Plagiarism basically means using a third-party source without giving it due credit. Normally when you write, you will be writing your own thoughts in your own words. Plagiarism occurs when you are simply writing third-party words as your own.
Plagiarism not only creates a bad image as a blogger, but it is also essential to build trust and credibility. Passing off others’ work as your own is a cheap practice as well and discouraged. If you are a blogger, you need to understand and know the importance of avoiding plagiarism.
It can be sometimes tricky, find out that something you have written is already existing somewhere. Well, the internet is a huge place, but there are ways to avoid plagiarism in such situations.
But you will have to be careful in order to avoid plagiarism. You will need to learn certain habits and techniques. These things will help you in avoiding plagiarism and improve the quality of your blogs.
Why should you not plagiarise while blogging?
Listen, plagiarism is a simple misuse of someone else’s work by you. Imagine putting a lot of effort into a brilliant article only for someone to later claim that they have written it. It would make you angry, more so if you are monetizing your article since you might suffer due to this.
This theft or stealing is looked down upon by authors and bloggers globally. However, plagiarising does not mean you have to create completely new and original articles. In fact, mentioning and citing others’ work can greatly increase the credibility of your own blog.
Apart from these reasons, as a blogger, you are expected to publish content that is original, creative, and trustworthy. Plagiarism can affect your integrity leading to a loss in your traffic and trust by the public. Plagiarising has a potential for legal scandal as well, should the original author decide to sue you.
Thus, avoiding plagiarism is a must for everyone. Whether you are newbie bloggers or professional bloggers, plagiarism is without a doubt one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Now, if you are thinking about how you can avoid plagiarism, below are the top 5 tips on avoiding plagiarism.
5 Tips to avoid Plagiarism in Blogging
- Give Appropriate Credit
- Paraphrasing
- Use Quotes
- Read a Lot
- Double-check Your Writings
1. Give Appropriate Credit (Cite Sources)
One of the biggest reasons you might face legal trouble while blogging is using someone else’s work without giving due credit. It is one cardinal sin you want to avoid at all costs. So if you are writing an article that uses third-party references or ideas, give them the appropriate credit.
This can help you in building good relations with other bloggers (even possible collaborations) and improve your credibility. Citing will also help you keep track of all the sources you use in one article.
For example, if your source has written, “Batman is one the greatest superhero of his generation and that superman cannot defeat him, no matter what,” you can paraphrase it as “Superman simply cannot defeat batman, as one of the greatest superheroes, it is not possible for superman to beat batman.” Once you are done with paraphrasing (obviously better than the one shown here), you will need to cite your sources.
2. Paraphrasing
We just mentioned paraphrasing above, but let us elaborate on this coveted practice. Paraphrasing, for lack of a better word, is the practice of writing someone else’s ideas in your own words.
This is okay for two main reasons that you should not forget ever. Paraphrasing involves a bit of creativity and originality. You cannot just rearrange words to frame a sentence. No, you need to do much better in order to actually paraphrase something. Apart from that, while paraphrasing, you will need to keep in mind the fact that you will have to put some original ideas.
The second main reason is that you always and always cite your source when you do this. Even if you are citing yourself from another article, include a link to that article. Doing this helps the reader and allows the original author to get the credit they deserve.
3. Use Quotes
We do not mean quotes but rather the tool used in the English language. “quoting” allows you to directly quote something out of the main article. You can even quote entire sentences verbatim with the help of quotes. It is quite useful when used in an intelligent manner.
However, be wary of this practice. Just because this practice allows you to skip past plagiarism, it has its limitations. For instance, you cannot quote your whole article or large paragraphs. It is against the ethical practice and conduct of a blogger. Another thing to remember here is that quotes are always accompanied by citations. So, cite whatever you quote.
4. Read a Lot
This might seem like a boring and counterproductive tip, but trust me, you will never have to worry about plagiarism. This is because, once you read a lot about a topic, you will have enough information with you. This will help you in writing things in your own words, provide valuable sources and reduce plagiarism. It will also help you if you are not as creative as others.
For example, if you are writing about escape rooms/mystery rooms, read about them and research about them a lot. It will help you in understanding and writing a better article in your own words. Reading helps in churning out better quality content as well. You cannot really harm yourself while doing some extra research. The only catch is that you will need enough time to do all that.
5. Always Double-check Your Writings
One of the huge mistakes a lot of writers make is to write an article and publish it without ever reading it. This happens when you are trying to publish an article just before your deadline. You might rush when writing. This will lead to higher plagiarism. Oftentimes people would just cut copy-paste in haste and won’t even bother checking if what they did is really plagiarised.
Taking your time to read and re-read your article will help you cite and frame your article in a better way. To avoid plagiarism, simply start your project early. It will help you avoid a lot of problems associated with a late submission.
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Conclusion
As we said earlier, plagiarism is guaranteed to happen almost anywhere on the internet. It is an old and vast space that is constantly getting updated. This means that if you don’t write something, someone else might. This could be a problem if you don’t check for plagiarism. This would mean that you just published plagiarised article without even checking.
It won’t matter if what you wrote was genuinely yours; the internet won’t forgive you. That’s just how it is, but had you checked for plagiarism, and you could’ve avoided any hassles. Thus, one bonus tip for you guys is to Check For Plagiarism every time before you publish your article. You can use paid/premium software or simply use the free one.
With these 5 best tips on how to avoid plagiarism, you will be able to avoid a lot of problems that new bloggers face. So if you are thinking of starting your own blog, remember to think about plagiarism.
