How to Prevent Plagiarism When Writing an Essay

Plagiarism occurs when a writer uses another writer's words, sentences or ideas as their own. In this technological age, plagiarism is more rampant than ever. To make sure you don't plagiarize while writing your essay, follow the steps below.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Write down every source that you use. While you are doing research, you should be writing down the title of the article, book, website and/or magazine you are retrieving the information from. Write down the source first, before you even begin copying down quotes from the research material.
2. Use quotation marks around words or sentences that you copy from a research text exactly the way the original author wrote them. Write the quote in your notes and immediately document where it came from. Do this by writing after the quote in parentheses the last name of the author and the page number. Like this: (Hamilton 54).
3. Paraphrase some of the quotes. This is okay to do and you don't have to use quotation marks. You DO have to document the source of the idea though! If you paraphrase a quote, put the author's name and page number in parentheses as above in Step 2. This is called parenthetical documentation.
4. Submit only your own work. Asking someone else to alter or your revise your essay in any way constitutes plagiarism. The rule of thumb is that if it is not YOUR work, it is plagiarized.
5. Ask for help. When in doubt about whether or not you are falling into the plagiarism pit, ask your instructor for help. Your teacher would rather you ask than have you fail the course.

Tips & Warnings

• Teachers and professors have access to professional programs than can detect plagiarism. Don't even think about trying to get away with it.