Avoiding Plagiarism Tool Discovery
Being a constant student of life means constantly seeking knowledge and for me at least, there is no single tree of knowledge (a misguided couple screwed that up a long time ago) but a plethora of sources from which to gather information, knowledge and experiences. Along my travels throughout the world wide web’s information superhighway, I stumble across some gems from time to time, and without much surprise, a lot of them come from college and university websites. For example, the WordPress plug-in that I use for pop quizzes in some articles came to my attention thanks to Minnesota’s Dakota Technical College. So to my delight, when surfing the Internet for recent resources to use in some of my volunteer work in education, I came across a wonderful tool for avoiding plagiarism.
Okay, to be honest, I was first looking for the correct spelling of plagiarism and then I found by dumb-luck the avoiding plagiarism tool. But first, maybe we should review a few things about the topic of plagiarism and how it relates to our category of Internet Marketing and Internet writing.
Give Credit Where Credit is Due
The first basic rule in avoiding plagiarism is simply to give credit where it’s due. Most of us think of plagiarism from our school days when we were taught not to copy out of the encyclopedia our ten page report of Slavery in America, for example. As we progressed in grades, we were hopefully taught to make use of available resources and how to cite sources of information whether quoted directly or paraphrased, basically giving credit where it was due, but it also taught us the power of ethos – adding credibility to your own writing through the use of informative sources. However, plagiarism goes deeper than than merely using someone’s printed words; it also encompasses the use of their ideas. Yes, ideas. That means in a nutshell, do not present someone’s work, whether printed, explicit, or even implied, as your own – again, give credit where credit is due!
Avoiding Plagiarism Guidelines
For tips on how to avoid plagiarism, one of my Alma Mater institutions of post-secondary education, the University of Maryland, has developed some wonderful review exercises, whether you are reviewing or not the input from the answers will have you reviewing in no time, to get you up to speed about avoiding plagiarism. The avoiding plagiarism guideline is full of tips in an eight part guideline to review quotations, citing sources and various styles (APA, MLA, etc.) of citations.
Avoiding Plagiarism Test
Once you think you have mastered the avoiding plagiarism guidelines it is time to take the avoiding plagiarism test. This insightful application will test your knowledge about plagiarism and will leave you thought and diligent about plagiarism in the future.
Do Not Avoid Citing Sources Online
Many writers on the Internet are reluctant to cite sources and give a relevant outbound link from their website. You are not losing a visitor; you are gaining credibility – don’t be afraid to cite sources online.
Happy writing and safe surfing!
