Students are often asked to present original thoughts in the form of term papers, but use existing evidence to support these thoughts. These expectations from teachers can be confusing and is a breeding ground for plagiarism. So how does one create a plagiarism free paper? The first step is to understand what plagiarism is – the use of someone’s words or ideas without giving them credit. The goal of a term paper is to present your thoughts on a subject. Use of other people’s words and ideas are a means of supporting your thoughts. Many students believe that hiding the use of other words and ideas is a good thing; when, in fact, it shows that other people are of the same mind as the student. A custom writing service can be used effectively to ensure that your paper is plagiarism free.
To avoid plagiarism, every student should build good habits during lectures, study and research. This begins with good note taking. As you listen to the teacher in the classroom or read materials on the subject, make sure to note the source of an idea. A simple thing like changing the color of the ink can allow a student to denote if an idea was from the student or external from the student. The first page of notes should always contain the information about the author and title of the media at the top of the page. If the source is an interview or conversation, ask, if possible, if it can be recorded and label the file with who participated and when. Retain all notes and recordings.
Learn how to paraphrase correctly. Avoid the use of exact words and phrasing is encouraged when creating a plagiarism free paper. The correct method of paraphrasing is to change both the words and the phrasing of a sentence. Consider Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “To be or not to be, that is the question”. “To live or not to live, that I must consider” would still be considered plagiarism because the structure of the sentence is intact. A better paraphrase of this sentence would be “man will often ponder his own existence”. Even when paraphrasing or summarizing an idea, one must cite the original speaker. In this example, the citation may be as simple as “Shakespeare believed…”. Sometimes, paraphrasing or summary is not possible without changing the meaning of the source. In these cases, direct quotes are necessary in the paper. However, to maintain a plagiarism free paper, the handling of quotations must be appropriate and consistent. Quotes should be set apart from the student’s ideas, either by quotation marks or as a separate block of text on the page. Quote only what is necessary to get the point across: avoid long quotations. Use ellipsis (…) to show where text is omitted from the original text. Use brackets ([]) to show added words to the original text. Most importantly, do not change the original speaker’s meaning when using quotes. All quotations must have proper citations attached to them, either as a parenthetical citation, footnote, or end-note.
Understanding how to properly use the words and ideas of others is a skill few students have. Custom writing services can be used to create plagiarism free papers. These services can be used to create a plagiarism free custom papers from scratch or to edit or rewrite a student’s existing draft of a paper to ensure it is a plagiarism free paper.
