General guide to understand written plagiarism

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Simply defined plagiarism is to steal, use, and distribute another person’s idea, passing it off as your own and without properly crediting that person or citing them as a source, of knowledge and inspiration. It is presenting an old, already expounded, and existing idea as new and original. Plagiarism is a type of cheating, a form of literary theft. That is because when plagiarizing you actually are simply copying another person’s idea and passing it around as your own. Plagiarism may be anything, from a person’s words and conversations to their ideas, from email messages to their artwork or interviews. Anything which is ‘borrowed’ from another person without proper citation and credit and used as your own constitutes a plagiarized document.

No ideas are new

It is perfectly possible that you may think you have had an epiphany and have produced something quite indigenous to your mind. However, the human mind has the ability to retain information it may have heard or read and seen in the past, sometimes being unable to recall the source. Anything may form the basis of your inspiration and while you may think that you have produced a new idea or work, the contributing factors to it may be multiple and often untraceable. This greatly increases the risk of something being called a plagiarized work!

Certain Cases

Wrongful appropriation and even close imitation of another person’s work and the idea might make your work look like it is plagiarized, or that you have copied from places without properly crediting the authors!

In the literary world, there is no distinct and clear differentiation between imitation, replica, copying, or forgery, and if you do any or all of those things your work will be considered plagiarized! All knowledge is based upon already existing knowledge.

Read more: Finding Out If Your Work Is Being Plagiarized By Someone

Writing Process

Whenever we wish to write about anything we read about it, gather information concerning it, and then build an opinion and write about it. During this process, we actually are drawing from another person’s ideas and findings. Since our opinion is based on another person’s idea, thoughts, and findings, we cannot claim that ours is an idea wholly original. It may be defining a new aspect or giving a fresh perspective but it is still building on previously available data and, hence, would be considered plagiarized if it isn’t properly cited.

Citing Sources Properly

Plagiarism in articles helps you identify what this is all about so you may not be doing it out of a lack of proper understanding of the term. Plagiarism in articles helps you understand and grasp what this concept is and let you get acquainted with the various forms which constitute plagiarism. In this way, you can produce a work that will look original while properly citing all the sources that have inspired you and allowed you to form this point of view or which supports the idea that you have in your mind concerning anything. These articles are very useful for understanding plagiarism and countering them effectively!