Plagiarism can cause a lot of problems that is why it is very important to avoid it. Sometimes people get accused of plagiarism because they didn’t know about some kinds of plagiarism. Knowing basic types of plagiarism and some ways to avoid them can help a lot in writing the papers.
Basically, plagiarism is using of someone else’s work and presenting it or its part as your own. Also plagiarism is considered to be stealing, because if you use someone else’s ideas and do not cite them, you steal them from the original author.
There are few basic types of plagiarism that you should know in order to avoid them. First one is considered to be the most serious. It is Copy and Paste plagiarism. This type of plagiarism occurs when a person copies a fragment of the writing from the source and pastes it into his own work without citing this source. Usually people who do this risk a lot, because it is very easy to find this type plagiarism in the writing. In order to avoid this it you should put quotation marks around the fragment that had been used and put a reference for the source that has been used.
Another type of plagiarism is Word Switch Plagiarism. It happens when you take a phrase or a sentence from the source and switch few words. It is still plagiarism because the main concept of the sentence or phrase stays the same. In this case you just use someone custom writing ideas in stead of your own. This type of plagiarism is also known as paraphrasing. If you take a phrase from the source and rephrase it with your own words you still have to put a reference for this phrase, because the idea and the though that you used are not yours.
Metaphor Plagiarism also happens a lot usually in creative writings. While writing a creative paper, people like to use metaphors because they make their writing more interesting and creative. It happens a lot that a person cannot come up with his/her own metaphor, that’s why they use other well-known metaphors. Without proper citing this is considered to be a plagiarism. If you want to use a metaphor that is not yours, you should include a source for it.
Another very common type of plagiarism is Idea Plagiarism. It occurs often because not everyone knows about it. The concept of this plagiarism is that people use someone else’s ideas, like solution for something. If you write about some common things that are well known, you do not have to put a reference for them, but if you write about some specific ideas or concepts that were written by other people, you should put reference for them.
Reasoning Style or Organization Plagiarism also occurs a lot. When we take an article or some kind of source and follow it paragraph by paragraph, it is also considered to be a plagiarism, even if you do not copy it word by word and change the sentences. It is considered to be a plagiarism because you use the author’s style and structure in the writing.
Another type of plagiarism occurs a lot when people use statistics and images from other sources without referencing. It is very important to put a reference for every chart, table or statistics that you use in the paper.
Not everyone knows that putting on a reference list some sources that you really didn’t use in your writing is also a plagiarism. It becomes a problem when students just write down necessary number of sources even if they haven’t read them at all.
Self-Plagiarism occurs when you use your own work that you have written before. If you do so, you must reference all the materials from the previous work appropriately.
Another type of plagiarism that happens extremely often in the school or college is Collusion. It happens when you copy the work that have been written by another student. If you are the person who gave your work to someone else to copy, you will also have a problems as well as that person.
All the types of plagiarism that are listed above can cause a lot of serious problems to the person who uses them. They may get a bad grade as well as fail the class. You should be very careful while using any kind of information from the sources. In order to avoid any type of plagiarism in your paper you should make sure to cite ALL the sources used in your paper properly.
