how to write research paper without plagiarizing

5 Tips on How to Write a Research Paper without Plagiarism

Table of contents

• 1 What is Plagiarism?
• 2 What Is Considered to be Plagiarism in Paper?
• 3 How Much Plagiarism Is Allowed in a Research Paper?
• 4.1 Conduct in-depth research to have a clear picture of what a paper is about
• 4.2 Express the main ideas using your own words
• 4.3 Paraphrase: Change the sequence and structure
• 4.4 Give Broader Content
• 4.5 Use a plagiarism checker
• 4.6 Use quotation marks if you can't do without a certain sentence
• 4.7 Keeping track of your sources.
• 4.8 Make a list of references in the research paper
• 5 The Final Words

Every researcher needs to work on writing their research paper without plagiarism at some point in their career. A research student needs to analyze and adopt the works of scholars and scientists well-synthesized and authentic to write a high-quality research paper that does not contain plagiarism.

However, a student needs to adequately use quotation marks and paraphrasing tools to paraphrase the borrowed ideas and extracts. In that case, it may lead to the detection of plagiarism, considered a serious academic offense. Students can use quotation marks to quote in the borrowed text to avoid plagiarism and dodge the plagiarism checker. In-text citations can also save research students from plagiarism checkers and help them avoid plagiarism.

This article will discuss some of the essential aspects of plagiarism along with tips to avoid plagiarism, like:

• What is plagiarism?
• How much plagiarism is tolerable in research papers?
• Tips for avoiding plagiarism while writing a research paper, etc.

A detailed discussion of these points will help you write a research paper without plagiarism.

It is a misconception! If the sentences you’ve taken from a certain published source are detected, you risk getting a low grade and damaging your reputation. The worst consequence of copying another author's ideas is taking legal responsibility because this is considered theft. It doesn't matter what you steal: goods in a supermarket or ideas from somebody's text.

What is Plagiarism?

If put in simple words, plagiarism can be defined as the unethical presentation of other people’s original work as your own without seeking consent, giving proper credit, or acknowledgment of the original source. However, in most cases, plagiarism is not deliberate but unintentional. It can get detected through a plagiarism checker because of the absence of in-text citations and reference lists in the research papers.

Most research papers have some or other areas for improvement regarding citation style. Every student anticipating academic publishing for their journal articles must have a common knowledge of the referencing and citation rules to ethically mention and acknowledge the sources they chose to refer to.

The unacademic and unacceptable way of using or adopting the information stated in works or old research papers belonging to some other author is considered plagiarism. So let us move ahead in the topic and learn about the deliberate and unintended actions that can be counted as an act of academic dishonesty.

What Is Considered to be Plagiarism in Paper?

It must have become clear by now that using someone else’s work as a reference for writing your academic paper does not count as plagiarism, but not crediting or acknowledging it correctly does. It can make your work highly plagiarized and be considered grave academic dishonesty.

Let us look at the things and practices that constitute plagiarism and should be avoided while writing research papers.

• Copying or cheating.
• Direct quotation of content without using quotation marks.
• Not using in-text citations to cite the referred sources.
• Using someone else’s work as your own without acknowledgment and citation.
• Submitting the same work multiple times also constitutes plagiarism and is termed self-plagiarism.
• Incorrect citation style can also lead to plagiarism detection while using a plagiarism checker.

Students must be utterly mindful of the citation and referencing rules to avoid plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Carefully considering these points will save your work from plagiarism and self-plagiarism. On an academic level, it is not considered if a student intended to commit plagiarism or if it were an ideally unintended mistake, detection of direct quotes sans the acknowledgment leads to unfavorable consequences.

How Much Plagiarism Is Allowed in a Research Paper?

Most academic and research institutions generally have a zero-tolerance policy toward plagiarism. However, some journals allow up to 15% plagiarism in a research paper.

What do you do if you have no idea how to paraphrase without plagiarism and present specific ideas without plagiarizing? Do you need to gain skills in using the synonyms method and paraphrasing texts with technical terms to avoid plagiarism? If you need a good online tool to check your essay or research papers on plagiarism, try the plagiarism checker by PapersOwl . It's free, simple, and many students use it.

8 Tips on How Not to Plagiarize a Research Paper

We all are well aware of the fact that avoiding plagiarism is a huge concern for most writers. They constantly search for easy and effective techniques that can keep them from committing academic dishonesty. This article has mentioned some of the most effective tips to avoid plagiarism. These tips are an apt and applicable solution to how not to plagiarize a research paper. So, let us move ahead and learn about the ways to avoid plagiarism in detail.

Conduct in-depth research to have a clear picture of what a paper is about

Conducting in-depth research about the topic before writing, quoting, or referring to a text in academic research is always advisable to beat Turnitin . It will help you paraphrase more crisply and accurately without any trace of plagiarism in a research paper. Remember, you need to understand the topic clearly to avoid copying, quoting, or paraphrasing the text already in the database in an improper writing style.

Express the main ideas using your own words

• Original Content:

Her life spanned years of incredible change for women as they gained more rights than ever before.

• Edited content after paraphrasing:

She saw the position of women elevating and being better with the acquisition of more and more rights throughout her life.

This is how plagiarism can be avoided, and you can rewrite an excerpt or information without losing the essence or crutch to paraphrase without plagiarism. But, if you have a short deadline, hiring an urgent essay writing service can be helpful since paraphrasing can take some time.

Now we are closer to knowing how to write a research paper without plagiarizing.

You can use this tip for all the main points out there. Just know how to avoid plagiarism by changing the words and sentence order.

Paraphrase: Change the sequence and structure

Paraphrasing a text is not enough to avoid plagiarism. Knowing the right way to an effective and unplagiarized paraphrasing is essential. Replacing a word with its synonym in the same sentence structure is considered mosaic plagiarism.

For example:

• Original sentence: Glaciers are melting at an alarming rate due to global warming.
• Bad paraphrasing: Glaciers are defrosting at a frightening speed because of global warming.
• Good paraphrasing: Global warming is leading to extensive and expeditious defrosting of icebergs.

This is how you can paraphrase the language in the most meaningful and creative ways to avoid plagiarism. You can use Papers Owl’s paraphrasing tool to fix plagiarism instantaneously and effectively.

Give Broader Content

Making the borrowed content elaborate, descriptive, and understandable in your own words while adding it to your paper will also help you prevent plagiarism in your work. Making the concise information expansive will automatically rule out the scope for plagiarism.

Use a plagiarism checker

Using plagiarism detection tools to avoid plagiarism has been a common thing. Some students want to know how to write a research paper without plagiarizing. A free plagiarism checker can help. Here are a few benefits, such as:

• Make sure there are no mistakes with the in-text citations you have used.
• Detects all types of plagiarism in research you may not even know about.
• It helps you see where the issues are so you can replace them in your own words.
• Finds the most common types of research plagiarism in seconds.

Use quotation marks if you can't do without a certain sentence

It is always better to say something in your own words, but you can use sentences from other authors.

Here is how:

• Original lines: “The use of AI technology is on the rise these days, leading to the great demand for automation tools.”
• The wrong way to use it: The use of AI technology is on the rise these days resulting in great demand for automation tools.
• The proper way of using it: “The use of AI technology is on the rise these days, leading to the great demand for automation tools.” (Thulin, 2021)

However, to avoid plagiarism, you should use a paraphrased or summarized method.

Keeping track of your sources.

One of the essential guidelines you can follow not to commit plagiarism is to keep track of the references you use in your research paper. It will help you add an accurate reference list to your paper during the final revision to fix plagiarism.

Make a list of references in the research paper

Always use the reference list that is mandatory these days. But you don't have to worry: nowadays, the internet is full of different citation generators , and you can choose the one that best fits your needs. Here is an example of a well-formatted reference below:

• Alvarez, E., & Tippins, S. (2019). Socialization agents that Puerto Rican college students use to make financial decisions. Journal of Social Change, 11(1), 75–85. 
• Laplante, J. P., & Nolin, C. (2014). Consultas and socially responsible investing in Guatemala: A case study examining Maya perspectives on the Indigenous right to free, prior, and informed consent. Society & Natural Resources, 27, 231–248.
• Jerrentrup, A., Mueller, T., Glowalla, U., Herder, M., Henrichs, N., Neubauer, A., & Schaefer, J. R. (2018). Teaching medicine with the help of “Dr. House.” PLoS ONE, 13(3).

These guidelines will help you pass the plagiarism test easily without striking any similarity from the works already in the database. When writing a research paper, it is vital to take steps to ensure that the paper is free from plagiarism. One way to do this is by using Papers Owl . This online service helps students and professionals avoid plagiarism and write high-quality research papers quickly and easily. PapersOwl assists with the research process and helps to ensure that the paper is cited correctly and free from plagiarism.

Maintaining originality and avoiding plagiarism is essential when writing a research paper . An excellent way to achieve this is by using citation generators and paying someone to do your assignment if necessary. Proper citation validates your sources and gives credit to the original author. It's essential to ensure appropriate attribution to minimize the risk of plagiarism.

The Final Words

Adopting the ways and measures stated in this article allows you to submit a plagiarism-free paper. You can also use plagiarism checkers to ensure the novelty and uniqueness of your work. It will mark out the faulty areas and help you rectify the mistakes. These steps will make your research unique and enhance the quality of the information and language used.

Deep research, time, and hard work are essential to writing a well-written paper without plagiarism. However, the most effortless way of writing a paper is to hire a plagiarism-free essay writer who is well-qualified and holds extensive knowledge as well as research skills to produce high-quality work that is compelling and authentic. Hiring reliable services can make your research journey seamless and less exhausting by offering extra time to focus on other significant events and academic engagements.

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How To Write A Research Paper

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + FREE Template

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | March 2024

For many students, crafting a strong research paper from scratch can feel like a daunting task – and rightly so! In this post, we’ll unpack what a research paper is, what it needs to do , and how to write one – in three easy steps. 🙂 

Overview: Writing A Research Paper

What (exactly) is a research paper.

• How to write a research paper
• Stage 1 : Topic & literature search
• Stage 2 : Structure & outline
• Stage 3 : Iterative writing
• Key takeaways

Let’s start by asking the most important question, “ What is a research paper? ”.

Simply put, a research paper is a scholarly written work where the writer (that’s you!) answers a specific question (this is called a research question ) through evidence-based arguments . Evidence-based is the keyword here. In other words, a research paper is different from an essay or other writing assignments that draw from the writer’s personal opinions or experiences. With a research paper, it’s all about building your arguments based on evidence (we’ll talk more about that evidence a little later).

Now, it’s worth noting that there are many different types of research papers , including analytical papers (the type I just described), argumentative papers, and interpretative papers. Here, we’ll focus on analytical papers , as these are some of the most common – but if you’re keen to learn about other types of research papers, be sure to check out the rest of the blog .

With that basic foundation laid, let’s get down to business and look at how to write a research paper .

Overview: The 3-Stage Process

While there are, of course, many potential approaches you can take to write a research paper, there are typically three stages to the writing process. So, in this tutorial, we’ll present a straightforward three-step process that we use when working with students at Grad Coach.

These three steps are:

• Finding a research topic and reviewing the existing literature
• Developing a provisional structure and outline for your paper, and
• Writing up your initial draft and then refining it iteratively

Let’s dig into each of these.

Need a helping hand?

Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature

As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question . More specifically, that’s called a research question , and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What’s important to understand though is that you’ll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources – for example, journal articles, government reports, case studies, and so on. We’ll circle back to this in a minute.

The first stage of the research process is deciding on what your research question will be and then reviewing the existing literature (in other words, past studies and papers) to see what they say about that specific research question. In some cases, your professor may provide you with a predetermined research question (or set of questions). However, in many cases, you’ll need to find your own research question within a certain topic area.

Finding a strong research question hinges on identifying a meaningful research gap – in other words, an area that’s lacking in existing research. There’s a lot to unpack here, so if you wanna learn more, check out the plain-language explainer video below.

Once you’ve figured out which question (or questions) you’ll attempt to answer in your research paper, you’ll need to do a deep dive into the existing literature – this is called a “ literature search ”. Again, there are many ways to go about this, but your most likely starting point will be Google Scholar .

If you’re new to Google Scholar, think of it as Google for the academic world. You can start by simply entering a few different keywords that are relevant to your research question and it will then present a host of articles for you to review. What you want to pay close attention to here is the number of citations for each paper – the more citations a paper has, the more credible it is (generally speaking – there are some exceptions, of course).

Ideally, what you’re looking for are well-cited papers that are highly relevant to your topic. That said, keep in mind that citations are a cumulative metric , so older papers will often have more citations than newer papers – just because they’ve been around for longer. So, don’t fixate on this metric in isolation – relevance and recency are also very important.

Beyond Google Scholar, you’ll also definitely want to check out academic databases and aggregators such as Science Direct, PubMed, JStor and so on. These will often overlap with the results that you find in Google Scholar, but they can also reveal some hidden gems – so, be sure to check them out.

Once you’ve worked your way through all the literature, you’ll want to catalogue all this information in some sort of spreadsheet so that you can easily recall who said what, when and within what context. If you’d like, we’ve got a free literature spreadsheet that helps you do exactly that.

Step 2: Develop a structure and outline

With your research question pinned down and your literature digested and catalogued, it’s time to move on to planning your actual research paper .

It might sound obvious, but it’s really important to have some sort of rough outline in place before you start writing your paper. So often, we see students eagerly rushing into the writing phase, only to land up with a disjointed research paper that rambles on in multiple

Now, the secret here is to not get caught up in the fine details . Realistically, all you need at this stage is a bullet-point list that describes (in broad strokes) what you’ll discuss and in what order. It’s also useful to remember that you’re not glued to this outline – in all likelihood, you’ll chop and change some sections once you start writing, and that’s perfectly okay. What’s important is that you have some sort of roadmap in place from the start.

At this stage you might be wondering, “ But how should I structure my research paper? ”. Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, but in general, a research paper will consist of a few relatively standardised components:

• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology

Let’s take a look at each of these.

First up is the introduction section . As the name suggests, the purpose of the introduction is to set the scene for your research paper. There are usually (at least) four ingredients that go into this section – these are the background to the topic, the research problem and resultant research question , and the justification or rationale. If you’re interested, the video below unpacks the introduction section in more detail. 

The next section of your research paper will typically be your literature review . Remember all that literature you worked through earlier? Well, this is where you’ll present your interpretation of all that content . You’ll do this by writing about recent trends, developments, and arguments within the literature – but more specifically, those that are relevant to your research question . The literature review can oftentimes seem a little daunting, even to seasoned researchers, so be sure to check out our extensive collection of literature review content here .

With the introduction and lit review out of the way, the next section of your paper is the research methodology . In a nutshell, the methodology section should describe to your reader what you did (beyond just reviewing the existing literature) to answer your research question. For example, what data did you collect, how did you collect that data, how did you analyse that data and so on? For each choice, you’ll also need to justify why you chose to do it that way, and what the strengths and weaknesses of your approach were.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that for some research papers, this aspect of the project may be a lot simpler . For example, you may only need to draw on secondary sources (in other words, existing data sets). In some cases, you may just be asked to draw your conclusions from the literature search itself (in other words, there may be no data analysis at all). But, if you are required to collect and analyse data, you’ll need to pay a lot of attention to the methodology section. The video below provides an example of what the methodology section might look like.

By this stage of your paper, you will have explained what your research question is, what the existing literature has to say about that question, and how you analysed additional data to try to answer your question. So, the natural next step is to present your analysis of that data . This section is usually called the “results” or “analysis” section and this is where you’ll showcase your findings.

Depending on your school’s requirements, you may need to present and interpret the data in one section – or you might split the presentation and the interpretation into two sections. In the latter case, your “results” section will just describe the data, and the “discussion” is where you’ll interpret that data and explicitly link your analysis back to your research question. If you’re not sure which approach to take, check in with your professor or take a look at past papers to see what the norms are for your programme.

Alright – once you’ve presented and discussed your results, it’s time to wrap it up . This usually takes the form of the “ conclusion ” section. In the conclusion, you’ll need to highlight the key takeaways from your study and close the loop by explicitly answering your research question. Again, the exact requirements here will vary depending on your programme (and you may not even need a conclusion section at all) – so be sure to check with your professor if you’re unsure.

Step 3: Write and refine

Finally, it’s time to get writing. All too often though, students hit a brick wall right about here… So, how do you avoid this happening to you?

Well, there’s a lot to be said when it comes to writing a research paper (or any sort of academic piece), but we’ll share three practical tips to help you get started.

First and foremost , it’s essential to approach your writing as an iterative process. In other words, you need to start with a really messy first draft and then polish it over multiple rounds of editing. Don’t waste your time trying to write a perfect research paper in one go. Instead, take the pressure off yourself by adopting an iterative approach.

Secondly , it’s important to always lean towards critical writing , rather than descriptive writing. What does this mean? Well, at the simplest level, descriptive writing focuses on the “ what ”, while critical writing digs into the “ so what ” – in other words, the implications. If you’re not familiar with these two types of writing, don’t worry! You can find a plain-language explanation here.

Last but not least, you’ll need to get your referencing right. Specifically, you’ll need to provide credible, correctly formatted citations for the statements you make. We see students making referencing mistakes all the time and it costs them dearly. The good news is that you can easily avoid this by using a simple reference manager . If you don’t have one, check out our video about Mendeley, an easy (and free) reference management tool that you can start using today.

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. To recap, the three steps to writing a high-quality research paper are:

• To choose a research question and review the literature
• To plan your paper structure and draft an outline
• To take an iterative approach to writing, focusing on critical writing and strong referencing

Remember, this is just a b ig-picture overview of the research paper development process and there’s a lot more nuance to unpack. So, be sure to grab a copy of our free research paper template to learn more about how to write a research paper.

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How to Do Research: A Step-By-Step Guide: 5a. Avoid Plagiarism

• Get Started
• 1a. Select a Topic
• 1b. Develop Research Questions
• 1c. Identify Keywords
• 1d. Find Background Information
• 1e. Refine a Topic
• 2a. Search Strategies
• 2d. Articles
• 2e. Videos & Images
• 2f. Databases
• 2g. Websites
• 2h. Grey Literature
• 2i. Open Access Materials
• 3a. Evaluate Sources
• 3b. Primary vs. Secondary
• 3c. Types of Periodicals
• 4a. Take Notes
• 4b. Outline the Paper
• 4c. Incorporate Source Material
• 5a. Avoid Plagiarism
• 5b. Zotero & MyBib
• 5c. MLA Formatting
• 5d. MLA Citation Examples
• 5e. APA Formatting
• 5f. APA Citation Examples
• 5g. Annotated Bibliographies

Keys to Avoiding Plagiarism

• Understand what plagiarism is.
• Paraphrase  the original text into your own words.
• Know the difference between quoting directly,   paraphrasing , and summarizing.
• Take clear notes, using quotation marks when copying someone else's words.
• Know when to quote, e.g.: a direct quotation, a paraphrase of another author's argument, a summary of someone else's argument even if it's in your own words.
• Use quotation marks around text that has been taken directly from the original source.
• Note that changing someone else's words around or merely substituting synonyms for their words is still plagiarism.
• Cite  every source of information you use in your paper unless it is common knowledge or the results of your own research.
• Remember to cite Internet sources, the minutes of meetings, speeches, films, TV shows and ads, and anything else that is someone else's work.
• Plan ahead! Many people who plagiarize simply ran out of time when they were up against a deadline.

" Avoiding Plagiarism ," an interactive tutorial from the Greenwood Skills Center, provides additional information about defining plagiarism, quoting, summarizing, paraphrasing, appropriate citing, and tips to avoiding plagiarism.

Plagiarism Tutorials

• You Quote It, You Note It Created by the Vaughan Memorial Library at Acadia University, this tutorial suggests that researching ethically is also researching efficiently. You'll learn how to avoid plagiarism and also pick up some good research tips.

Real World Examples

Think plagiarism is just an issue for college students writing research papers? Think again!  Check out these real world examples of celebrities being accused of plagiarizing.

• Jessica Seinfeld

Plagiarism: Don't Do It

Posted with permission from Lehman College. 

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is a serious form of academic dishonesty, defined as "The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft." ( Oxford English Dictionary )  Most students can give  a definition of plagiarism, but some still commit plagiarism unintentionally because they're in a hurry, or they don't really understand what constitutes plagiarism and what doesn't. Unintentional plagiarism, however, is still plagiarism.

Follow this link to learn more about Copyright and Plagiarism .

Plagiarism @ EC

Academic dishonesty is a serious violation that is counter to the purposes and aims of Elmira College.

Plagiarism may take many forms:

• copying information directly without providing quotation marks,
• failing to cite sources,
• citing sources incorrectly
• using someone else's idea or work as your own without acknowledgement, or
• submitting the same work for multiple courses.

It does not matter whether you intended to plagiarize or whether the plagiarism occurred unintentionally; it still constitutes academic dishonesty. Ignorance of the rules of correct citation is not an acceptable excuse.

Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty can subject a student to disciplinary action.

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• Last Updated: Feb 21, 2024 11:01 AM
• URL: https://libguides.elmira.edu/research

• Locations and Hours
• UCLA Library
• Research Guides
• Research Tips and Tools

Citing Sources

• How to Avoid Plagiarism
• Introduction
• Reading Citations

Best Practices for Avoiding Plagiarism

The entire section below came from a research guide from Iowa State University.  To avoid plagiarism, one must provide a reference to that source to indicate where the original information came from (see the "Source:" section below).

"There are many ways to avoid plagiarism, including developing good research habits, good time management, and taking responsibility for your own learning. Here are some specific tips:

• Don't procrastinate with your research and assignments. Good research takes time. Procrastinating makes it likely you'll run out of time or be unduly pressured to finish. This sort of pressure can often lead to sloppy research habits and bad decisions. Plan your research well in advance, and seek help when needed from your professor, from librarians and other campus support staff.
• Commit to doing your own work. If you don't understand an assignment, talk with your professor. Don't take the "easy way" out by asking your roommate or friends for copies of old assignments. A different aspect of this is group work. Group projects are very popular in some classes on campus, but not all. Make sure you clearly understand when your professor says it's okay to work with others on assignments and submit group work on assignments, versus when assignments and papers need to represent your own work.
•  Be 100% scrupulous in your note taking. As you prepare your paper or research, and as you begin drafting your paper. One good practice is to clearly label in your notes your own ideas (write "ME" in parentheses) and ideas and words from others (write "SMITH, 2005" or something to indicate author, source, source date). Keep good records of the sources you consult, and the ideas you take from them. If you're writing a paper, you'll need this information for your bibliographies or references cited list anyway, so you'll benefit from good organization from the beginning.
• Cite your sources scrupulously. Always cite other people's work, words, ideas and phrases that you use directly or indirectly in your paper. Regardless of whether you found the information in a book, article, or website, and whether it's text, a graphic, an illustration, chart or table, you need to cite it. When you use words or phrases from other sources, these need to be in quotes. Current style manuals are available at most reference desks and online. They may also give further advice on avoiding plagiarism.
• Understand good paraphrasing. Simply using synonyms or scrambling an author's words and phrases and then using these "rewrites" uncredited in your work is plagiarism, plain and simple. Good paraphrasing requires that you genuinely understand the original source, that you are genuinely using your own words to summarize a point or concept, and that you insert in quotes any unique words or phrases you use from the original source. Good paraphrasing also requires that you cite the original source. Anything less and you veer into the dangerous territory of plagiarism."

Source: Vega García, S.A. (2012). Understanding plagiarism: Information literacy guide. Iowa State University. Retrieved from  http://instr.iastate.libguides.com/content.php?pid=10314 . [Accessed January 3, 2017]

Plagiarism prevention.

• Plagiarism Prevention (onlinecolleges.net) This resource provides information about preventing plagiarism, understanding the various types of plagiarism, and learning how to cite properly to avoid plagiarism.

UCLA has a campuswide license to Turnitin.com. Faculty may turn in student papers electronically, where the text can be compared with a vast database of other student papers, online articles, general Web pages, and other sources. Turnitin.com then produces a report for the instructor indicating whether the paper was plagiarized and if so, how much.

For more information, go to Turnitin.com .

Plagiarism in the News

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The Sheridan Libraries

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Sheridan Libraries
• What is Plagiarism?
• School Plagiarism Policies
• Common Knowledge
• Paraphrasing & Summarizing
• Minimizing Your Plagiarism Risk
• Student Help
• Helping Prevent Plagiarism in Your Classroom
• Avoiding Plagiarism Course
• Course FAQs

Quoting is when you use someone else’s exact words in your paper. It requires that quotation marks go around that author’s words, and the quotation is followed by an in-text citation.

Good Reasons to Quote

• A quote exactly reinforces a point I want to make, and I want to emphasize the authority of the expert with her or his own voice.
• The language is unique or unusual. If I rewrote it in my own words, it would lose this quality.

How Does Quoting Work?

• Key Rules of Quoting
• Sample Quotation (APA Style)
• Step-by-Step Quoting

• The exact words of the author are in quotation marks
• The quote is introduced so the reader is alerted that these are not the words of the student
• The quote is properly cited in the text and the reference list

Explore the other tabs to see a sample quote and learn the steps of recording a quote properly. 

Author’s original text

Business communication is increasingly taking place internationally – in all countries, among all peoples, and across all cultures. An awareness of other cultures – of their languages, customs, experiences and perceptions – as well as an awareness of the way in which other people conduct their business, are now essential ingredients of business communication. 

Example quotation that could be added to a paper

 As business communication spans the globe, “an awareness of other cultures – of their languages, customs, experiences and perceptions – as well as an awareness of the way in which other people conduct their business, are now essential ingredients of business communication” (Chase, O’Rourke & Wallace, 2003, p.59). 

• Find a portion of a book, journal, or website that you would like to use in your paper. Copy the words you plan to use.
• Put quotation marks at the beginning and end of the copied text.
• Add an in-text citation at the end of the quoted text (outside the quotation mark).
• Write (in your own words) to give context or introduce the quoted text.
• Add the sentence with your own words, the quote, and the in-text citation to your paper.
• Add the full citation to your reference list at the end of your paper.

How Much to Quote?

No matter what the source or style, you need to cite it both in-text and at the end of the paper with a full citation! Write down or record all the needed pieces of information when researching to ensure you avoid plagiarism.

 Lester, J.D. (1976). Writing Research Papers (2nd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman. 

Cheat Sheet

• Quoting Download this helpful cheat sheet covering "Quoting."
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• Next: Paraphrasing & Summarizing >>
• Last Updated: Aug 7, 2023 2:00 PM
• URL: https://guides.library.jhu.edu/avoidingplagiarism

Writing without Plagiarism

• What is Plagiarism?

Gather your sources

Check your work.

• Apply Your Knowledge
• Citation Styles

Track your ideas and new information from the start.

Avoiding pagiarism starts before you even begin writing.

As you are doing your research keep track of which ideas come from your sources and which ideas, questions, and connections you made while you were reading.

This will make citing your sources easier when it comes time to write your paper, and it helps you avoid accidental plagiarism.

The example at the right shows one way to keep track of the author's ideas and your ideas, but you can use whatever system works for you.

 Are these passages attributed correctly?

Review one of these handouts on how to use another author's ideas through proper attribution and citation.

• Avoiding Plagiarism: AMA Style This guide gives you examples of how to properly paraphrase or quote another person's ideas using AMA style citations
• Avoiding Plagiarism: APA Style This guide gives you examples of how to properly paraphrase and quote another person's ideas using APA style citations.
• Avoiding Plagiarism: MLA Style This guide gives you examples of how to properly paraphrase and quote another person's ideas using MLA style citations.

You should be able to answer the following questions about your paper or project:

• << Previous: What is Plagiarism?
• Next: Apply Your Knowledge >>
• Last Updated: Sep 9, 2022 11:41 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.uwm.edu/noplagiarism

• Learning Tips
• Exam Guides
• School Life

How to Write Research or a Term Paper without Plagiarizing

• by Joseph Kenas
• November 30, 2023
• Writing Tips

Students must write a research paper at one point, regardless of their field of study or academic level. However, writing a research paper is challenging.

Therefore, many students choose to take shortcuts such as copying from the internet or submitting old research papers that they did before.

Such shortcuts are considered plagiarism which is a serious academic offense. If discovered plagiarism may result in serious punishments such as expulsion or failing the entire exam.

Learning how to write a research paper without plagiarism is important in both academic and professional life. In this post, we will discuss several ways to avoid plagiarism.

How to Write a Research Paper Without Citing Everything

1. write from scratch.

One of the main ways to avoid plagiarism or citing everything is to write your research paper from scratches. This means that you will personally write your paper from start to finish.

For instance, say your professors have asked you to write a research paper on climatic changes.

You will go through all the processes of research writing.

You will brainstorm ideas, conduct research, create an outline, draft your paper, and then revise and proofread it until you have a complete final copy to hand in.

It, therefore, means you will not cite everything or plagiarize since it is your original work.

Ie you do not have to give any publication credit.

This method not only helps you avoid plagiarism but also allows you to tailor your paper to meet the specific requirements of the task. Apart from that, writing from scratch helps you broaden your knowledge base on a certain topic.

Read a complete guide on how to write a research paper from scratch to know the steps needed to do this.

2. Know When to Cite and When Not

When writing a research paper such as a dissertation, it’s essential to know that not all sources must be cited. If you attribute every detail to a source, your paper will be clogged with citations. So the question is, which information requires citation and which does not?

As a general rule, facts that are well-known do not require citations, while more specific information does. Some of the questions you should ask yourself about the information you want to write include; 

• Do most people believe a statement to be accurate? 
• Is the average person aware of it? 

If you answer yes to these questions, then such information does not require citation.

For example, it is not necessary to cite a source on a statement like climatic change is a global issue since most people know it to be true.

On the contrary, a statement like, In contrast, stating something like the average rainfall is expected to rise by 500ml in the next two years requires you to cite the source of information.

If in doubt, cite the source – it is better to include sources even when you are unsure whether to do so rather than not include them when you are supposed to.

When it comes to research papers, most professors forgive papers with too many sources cited more than they do papers without any citations.

How to Copy a Research Paper Without Plagiarizing

If you are not an expert in writing from scratch, consider the following ideas to help you avoid plagiarism. With the tips below, you can copy a paper from Course Hero or Chegg without plagiarism.

1. Use your own Words

Always use your own words to convey the main points. Here you need to use vocabulary to paraphrase other authors’ ideas while maintaining the same meaning.

There are many online paraphrasing tools designed to prevent plagiarism. You can choose one of them to help you change the original text while preserving its original meaning.

However, you should thoroughly analyze the final text of these tools to present the information in a way that no one will be able to tell which text was used.

2. User Plagiarism Checker Tools

Use plagiarism detection tools to ensure that your work is original. There are many plagiarism checking tools online and it is easy to detect plagiarism using them. Plagiarism checkers highlight texts or paragraphs that need improvement.

3. Use Quotation Marks

Make sure to use quotation marks in sentences that you can’t avoid. There are no negative consequences of using ideas from other works in this way.

However, you should familiarize yourself with citation rules to ensure that you do so correctly. This is a good way to copy-paste without plagiarism because it gives the source as it is and one introduces it as a quotation.

4. Familiarize Yourself With the Topic of Study

Before you begin writing, conduct extensive research on the topic of the research paper. Check all unfamiliar words and phrases to ensure that the research of another author is used in the correct context.

This way you will be able to write a meaningful paper without any plagiarism. This is the main aspect of researching and getting ideas. Familiarizing is the other way of getting inspiration without copying by capturing the ideas.

5. Include All Used References

It’s important to keep track of all the information sources you’ve used when writing a paper to avoid plagiarizing your work.

It is expected that you cite a specific publication whenever you use other writers’ ideas. If you want your professor to know that you didn’t intend to steal anyone’s ideas, provide a list of the works cited.

How to Write a Research Paper Without Paraphrasing

Summarizing is an effective way to prevent plagiarism and avoid paraphrasing. Most students often use paraphrasing and summarising interchangeably, but they refer to different methods of conveying information from sources.

Paraphrase means restating something in your own words.

It should involve extensive rewriting rather than changing a few words here and there.

The key here is changing the wording without losing the meaning of the text.

Summarizing, on the other hand, requires you to focus on the most important parts while restating something.

You paraphrase when communicating information from a paragraph or a few sentences, while you summarize when you want to convey key points from a very large text or the entire article.

It is possible to avoid plagiarism and paraphrasing by summarizing your source when writing research. The point is to keep your research papers and your source similarity index low if you want to avoid plagiarism.

Summarizing is also effective when you can’t use direct quotes. For example, it’s not practical to quote an entire page and this is where you need to summarize.

Note that it is always advisable to accompany paraphrased or summarized text with a reference.

How to Write a Research Paper Without Copying

Despite warnings and sanctions, many students continue to copy, both intentionally and unintentionally. Therefore to avoid copying consider the following.

Use Plagiarism Checker

Plagiarism checkers are online programs that can detect plagiarism. Today, many schools have plagiarism-checking software available for students to use.

You are unlikely to find any similarities between your paper and the work of others if you write it from scratch and use appropriate citation methods.

You should utilize premium plagiarism checks if they are available to you.

This software can be a helpful tool in ensuring that your paper is not copied anywhere. Note that there are also free plagiarism tools available on the internet.

For instance, you can use Turnitin or SafeAssign. Doing such checks helps you know the SafeAssign percentage and know how to adjust your work.

Avoid Buying Papers Online

An online research paper purchase can be a very risky business. There are a lot of websites that have thousands of research papers for sale.

Buying a  research paper not only violates academic integrity but can also be risky if discovered.

It is also possible to buy the same paper with your coursemate without knowing. After all, websites only need the money. The only safe way to do this is to hire a private writer or tutor to help your research paper completely from scratch.

Ask your Professor for Help

Lastly, asking your professor for advice can help you to avoid copying. In addition to instructing students, professors also guide in other areas, such as writing research papers.

The majority of the time, professors are happy to give students advice on how to avoid plagiarism. Be careful, however, not to monopolize the professor’s time.

Joseph is a freelance journalist and a part-time writer with a particular interest in the gig economy. He writes about schooling, college life, and changing trends in education. When not writing, Joseph is hiking or playing chess.

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• Indian J Orthop
• v.50(6); Nov-Dec 2016

What is plagiarism and how to avoid it?

Ish kumar dhammi.

Department of Orthopaedics, UCMS and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, New Delhi, India

Rehan Ul Haq

Writing a manuscript is an art. Any clinician or an academician, has a hidden desire to publish his/her work in an indexed journal. Writing has been made mandatory for promotions in certain departments, so the clinicians are more inclined to publish. Often, we note that we (Indian Journal of Orthopaedics) receive more articles from China, Turkey, and South Korea (abroad) instead of from our own country though the journal is an official publication of Indian Orthopaedic Association. Therefore, we have decided to encourage more and more publications, especially from our own country. For that reason, we have decided to educate our members by publishing an editorial on “How to write a paper?,” which is likely to be published soon. In one of our last editorials, we discussed indexing. In this issue, we will be discussing the plagiarism. In forthcoming issues, we are planning to discuss “Ethics in publication,” How to write Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Referencing, Title, Abstract, and Keywords, and then how to write case report which is acceptable. The editorial team tries to help out our readers, so that their hidden instinct of writing their own work could be made true.

D EFINITION OF P LAGIARISM

Plagiarism is derived from Latin word “ plagiarius ” which means “kidnapper,” who abducts the child. 1 The word plagiarism entered the Oxford English dictionary in 1621. Plagiarism has been defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica as “the act of taking the writings of another person and passing them off as ones own.” 2 It is an act of forgery, piracy, and fraud and is stated to be a serious crime of academia. 3 It is also a violation of copyright laws. Honesty in scientific practice and in publication is necessary. The World Association of Medical Editors 4 (WAME) defines plagiarism as “… the use of others’ published and unpublished ideas or words (or other intellectual property) without attribution or permission and presenting them as new and original rather than derived from an existing source.”

In 1999, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 5 , 6 defined plagiarism as “Plagiarism ranges from the unreferenced use of others’ published and unpublished ideas including research grant applications to submission under new authorship of a complex paper, sometimes in a different language. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing or publication; it applies to print and electronic versions.”

F ORMS OF P LAGIARISM

• Verbatim plagiarism: When one submits someone else's words verbatim in his/her own name without even acknowledging him publically. Copy and paste from a published article without referencing is a common form of verbatim plagiarism. Most commonly, it is seen in introduction and discussion part of manuscript 2 , 7
• Mosaic plagiarism: In this type of plagiarism each word is not copied but it involves mixing ones own words in someone else's ideas and opinions. This is copying and pasting in patchy manner 2
• Paraphrasing: If one rewrites any part/paragraph of manuscript in his/her own words it is called paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is a restatement in your own words, of someone else's ideas. Changing a few words of the original sentences does not make it your writing. Just changing words cannot make it the property of borrower; hence, this should be properly referenced. If it is not referenced, it will amount to plagiarism
• Duplicate publication: When an author submits identical or almost identical manuscript (same data, results, and discussion) to two different journals, it is considered as duplicate (redundant) publication. 9 As per COPE guidelines, this is an offense and editor can take an action as per the COPE flowchart
• Augmented publication: If the author adds additional data to his/her previously published work and changes title, modifies aim of the study, and recalculates results, it amounts to augmented publication. Plagiarism detection software usually do not pick it because it is not same by verbatim. This self plagiarism is as such technical plagiarism and is not considered with same strictness as plagiarism. The editor may consider it for publication in the following three situations: If author refers to his/her previous work; if ’methods’ cannot be written in any other form; and if author clearly states that new manuscript contains data from previous publication 10
• Segmented publication: Also called “Salami-Sliced” publication. In this case, two or more papers are derived from the same experimental/research/original work. Salami-sliced papers are difficult to detect and usually are pointed out by reviewers or readers. The decision regarding such manuscript is again on editor's shoulder. The author must be asked to refer to his/her previously published work and explain reasonably the connection of the segmented paper to his/her previously published work
• Text recycling: If the author uses large portions of his/her own already published text in his/her new manuscript, it is called text recycling. It can be detected by plagiarism software. It can be handled as per the COPE guidelines.
• Cyber plagiarism: “Copying or downloading in part or in their entirety articles or research papers and ideas from the internet and not giving proper attribution is unethical and falls in the range of cyber plagiarism” 2
• Image plagiarism: Using an image or video without receiving proper permission or providing appropriate citation is plagiarism. 7 “Images can be tampered on support findings, promote a specific technique over another to strengthen the correctness of poorly visualized findings, remove the defects of an image and to misrepresent an image from what it really is”? 11

H OW TO D ETECT P LAGIARISM ?

It is generally difficult to detect plagiarism, but information technology has made available few websites which can detect/catch plagiarism. Few of them are www.ithentical.com , www.turnitin.com , www.plagiarism.org , etc. 12

Besides this, learned and watchful reviewers and readers can detect it due to his/her familiarity with published material in his/her area of interest.

H OW TO A VOID P LAGIARISM ?

Practice the ethical writing honestly. Keep honesty in all scientific writings. Crediting all the original sources. When you fail to cite your sources or when you cite them inadequately, you commit plagiarism, an offense that is taken extremely seriously in academic world and is a misconduct. Some simple dos and don’ts 5 are outlined in Table 1 .

Dos and don’ts of plagiarism

In the following situation, permission is required to use published work from publisher to avoid plagiarism. 8

• Directly quoting significant portion of a published work. How much text may be used without approaching publisher for permission is not specified. The best approach is whenever in doubt, ask for permission
• Reproducing a table
• Reproducing a figure/image.

H OW TO D EAL W ITH P LAGIARISM

Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and breach of ethics. Plagiarism is not in itself a crime but can constitute copyright infringement. 7 In academia, it is a serious ethical offense. Plagiarism is not punished by law but rather by institutions. Professional associations, educational institutions, and publishing companies can pose penalties, suspensions, and even expulsions of authors. 7

As per the COPE guidelines, “If editors suspect misconduct by authors, reviewer's editorial staff or other editors then they have a duty to take action. This duty extends to both published and unpublished papers. Editors first see a response from those accused. If the editors are not satisfied with the response, they should ask the employers of the authors, reviewers, or editors or some other appropriate body to investigate and take appropriate action.” 6

If the editor is satisfied that the act of plagiarism has taken place, minimum he should do is “reject” the manuscript if it is in different stage of editorial process and “retract” if it is already published.

To conclude, we must increase awareness about plagiarism and ethical issues among our scientists and authors. We must be honest in our work and should not violate copyright law. There should be serious steps against authors, which should bring disrespect to author and even loss of his academic position.

We will end it by quote of Albert Einstein “Many people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist, they are wrong, it is the character.”

R EFERENCES

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A publication of the harvard college writing program.

Harvard Guide to Using Sources 

• The Honor Code
• How to Avoid Plagiarism

It's not enough to know why plagiarism is taken so seriously in the academic world or to know how to recognize it. You also need to know how to avoid it.

The simplest cases of plagiarism to avoid are the intentional ones: If you copy a paper from a classmate, buy a paper from the Internet, copy material from a book, article, podcast, video, or website without citing the author, you are plagiarizing. Here's the best advice you'll ever receive about avoiding intentional plagiarism: If you're tempted to borrow someone else's ideas or plagiarize in any way because you're pressed for time, nervous about how you're doing in a class, or confused about the assignment, don't do it . The problems you think you're solving by plagiarizing are really minor compared to the problems you will create for yourself by plagiarizing. In every case, the consequences of plagiarism are much more serious than the consequences of turning in a paper late or turning in a paper you're not satisfied to have written.

The consequences of accidental plagiarism are equally daunting and should be avoided at all costs. As a member of an intellectual community you are expected to respect the ideas of others in the same way that you would respect any other property that didn't belong to you, and this is true whether you plagiarize on purpose or by accident. The best way to make sure you don't plagiarize due to confusion or carelessness is to 1) understand what you're doing when you write a paper and 2) follow a method that is systematic and careful as you do your research . In other words, if you have a clear sense of what question you're trying to answer and what knowledge you're building on, and if you keep careful, clear notes along the way, it's much easier to use sources effectively and responsibly and, most of all, to write a successful paper.

If you have questions about plagiarism at any point in your research or writing process, ask. It's always better to ask questions than it is to wait for an instructor to respond to work that you have turned in for a grade. Once you have turned in your final work, you will be held responsible for misuse of sources.

Keep Track of Your Sources; Save PDFs or Print Electronic Source

While it's easy enough to keep a stack of books or journal articles on your desk where you can easily refer back to them, it's just as important to keep track of electronic sources. When you save a PDF of a journal article, make sure you put it into a folder on your computer where you'll be able to find it. When you consult a website, log the URL in a separate document from the paper you're writing so that you'll be able to return to the website and cite it correctly. You should also print or save to PDF the relevant pages from any websites you use, making sure you note the complete URL and the date on which you printed the material. Because electronic sources aren't stable and websites can disappear without notice, beware of directing your readers to sources that might have disappeared. Check when the website you're using was last updated and update the URLs as you work and once again right before you submit your essay. If an electronic source disappears before you submit your work, you will need to decide whether or not to keep the source in your paper. If you have saved the source and can turn it in with your paper, you should do so. If you have not saved the source, you should consult your instructor about whether or not to use that source in your paper.

Keep Sources in Correct Context

Whenever you consult a source, you should make sure you understand the context, both of the ideas within a source and of the source itself. You should also be careful to consider the context in which a source was written. For example, a book of essays published by an organization with a political bias might not present an issue with adequate complexity for your project. You can learn more about how to understand a source’s context in the Evaluating Sources section of this guide.

The question of context can be more complicated when you're working with Internet sources than with print sources because you may see one article or post as separate from an entire website and use or interpret that page without fully understanding or representing its context. For example, a definition of "communism" taken from a website with a particular political agenda might provide one interpretation of the meaning of the word—but if you neglect to mention the context for that definition, you might use it as though it's unbiased when it isn't. If your web search takes you to a URL that’s part of a larger website, make sure to investigate and take notes on the context of the information you're citing.

Research can often turn out to be more time-consuming than you anticipate. Budget enough time to search for sources, to take notes, and to think about how to use the sources in your essay. Moments of carelessness are more common when you leave your essay until the last minute— and when you are tired or stressed. Honest mistakes can lead to charges of plagiarism just as dishonesty can; be careful when taking notes and when incorporating ideas and language from sources so you always know what language and ideas are yours and what belongs to a source.

Don't Cut and Paste: File and Label Your Sources

Keep your own writing and your sources separate.

Work with either the printed copy of your source(s) or (in the case of online sources) the copy you downloaded—not the online version—as you draft your essay. This precaution not only decreases the risk of plagiarism but also enables you to annotate your sources. Those annotations are an essential step both in understanding the sources and in distinguishing your own ideas from those of the sources.

Keep Your Notes and Your Draft Separate

Paraphrase carefully in your notes; acknowledge your sources explicitly when paraphrasing.

When you want to paraphrase material, it's a good idea first to paste the actual quotation into your notes (not directly into your draft) and then to paraphrase it (still in your notes). Putting the information in your own words will help you make sure that you've thought about what the source is saying and that you have a good reason for using it in your paper. Remember to use some form of notation in your notes to indicate what you've paraphrased and mention the author's name within the material you paraphrase. You should also include all citation information in your notes.

Avoid Reading a Classmate's Paper for Inspiration

If you're in a course that requires peer review or workshops of student drafts, you are going to read your classmates' work and discuss it. This is a productive way of exchanging ideas and getting feedback on your work. If you find, in the course of this work, that you wish to use someone else's idea at some point in your paper (you should never use someone else's idea as your thesis, but there may be times when a classmate's idea would work as a counterargument or other point in your paper), you must credit that person the same way you would credit any other source.

If you find yourself reading someone else's paper because you're stuck on an assignment and don't know how to proceed, you may end up creating a problem for yourself because you might unconsciously copy that person's ideas. When you're stuck, make an appointment with your instructor or go to the Writing Center for advice on how to develop your own ideas.

Don't Save Your Citations for Later

Never paraphrase or quote from a source without immediately adding a citation. You should add citations in your notes, in your response papers, in your drafts, and in your revisions. Without them, it's too easy to lose track of where you got a quotation or an idea and to end up inadvertently taking credit for material that's not your own.

Quote Your Sources Properly

Always use quotation marks for directly quoted material, even for short phrases and key terms.

Keep a Source Trail

As you write and revise your essay, make sure that you keep track of your sources in your notes and in each successive draft of your essay. You should begin this process early, even before you start writing your draft. Even after you've handed in your essay, keep all of your research notes and drafts. You ought to be able to reconstruct the path you took from your sources to your notes and from your notes to your drafts and revision. These careful records and clear boundaries between your writing and your sources will help you avoid plagiarism. And if you are called upon to explain your process to your instructor, you'll be able to retrace the path you took when thinking, researching, and writing, from the essay you submitted back through your drafts and to your sources.

• What Constitutes Plagiarism?
• The Exception: Common Knowledge
• Other Scenarios to Avoid
• Why Does it Matter if You Plagiarize?
• Harvard University Plagiarism Policy

PDFs for This Section

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Online Library and Citation Tools

How Can Researchers Avoid Plagiarism While Ensuring the Originality of Their Manuscript?

This guest post is drafted by an expert from iThenticate, a plagiarism checker  trusted by the world’s top researchers, publishers, and scholars.

Most of us understand the issues of plagiarism as well as the importance to take utmost care when citing all our sources in a research publication. However, it may surprise you to know how frequently researchers have had their papers rejected or retracted due to plagiarizing their sources unknowingly. This does not only involve the obvious copy and pasting of text that leads to plagiarism but also covers more subtle issues like improper paraphrasing , citation formats, originality checking, or even work done by your co-authors leading eventually to manuscript rejection. Hence, it is important that researchers today use a plagiarism checker , both during writing and before submission when publishing research manuscripts.

Take for example the case of an Assistant Professor at Brown University who had published a book in 2012 that took her years to complete. Although the ideas in the book were all her own, she had inadvertently plagiarized the work of other researchers due to unorganized note taking. Not only did she have to retract the work, but she also lost her job at the university, tarnishing her career.

If she had just taken the time to scan her book with a plagiarism checker, this could have easily been avoided. Unfortunately, her story is not unique; some journals are currently rejecting as much as 23% submissions after running them through a plagiarism checker. These programs not only check for exact phrase matches, but also for the less obvious forms of plagiarism that are sometimes unintentional.

Table of Contents

Understanding Plagiarism

The publication process becomes more competitive each year and editors have more tools to identify research misconduct such as plagiarism. If your work contains any misconduct at all, it is grounds for rejection, so you need to know how to avoid plagiarism in research papers.

Plagiarism can take many forms, including:

• Duplication where a researcher reuses his or her own work from an earlier paper or study, without proper attribution (known as self-plagiarism );
• Improper citing where a researcher uses a secondary source, but only cites the primary sources contained in that secondary source;
• Paraphrasing when a researcher uses another person’s words and also adds in some original words of their own, but does not give proper attribution for the use of the original author’s words;
• Repetition of research where a person publishes a new study, but repeats data or text that has already been published in a similar study, and fails to give proper attribution for the original study; and
• Blatant, deliberate plagiarism where a researcher copies another researcher’s work without attribution or even submits another researcher’s manuscript under his/her own name.

These forms of plagiarism are quite common and all will result in rejected manuscripts even if the research findings are sound.

How to Write a Research Paper without Plagiarism

Learning how to properly cite your work is integral to becoming a published researcher. Proper citations give credit to the originators of the ideas and to the researchers who invested their time in developing the field. They also give your work more credence by tracing the evolution of the ideas and giving support for your claims. Citing sources is in your interest not only to avoid plagiarism but also to make your work widely trusted and accepted. Therefore, it’s important to occasionally remind yourself of when citations are necessary.

The most frequent types of citations are for concepts, ideas, and findings that are not your own. This is the easiest type of citation that informs the reader about who developed those findings, and where to read more about them.

The second type of citation is used anytime you quote or paraphrase another author or written work. It is important to understand that even if you change the language and wordings, if it is not an idea you came up with on your own, then it needs to be attributed. It also matters whether or not it is in quotation marks. If it is an exact quote, it should always be in quotations, otherwise, this could be considered plagiarism. Essentially, anytime you convey information that is not your own direct findings, or what is considered public knowledge for the field, there needs to be a reference to the source.

When writing short pieces, it is easier to avoid plagiarizing by ensuring that you never directly copy text and properly convey the findings of other authors in your own words or put them in quotes. By being organized, you can ensure that you cite the sources to their true origins and include all the necessary reference information in your “works cited” section. However, this becomes much harder when you start writing longer pieces and become more knowledgeable in your field of study. Sometimes, what may seem like your own words or common knowledge are in fact not. That is why it is so important to use a plagiarism checker.

How to Use an Online Plagiarism Checker

In a recent poll of journal editors by the Committee on Public Ethics (COPE), 58% noted that the biggest ethical challenge was detecting “plagiarism and poor attribution standards.” As plagiarism detection software becomes more advanced and easier to use, you can be assured that publishers are using it to check your work, and so should you.

A researcher who needs to have a paper checked for plagiarism sends the manuscript to Enago, selecting iThenticate. With its flexibility, iThenticate accepts a number of file formats, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PDF, Latex, and others. The researcher receives a clear, easy-to-read report that highlights any potential areas of plagiarism, along with links back to the original content.

The entire process is simple, easy, and effective. Furthermore, those using Enago proofreading and editing services will already have access to the iThenticate integration.

Does Similarity Always Indicate Plagiarism?

One of the iThenticate plagiarism checker’s important features is its exclusion option because not every similarity in a manuscript is necessarily harmful. However, researchers can waste valuable time working their way through too many unnecessary matches, as they check their manuscript for potential plagiarism. With iThenticate’s exclusion options, you can narrow down to the most critical matches. You receive more focused, accurate reports and can save time in the review process because those unnecessary matches are excluded from the start.

The exclusion option allows you to exclude quoted material or bibliographic material that does not need to be checked. It also allows researchers to exclude small matches below a certain word count. If you want to exclude certain sections, such as an abstract or a methods and materials section, it is as simple as checking a box next to the section you want to exclude.

Once the manuscript has been scanned, if you determine that a match is not needed, you can exclude that source from the report. At that point, the report will be recalculated, with that source removed from the matches. The report still contains a list of all excluded sources. If you decide at any point in your review process that an excluded source does need to be re-included, that can be done simply with a checked box.

By using a trusted plagiarism checker like iThenticate before the manuscript reaches the publisher’s inbox, researchers can boost their chances of publication and grow their career wisely.

If you would like to know how you can use the iThenticate Plagiarism Check for your manuscript, you can  contact the Enago team . You can also check out our previous article in this series on plagiarism with iThenticate.

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I am looking for Editing/ Proofreading services for my manuscript Tentative date of next journal submission:

What should universities' stance be on AI tools in research and academic writing?

Free Reaction Paper Generator: AI-Powered Tool for Students

Have to write a reaction paper but don't know where to start? Try our free AI-powered generator! This tool will help you get fresh ideas, structure your paper, and save time. Check it out and see all the benefits for yourself.

• ✅ How to Use
• 🤩 Our Tool’s Benefits
• 🚀 How Our Generator Works
• ️✍️ What Is a Reaction Paper?
• ️🎓 How to Write
• 🏆 Winning Tips

🔗 References

✅ how to use our free reaction paper generator.

• Type in the text’s title and its author.
• Enumerate the ideas you would like to reflect on.
• Press "Generate" to get a well-written and personalized paper.

🤩 Reaction Paper Generator: Free Use & Other Benefits

Here's why our tool is the best AI essay writer you can find online:

🚀 How Our Reaction Paper Generator’s AI Works

Our reaction paper generator is based on the GPT language model. This type of AI is trained on a large amount of data to imitate human writing. The famous ChatGPT is one of many chatbots based on it.

But GPT-based chatbots have one big drawback: they require you to write a specific prompt. If the prompt isn't good enough, you will get irrelevant results.

In contrast, our reaction paper generator automatically creates a precise request for the AI.

You can be sure that our tool will provide you with customized and relevant texts.

✍️ What Is a Reaction Paper?

A reaction paper is an essay where you share your opinion on a book, movie, scientific article , or other work. Such an assignment typically includes:

• Your thoughts and feelings,
• An analysis of the source material,
• A thoughtful reaction supported by relevant sources.

🎓 How to Write a Reaction Paper

Is this your first time dealing with a reaction essay? If so, our handy guide will help you navigate this task. Follow the steps below, and you'll create a fantastic paper in no time!

Study the Work

The first step is to choose the subject of your study and analyze it thoroughly. Your subject can be any media form, from a journal article to a TV show.

While studying your chosen work, do the following:

• Write down your initial reactions and try to understand what causes you to react this way.
• Note the essential moments while reading or watching the chosen work.
• Ask questions as you study the topic and try to answer them.

Select a Perspective and Formulate a Thesis

Before writing your essay, decide where you stand on the work's central theme. To do so, consider various perspectives and evaluate them. You can also think of the author's objective and what they conveyed with their work.

After you've chosen your stance on the topic, come up with a strong thesis that expresses the main idea of your essay and outlines its structure.

Create an Outline

Think of an outline as a "skeleton" of your essay that helps you organize your thoughts and avoid confusion.

An outline usually includes the essay’s main sections: the introduction , main body , and conclusion . To prepare for the writing process better, consider adding more details:

• Write topic sentences for the body paragraphs.
• Note key facts and examples that support the thesis.

Write Your Reaction Paper

Now that you have your reaction essay plan, you can start writing your paper. Let’s see what you need to include in each part.

In the introduction , you briefly summarize the work you're reacting to and present your thesis, explaining your stance.

The introduction includes:

• The author's name,
• Full title,
• Publication date,
• Key aspects of the work.

You can also use an interesting quote from the work as an attention grabber .

In the main body, you react to the subject of your essay and express your opinions. Remember to support your statements with examples from the source material.

The analysis section is the core of your essay. Here are some questions you may want to consider:

• How does the work relate to the ideas you discussed during the course?
• Is the topic relevant to the present-day world?
• Did the work help you better understand the issue it discusses?
• Is the work relatable to your life experience? How did it make you feel?

You can also evaluate the work's structure and demonstrate how it relates to the larger discursive field.

Not all reaction papers feature a conclusion . If you want to include one in your essay, restate your opinion about the work and say whether you recommend checking it out.

Polish Your Paper

Proofreading is the final stage of the writing process. To perfect your text, re-read it several times. That'll help you eliminate logical inconsistencies, grammar mistakes, and typos. Make sure the text meets your school's requirements.

🏆 Tips for Writing a Superior Reaction Paper

Now that you know the essentials of writing a reaction paper, check out the following tips to make your essay perfect:

• In each body paragraph, focus on a single, clearly expressed idea.
• In your conclusion, include some recommendations for future reading.
• Feel free to express your opinions in the paper, but do so thoughtfully and avoid emotional language.
• Avoid general phrases like "I agree with the author" or "the book is good."
• Think critically and try to understand what you feel and why.
• Avoid making your conclusion a copy of your introduction.
• Be reasonable when it comes to quoting.
• Follow the basic rules of writing to make your paper flow naturally.

And with that, you're all set to write a perfect paper! Feel free to use our generator to get inspiration and sharpen your writing skills. You may also use our outline maker and abstract creator to make your research paper even better.

• Writing a Response or Reaction Paper: Hunter College
• Reaction Paper: University of Arkansas
• How to Write a Reaction Paper (Plus Steps and Helpful Tips): Indeed
• What Is a Reaction Paper: Minnesota State University Moorhead
• How to Write a Reaction Essay: Grammarly