How to avoid plagiarism

Plagiarism happens when you take someone else’s ideas without their permission and pretend that they’re yours. Just as stealing someone’s bike or school bag isn’t allowed at school, neither is plagiarism. It’s a good idea to not do it outside of school as well, because plagiarism breaches a person’s copyright (their ‘ownership’ of their information), which is against the law. So, how do you avoid doing it?

It’s not always easy to tell what’s plagiarism and what’s not. For example, you might accidentally plagiarise something by not noting in an assignment where you got your information from, or by not doing a very good job of re-writing it in your own words. Sometimes though, plagiarism is done on purpose. If a person is chooses not to re-write what they’ve read into their own words, or if they think they’ll get away with just cutting and pasting information into their report then they have intentionally committed plagiarism.

Follow these tips to avoid plagiarizing someone’s work:

Have a go at re-writing the info you want to include in your assignment in your own words. This means more than just switching round the order of sentences when you cut and paste! One way to re-write info in your own words is to think about how you would say it out loud if you were explaining it to someone else, and then write it like that.

Use more than one source of information for your project. Relying on only one website means that you’re more likely to write the information in that writing style, whether you meant to or not. You’ll find a greater range of information (and probably write a better assignment!) from looking at different websites and blending all of the information that you read into what you write.

Ask yourself, “Would I have known this info if I hadn’t read it on that website or in that book?”. If the answer is “no”, you should write in your assignment where you got the information from. Different teachers will have different ideas about how to do this, so ask your teacher what they expect.

If in doubt, always check it out with your teacher. They’ll be able to point you in the right direction to avoid plagiarizing. If you’re worried that you’ve plagiarized information in something you’ve already handed in, have a chat with your teacher about that too; better that you’re up-front with them than they find out when they go to mark your report!