid plagiarism. 

• Use Multiple Sources 

Never consult with one or two sources while writing about any topic. It does not matter whether you are writing in academic dimensions or working as a general writer. You should have to use multiple sources to get information. 

It will help you in two major dimensions that will make your work authentic. First of all, it will help the readers to know that you have researched a lot on that specific topic. 

In this way, they can rely on your work and give it credit in their work too. Secondly, it will help you in writing authentic and reliable content. Your work will automatically become worthy to discuss in different scenarios related to your field. 

• Write In Your Style 

It has been seen that the main reason behind plagiarism is writing like others. Many writers have this urge because they think that they can be prominent in the field by doing this. 

Keep in mind that it can lead you to plagiarism in your content. While you are trying to copy others, your memory will be filled up with similar words. As a result, you will write those words in your paper or blog. 

Whenever someone will use a plagiarism checker, he will get a huge proportion of plagiarism in your work. So, you should avoid this and write in your style. 

It does not mean that you should write what you have in your mind. But it means researching data and then following your writing style to draft your work. 

• Put Citations 

Sometimes, it may not be possible to adapt your writing style. It happens when you are writing a fact or statement that can be changed in any case like a statement of Newton’s laws. 

In such a case, you should cite the source that might be in the form of a book or journal. To cite the source, you should have to learn the methods of citation. 

There are multiple ways to cite the source including APA, MLA, and others. First, you should check which type of citation your paper or institute is supporting. 

After that, you should cite the source accordingly in a proper format. In this way, your source will be cited properly and just as per your paper’s requirements. 

• Learn Paraphrasing 

While writing on a topic, there come situations in which you can neither cite the source nor write uniquely. So, you might be thinking about what to do in that case? 

The best technique to overcome this problem is by adopting the paraphrasing. It is an art to reword the original lines or passages to make them unique. 

In rewriting, you have to read the original work and try to understand the core meanings. Once you have got what the author wants to say, you should look for synonyms of those words. 

Now, it is time to rewrite those lines by replacing the original words with synonyms and related phrases. In this way, you will be able to avoid plagiarism in your work. 

• Try To Be Creative 

No doubt, research is an important factor in the writing process. Without researching data, you will not be able to write a reliable and authentic paper or blog. 

But it does not mean to write what people already have written by rewriting. You should have to be creative if you want to engage the audience. 

To do this, you should not only read the lines that people have written. But you should have to read between the lines to know what was the aim of the author while he was writing. 

You should need to learn creative writing that will help you in drafting a unique blog or paper. 

• Don’t Be Hurry 

It is common to get a short deadline to complete your work in both academic and online writing. But it does not mean trying to complete that task within a few seconds. 

You should have to spare some time and get it free for your work. Many writers try to complete their work quickly and move toward the other. 

It may not be right because it will harm your work in two dimensions. The first one is that you will surely get plagiarism in your writing because you may be unable to be creative. 

In this way, you might be repeating your own words or someone’s words without intentions (accidental plagiarism). The second one is that your work will not be authentic or reliable enough to get the attention of a lot of readers. 

So, you should have to be relaxed and comfortable while writing on any topic. For academic writing, you should need to invest more time because you have to cite every fact and collect the sources for that. 

Final Words 

With our comprehensive guide on Plagiarism legality, you must know now what are the expected charges or allegations of this. So, you should avoid plagiarism by adopting the tips mentioned above. 

It will help you in making your work worthy to read and engaging your audience for a long time.