Plagiarism is an unethical act that severely undermines the reputation of a writer. Unfortunately, students, in general, are very unaware of what plagiarism is and its consequences.
The most common reasons for plagiarizing seem to be to save time and effort. In academic settings, plagiarism is not tolerated at all and has severe consequences. To put your entire academic career into jeopardy over a moment of laziness seems foolish at best.
Before we go any further, let’s look into what plagiarism actually is.
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of using another person’s ideas or work as your own and claiming them to be yours.
In other words, it is theft and fraud. It is theft because you are using another person’s work without their knowledge and permission. It is fraud because you are trying to make people believe that it is your work.
Consequences of Plagiarism in Academic Writing
The consequences of plagiarism are quite severe, especially in an academic setting. While the perpetrator does not face jail time, the other consequences are more than serious enough.
1. Loss of Reputation
When a plagiarist is caught, they will be forever known in academic circles for plagiarism. This makes their reputation hit rock bottom and they will have no credibility left whatsoever.
2. Failure to Make an Academic Career
The loss of credibility directly lends itself to a failed career. Publishers and journals will not be willing to publish the works of a plagiarist even if they are legitimate. That’s because the stigma and suspicion of plagiarism will never leave them.
3. Expulsion from College/School
If students are caught committing plagiarism, they are merely warned and given a failing mark in their assignment if it’s their first offense. However, if they are caught repeatedly, they are expelled from their institute.
How to Check Plagiarism in Paragraphs While Writing an Essay?
Now that we know how bad plagiarism is, we need to make sure that there is no accidental plagiarism in our own essays. How to do that? That’s quite simple. Read on to find out.
Use an Online Plagiarism Checker
Using an online plagiarism checker is quite easy. There are tons of free online plagiarism checkers available online.
If you are suspicious of some paragraph being plagiarized in your essay, you can simply run it through a plagiarism checker. Plagiarism checking tools can check your essay against billions of online sources in a short time.
There is very little chance of error as machines seldom malfunction. So, you can rest assured of their reliability.
Most online tools work in much the same way, so you can follow these generic instructions and learn how to use them.
- Upload or paste your essay into the text box.
- Complete the captcha.
- Press the confirm button.
- Wait.
- See the results.
- Edit any plagiarism out when it’s found.
- Do steps 1-6 until there is no plagiarism left.
How to Select a plagiarism checker?
There are many tools available to check plagiarism. However, not all of them are equal. Some are better than others. Here is how you can select the right tool.
First of all, what are your requirements? To a student, it may be very important that the tool is free to use. A professional, on the other hand, can afford to use a paid tool. Fortunately, most tools are free and come with upgrade plans that require payment.
So, students and professionals alike can both find something that suits them. Here are some other criteria that may help you make your decision.
- Modes: Some plagiarism checkers come with quick search and deep search modes. The deep search option is usually locked behind a paywall.
- Word limit:Free tools typically have some kind of word or character limit. This means that long essays cannot be checked. However, they are good enough to check individual paragraphs.
- Source list: Not all tools provide you with a list of sources that were duplicated. If you do not intend to remove the plagiarized parts and instead just cite them properly, this could be important to you.
- Graphical Output: Some tools show a clear value of plagiarism present in the text with a graphic and some don’t. If your aim is to just know if there is plagiarism or not, you can use the ones that don’t show it. However, a tool that shows the output is usually better.
Conclusion
Plagiarism in any setting and capacity is unethical and frowned upon. It has various consequences ranging from loss of reputation and credibility to losing one’s entire academic career.
Hence, it is necessary to make sure that there is no plagiarism in your essays and other write-ups. Accidental plagiarism can occur in anybody’s work unintentionally.
Checking for plagiarism is quite easy due to the plethora of plagiarism checking tools available. These tools have many variants, some of them are free while others are paid.
Choosing the tool that suits your needs is important as not everyone can (or even should) buy the premium version of a tool.
