Combating Plagiarism

July 21, 2010

Plagiarism is actually copying original ideas, thoughts, and final work by someone. It can also be termed as stealing literary job done by someone else. Plagiarists aim at receiving the acknowledgements, which actually they do not deserve. Through shortcut techniques, they reproduce good work by others in far lesser time with no meaningful effort of their own for inherent advantages, for example, name, fame, social, or financial gains, etc.    

As a moral crime, majority of well-educated communities of the world disregard the acts of plagiarism. To protect and preserve the originality of work of actual authors/content writers, there is a definite need of providing a mechanism of security to both the work, and their authors. Presently, no substantial law, or security tentacle exists, which can hunt, arrest these plagiarists, and punish them to ensure their obliteration from our systems. Besides, the neglect in our behaviour has virtually allowed these criminals to prevail amongst us.

Out of all Medias, which are involved in literary work, cyber media has devised few ways, and means to protect original work, and discourage plagiarists whereas print/press yet lag behind in even checking these crimes. Following are a few steps, which may help us in leading to some possible solutions for combating this menace surviving around us.

 

•  In international law, Plagiarism should be declared as a proper crime, and punishments be identified for the defaulters, which can be physical, and even financial.

•  Electronic Media be exploited, and one odd case must be exemplified at the global level. Through this, awareness would come at the regional or national levels. Once punished, most of the bigger plagiarists would refrain.  Everyone should use plagiarism software for checking the content.

•  At the local level, similar punishments can be introduced, and few plagiarists once identified should be exemplified, which would slowly, and gradually shun these fissiparous elements from our systems.

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Answer Website- What Is the Future?

May 17, 2010

The web user community is expanding every day as more and more people are getting hooked on to the web. Answer websites have added a new dimension to getting quick, quality answers to a number of questions. In fact you can ask any question, regardless of its type and nature. You can be sure someone will answer it. The only factor that you have to wary of is the quality of the answer. If you have asked a question and got the wrong answer there is nothing that you can do about it. The only thing that you can do is to try and get the answer authenticated. You can only do this by asking the same question to a number of question answer websites. If you get the same answer then you can be sure that the answer is correct.

I think good, quality answer web sites will keep on appearing on the web. The competition is stiff and question answer websites that lack quality will eventually disappear as they will not be able to sustain themselves. A good quality question answer website will definitely become popular and will be in heavy demand. A question website which gets listed among the top ten or twenty websites will always be in demand. Many of the websites which are supposed to be question answer web sites are not closely monitored and I doubt very many people use them. Also question answer websites that indulge in plagiarism or depend on users or a personal network of friends to answer questions are in my opinion a waste of time. Quality question answer websites will always have a place on the web and the better they are the more people will use them.

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Plagiarism Software

May 7, 2010

There was a time when people have to search for books to get some important piece of information. No doubt, searching a particular book of author was very hard to find. I myself, studied finding related book of my subjects very hardly, and those too were very costly. Internet has made things lot lot easy for us as now I can search millions of books online for free.

As this is easy for me to find material and use it for my research, I am bound not to copy, paste any sentence from the internet. There are strict laws of plagiarism and these can penalize and ban you if you write the words of an author without giving him/her the due credit.

I would like to share with you all, the way we can avoid plagiarism. The best way is not to copy any material from the internet. Ofcourse, it is your right to search the material and read it, but when you need to write your report, use your own words.

However, when we do this, we are still not sure if someone has already written the words we are writing for our report. So, always use plagiarism software. So, what does this plagiarism software do?

Plagiarism software asks you to input your written material. It analyzes each sentence by querying the search engine, if the sentence is present on World Wide Web. If, it finds any instance, it shows you the related site where someone has already written it.

There are number of plagiarism software programs on the internet to aid you; some are free and some require paid subscription. The thing is why to use paid versions when there are free plagiarism software programs available on the internet. I personally use duplichecker.com, as it is quick, user-friendly and give you most relevant results for plagiarism.

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Plagiarism – Academic Perspective Discussed

March 16, 2010

The availability of vast amount of knowledge on web has increased the opportunities for infringement of intellectual property, also termed as plagiarism. Plagiarism is a Latin word for snatching/kidnapping. It is the act of using the thoughts and language of another person and representing it as their own novel effort. Plagiarism can be performed by a variety of people, working in different fields of life; for instance, in the field of academic, journalism, online plagiarism and other context.

In the field of academia, students, researchers and professors might use this tool to complete a task or project at hand. This is also termed as an intellectual fraudulence. Why do students copy? There are a number of reasons behind this act; when students feel pressured and are unable to complete their projects on time or are unable to rely on their own skills, they find it easy and convenient to plagiarize from the internet and paste the information. There are several punishments for such a crime, like loss of grades in a particular assignment or even for the course; degree may be blocked; scholarships and other funding programs might be held back.

For researchers and professors, there are several penalties regarding the plagiarized act like discharge from service, word of warning, promotions or other increments might be stopped. The offender might be terminated and may not be qualified for employment in any other organization; the university may also stop increments like travel grants, scholarship and others.

In the field of journalism, public trust is an important tool in building the credibility of the company. If the reporter is unable to perform his duty honestly and is seen as an offender copying information from other sources, he might be suspended from the reporting task.

There are online tools available for detecting plagiarism online. Plagiarism can be treated as an exclusive rights infringement or violation of moral rights.

Is plagiarism a problem? Why?

Plagiarism is an ethical problem, which is practiced widely. It also has a negative impact on further decision making and is also wastage of resources. The person performing the unethical act is considered to be a dishonest person and is not capable of performing the task. This constitutes a weak culture, in which people are not learning and unleashing their full potential.

How to avoid plagiarism?

There are number of ways in which you can avoid the act of plagiarism, like using quotations for the words or statements that you use directly from another source. Give citation if the information or idea that you are providing is not yours, and if it is not considered as a common knowledge for the public. But, if you are giving your own idea you do not need to give citation or if it is a common knowledge like.

Do not plagiarize! It is offensive! It is unethical!

Plagiarized work is an offensive act and must be avoided. By using your own thoughts and ideas, you will reveal your own hidden talent.

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A Glimpse On Plagiarism

February 11, 2010

Plagiarism is a Latin word that stands for kidnapper. A plagiarist is a person who intentionally or unintentionally imitates the work of another writer by stealing his ideas and words. Plagiarism in writing any form of text without providing any quotation or reference from its original work; it is a dishonesty and fraud that can cause writer severe disrepute whether it is academic, journalistic, online or by himself.

Academic Plagiarism by students delivering their thesis or research essays in academia is primarily due to non-adherence and non-compliance with deadlines in submitting their research essays, thesis or article for the term papers. Over-stressed studies and under-skilled writing practices are also the main factors. The most important factor is the aptitude of the student towards creative writing and abundance of writing contents already available. Academic Plagiarism in a reputable education institution results in severe disciplinary action from failing grades to immediate disqualification of the work of the students. On faculty level, academic plagiarism results in termination, beside dishonesty and disrepute to professor or teacher.

In journalism, plagiarism is mostly observed due to variety of reasons. First, due to high speed information and internet access, news and information are easily accessible and getting highly incredulous. For a journalist, it has become much easier to use second hand information and sources, without giving proper quotation or reference. The case becomes more complex as journalists often quote or misquote secondary information and the unreliable sources. Reporting, whether televised, broadcast or printed, has so many direction and channels, offering opportunities for journalistic plagiarism. Plagiarism in journalism results in severe disciplinary action from termination to defaming of a journalist.

Online plagiarism is the most recent and common practice found in online content writers. With a variety of information available on internet, plagiarism has become a common practice by pulp writers. The new job opportunities due to website marketing, online marketing, webpage designing and e-commerce have given rise to content stealing practice by unprofessional writers. Nowadays, every Tom, dick and harry is able to write and reproduce content for the websites. Commercialism and money-making has become easier due to this profession, but the demand of original content writer is ever increasing. The plagiarism checker is software specifically designed for this purpose. Not only does it verify that the content is original or not, it also gives reference to the source, from which the content has been taken. Online plagiarism does not only result in bad repute, but also leads to termination, if the content is copied over and over again.

Self plagiarism is the most complex and difficult to comprehend in all kinds of plagiarism. The codes of ethics for self-plagiarism are generally not too rigid to adhere, so to some extent, self plagiarism gets unofficial license, where reinterpretation or republication of an original work is required.

There are few steps that, if carefully taken, can avoid plagiarism in writing to a considerable extent:

•    Try to be original and creative in writing
•    Try to brainstorm the topic from different aspects.
•    Never be reluctant to use reference tools like dictionary and thesaurus to better understand the meaning of the text.
•    Verify the writing content through plagiarism checker software, which is easily downloadable from the internet.

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Citation Truly Useful!

January 2, 2010

With the aim of presenting perfect orientations of all the sources use of citation is brought into play for such purpose. Writer’s name, publishing information and the heading of the writings are to be flaunted. Citation possesses significant sense in itself; it denotes that the writer should be true to itself and others as well. A writer who brings into play exact references acknowledges other writers and presents praises to others who created aptness in their work. A reliable author always slogs hard to afford citations. They are always attentive to ignore any possibility of plagiarism by presenting citations in their works.

PA style, Harvard referencing, ASA style, MLA style, etc are taken to be the most well-known citation styles. So as to mark citations, different stipulations are exercised. Citation style is not an uphill struggle but it must be there in writing.

Citation contains a number of benefits. The foremost advantage readers can dig up via citation is that they can acquire extra information. And the key point of citation is that it makes writer’s flaunt consistency and precision. Those works which consist of appropriate citation provides correct knowledge and the work devoid of citation is really confounding and can be plagiarised. Citation lays emphasis on your work.

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Points To Remember When Writing For Web

December 17, 2009

Writing for web is very much different from writing for print media. The web readers are impatient, skeptical, have different levels of interest. So writing for web is a tricky thing.
For effective web writing the writer must understand the interests and psyche of the reader. Today the reader is impatient and is overloaded with millions of websites. You need to catch the attention of your reader in the first few seconds, or else he will quickly move to another site. A good web writer should assist the reader in getting his desired information quickly and easily. The content should be written to cater to the readers of all age groups. It should be easy to read and comprehend.

There are many free content developing sites which assist the writers in developing effective web content. Consequently there are certain sites that offer services for writing effective and usable web content. Writers should consider these online web writing services to produce well written web content. Under mentioned are some of the key points that can ensure effective web writing.

  • Use Short Sentences
  • Give a Meaningful Title
  • Adopt Objective Style
  • Write in Small Paragraphs
  • Introduce One Idea Per Paragraph
  • Avoid Promotional Words
  • Write Conversationally
  • Chunk Information In Small Bits
  • Use Simple and Easy to Understand Words
  • Be concise
  • Highlight Your Main Points
  • Put Focal Points First
  • Avoid Information Overload
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Commonly Used Plagiarism Types

November 18, 2009

Plagiarism – the intellectual dishonesty has taken different forms with varying degrees of seriousness. However, which ever form of plagiarism is involved in writing it is always taken as a dishonest act.

Plagiarism has been categorised into different types depending upon the copying style and the way you represent the sources. Following are some of the most prevailing forms of plagiarism which are in constant practice by students, amateur writers, journalists etc.

Copy/Paste Plagiarism is to copy words, thoughts and ideas from a source and to write them as it is. The person involved in this type of plagiarism does not bother to change the style or wordings. This is the most common yet most seriously taken form of plagiarism.

Self Plagiarism comes when a writer uses his/her own personal work again. This can be done partially or fully, representing own thoughts, words and ideas and publishing them to different mediums/sources. Today most of the online writers are involved in self plagiarism.

Improper Citation also comes under plagiarism. Citation plagiarism can be described as not giving complete reference (including full details of authors’ name, publishing details, source titles etc) of the work that has been used in research or in writing. Moreover hiding the references is also categorized in this form of plagiarism.

Word Switching Plagiarism is another most commonly used plagiarism type. To copy a sentence or a paragraph from a source and then with some minor changes of words here and there it is represented as own original work. However, this is purely a form of dishonesty and cannot be excluded from the parameters of plagiarism.

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Plagiarism Checker – Your Trustworthy Companion

November 14, 2009

Free lance writers, article writers and blog writers all are relying on free plagiarism checker sites. They use these plagiarism detectors to provide them accurate information about plagiarised content. Online writers use plagiarism checker to find out any plagiarised material that they have included in their writing, intentionally or unintentionally.

Many genuine and honest online writers try to keep their content original and plagiarism free. They use their innovative ideas, do proper research and include all references to avoid the chances of plagiarism. In order to establish a credible reputation they strive hard, working intelligently and consciously. Majority of these truthful writers are making best use of free plagiarism checker sites to check their written work. They never want to lose their credibility with just a careless citation. So these plagiarism checkers are actually acting as their companions in producing high quality genuine work.

To maintain their public trust and reputation a number of newspapers and online magazines also keep their nose open for plagiarised materials. And of course, they too depend on plagiarism checker sites.

Plagiarism can have serious consequences for concerned news authorities, journalists, magazine supervisors and all involved. As publishing plagiarised material is taken as a serious offense it can lead to legal and monetary penalties. At times person involved in plagiarism can even be imprisoned. So to avoid the serious implications of using plagiarised content many individuals and organizations count on plagiarism checkers. Plagiarism checker sites and plagiarism checker softwares are acting like trustworthy companions in combating plagiarism.

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Article Writing – My Perspective

November 13, 2009

Article writing is a lucrative profession in online publication industry. Article writing involves writing articles for e-zines, promotional newsletters, promotional websites etc. Writing articles for any of the above can bring you a lot of money. Not only this, you can also give a thriving boost to your business by adopting innovative writing techniques.

To get recognition amongst millions of online writers you need to have unique ideas, original content and of course a flair for writing. Once you establish your reputation online you can get listed amongst the most ‘in-demand’ writers. You can get offers from popular online magazines (e-zines) and web promotion sites.

If you have any doubts about article writing you can easily find out effective writing tips and techniques. Just hit a search engine and you will be over loaded with valuable information about writing and publishing online articles. Most of the article writing sites provide free training sessions and comprehensive guidelines.

Over the years I have learned that the more you write the more you learn. Of course you cannot have command over every topic. So you need to search and do your home work before starting up with your article. Gathering related information is the first step towards ideal article writing. Once you have all information on hand jot down your ideas and make an outline for your article.

The very first paragraph of your article should clearly address the topic. You should speak your heart out. Try to avoid fancy writing. Write in a style as if you are talking to the reader. Develop your article around short, brief and comprehensive paragraphs. Keep these points in mind and you are all set to write your first article.

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