Collaborative Post
You’re a proud parent of a schooler, a college student with a toddler, or a blogging mum writing about your experience. Or, you aren’t a parent but an active online user who doesn’t only consume content but also creates it for others.
One way or another, the issue of plagiarism in content isn’t Greek to you.
Your middle or high school kid writes many essays. As a parent, you can reveal the significance of copyright and originality of their works, telling them how to avoid plagiarism when writing and how to check their works for duplications. (Educators use a specific plagiarism checker for teachers to review student papers, so nothing good awaits the students who copy works from other authors or generate texts via AI tools.)
The issue isn’t only about copyright infringement with its legal or ethical concerns leading to reputation loss, grade penalties, or expulsion. Some consequences of plagiarism in academia aren’t that evident yet significant, affecting, first of all, a cheater: decreased critical thinking and creativity, poor writing skills and inability to communicate thoughts, weaker immune system (the fear of getting caught + the stress of the guilt), etc. No parent wants it for their children or themselves, do you agree?
Below are the actionable techniques to prevent that and avoid plagiarism in writing. They won’t only help your schoolers; they can also guide you, whether you’re a college student, a mum who gets a higher education, or a blogger dealing with tons of information online. (As you understand, the originality of your content is also critical.)
So, here we go.
Cite Others to Praise Authorship
When writing, you can’t avoid mentioning existing knowledge and thoughts of other creators. It’s okay to use them with proper credit: Refer to the sources in your work, provide backlinks to the original, mention author names, etc.
Speaking of sources:
Never limit yourself to one source when researching the information for your writing piece. Check several ones to see different angles of the topic and compose an original text rather than retell the content of that initial source you’ve found online.
The way you’ll format those references in your text will depend on several factors:
If you’re a student, consider the essay type you write and the requirements you get from a teacher. As a rule, the assignment will have information about word count, citation style (APA, MLA) to organize the list of references, and formatting rules to follow. If you’re a blogger or a content creator publishing works online, you can backlink to a source, tag an author, or place the list of used resources at the end of your article.
Cover Topics from Different Angles
The structure and content of your writing will depend on the story type, its target audience, and the platform you’ll use to perform it for readers. For example, you can’t use a conversational tone or add extra creative elements when writing a SWOT analysis paper or business plan. The same is true about academic papers you write in college. (Unless you craft a narrative or a personal essay, of course.)
However, don’t be afraid of experiments when appropriate. Even if you have a prescribed topic, you can think of writing about its aspects other authors haven’t yet covered. Instead of parroting their arguments, you can change a perspective and look at your topic from different angles. It will help avoid copying others’ ideas and prevent accusations of plagiarism.
If you’re a blogger or creative writer, the sky’s the limit for you here. Experiment with formats: Write a blog post on behalf of your cat or a lamp at your table (how would it communicate the topic?), organize your text as a hero’s journey (storytelling, you speak it?), you name it!
Improve Your Writing Skills
Make it a habit to bring value with your writing, not just describe the common facts everyone already knows:
When just describing, your risk of copying (plagiarizing) others grows because you’ll use the same arguments, facts, and ideas. More than that, you’ll use the same language patterns and word constructions! (Synonymization doesn’t work here; it also counts as plagiarism.)
When bringing value, you look for unique information to use in your writing and unique ways to communicate it to the audience. You learn how to write texts for better clarity and readability. Advanced writing skills, enhanced vocabulary, various writing techniques for different text types, and your original writing style — and you won’t parrot other authors working with the same topics.
Paraphrase
It’s okay to paraphrase others’ ideas in your texts; the trick is to do that correctly, with no copyright infringement.
What is paraphrasing? It’s rewriting a source’s info with other words but without changing the meaning. (Note: It’s not about synonymization but your own representation of the source idea.) Avoid using similar words and phrases; communicate the meaning how you understand it.
When paraphrasing, remember that it’s still someone’s idea, not yours. Include a citation to the source.
Use Plagiarism Detectors to Review Your Writings
Most authors know the term “accidental plagiarism.” It means that you wrote your text from scratch and didn’t intend to copy anyone, but someone still detects duplications and accuses you of stealing others’ ideas.
Unintentional plagiarism can happen to anyone, and it is hard to avoid. Some phrases stick with you so well that you include them in texts by default, seeing them as common sentences rather than something that needs a citation. However, ignorance doesn’t absolve responsibility:
Your teachers, editors, or clients ordering content from you will use plagiarism detectors to check your works; they won’t care if those duplications in your writing were accidental. So, it would help to eliminate them before they detect it.
For that, make a plagiarism checker your best friend. It will allow you to catch and edit doubtful parts before submitting your work for review. Corresponding tools are many, and most are available online: Grammarly, Duplichecker, and PlagiarismCheck — try a few and choose one that fits your writing needs most.
So, here’s a recap:
How to avoid plagiarism when writing:
- Check sources and cite/quote authorship where necessary.
- Cover topics from different angles, try new approaches, and bring value rather than describe commonly known statements in your works.
- Grow as a writer: Improve your skills, learn new writing tricks, and practice advanced techniques to communicate your message to the audience.
- Check your writings via plagiarism detectors to prevent accidental and unintentional duplications in your drafts. Revise accordingly.
Let’s praise the authorship and respect other content creators, using their materials with proper references.