When I was attending graduate school and during my years teaching college one topic discussed frequently was plagiarism. I remember grading student essays and regularly finding students who had copied word for word their paper from other sources. Sometimes it would be huge chunks of their paper. Other times it would be a paragraph or a sentence. "Why isn't that okay" they would ask, and would seem confused by the word "plagiarism." As a teacher, I quickly learned that to many up and coming freshmen college students that word was confusing and hard to understand.
What Is Plagiarism?
The most simple way to describe plagiarism is using someone else's words, pictures, and/or other forms of work and passing it off as your own.
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There are two kinds of plagiarism: Intentional and Unintentional.
Intentional plagiarism means a person knows what they are doing and purposely copies another person's work to use as their own. People who purposely plagiarize act as if the stolen work is their own and deceive others into believing they were the creators of the content.
Unintentional plagiarism means a person uses another person's work without realizing that it is considered theft. People can accidentally plagiarize by not realizing that copying/pasting is wrong and may have not been taught the correct way to use different sources to conduct research and give proper authors credit.
What Is Considered Plagiarism?
Copying and pasting information word for word from a source of information you found is plagiarism.
Writing an article and copying/pasting direct quotes into your own article without giving credit to the original author is plagiarism.
Using another person's pictures or diagrams without the creators permission or without giving the creator credit is plagiarism.
Not properly citing sources used to create an article. This includes in text citations and a references section at the end of your article.
Not using quotation marks (" ") to indicate exact words and sentences taken from someone else's work. Quotes also need a source listed to show where it came from.
Using sources of information to write an article and paraphrasing the contents to contain different words but not giving credit to the sources used. If you research a topic you need to include a references section for anything that inspired the words you write. Paraphrasing is considered plagiarism when you use someone's ideas and forget to give credit to the original creator of the ideas, facts, and information you are discussing in your article.
Photo credit: pixabay
How To Avoid Plagiarism When Writing Articles On Steemit
Anytime you use someone else's work to write an article you must give them credit. A references section and citations should be included in your article.
Citations
A citation means you put your source at the end of the section of your article you got from another source. If you used a quote you need a citation and reference in the reference section. If you use other articles as research and paraphrase the contents to create an original post you still need citations to indicate the source of your ideas.
For example: Paraphrasing
Pizza is the most wonderful food ever created! You can eat it with a wide variety of toppings and it tastes even better cold. (source)
Since I used the above source about pizza being wonderful to write about how it is great I listed a link to my source of inspiration at the end of the sentence.
References
A reference section comes at the end of your Steemit article and lists all sources used to write your article. It should look similar to the following.
References:
Pizza Best Thing Ever
Short Quotes
- Short quotes are acceptable to use in Steemit articles. One to two sentence quotes is fine but make sure you don't overuse quotes. Almost all of your post needs to be your own words. Only use simple quotes to support the original content of your article.
When you use someone's exact words they need to be in between quotation marks with a citation. For Steemit formatting you can use the >(insert space before starting your quote) to use the quote formatting.
For example
In your editor your quote should look like this.
In your article it will end up looking like this.
"Be brave enough to live life creatively. The creative place where no one else has ever been." - Alan Alda Quote
(source)
Don't Abuse Steemit's Quote Feature
A small quote is fine to use in your post but don't overdo it. Far too often, authors try to cheat and include large amounts of quotes in their articles instead of writing their own original content. They use the quote feature to hide the fact they are plagiarizing. If caught using excess quotes you can be flagged and reported for plagiarism. You need to create original content. Don't use someone elses work as a way of getting out of creating your own articles.
Photo credit: PixabayGrowing Plagiarism Issue: Translating Sources From Non-English To English
If you translate a source from a non-English language into English and then copy and paste the English version word for word into Steemit that is plagiarism. DO NOT DO THIS! This is also a growing problem on Steemit. There are many users who think they are clever plagiarizing posts by translating non-English sources into English then copy and pasting the English version into Steemit for a post thinking they won't get caught.
If using sources for research, read the source and put the information into your own words. Then, put a link to your source at the bottom of your post in a "References" section.
If you need help translating a post into English and formatting the 
editors are happy to help.
Tools To Help You Avoid Plagiarizing
In high schools where I live the first style of formatting they teach you is MLA formatting. Different fields ask for different forms of formatting. For example: if you go into psychiatry you might be asked to use American Psychological Association (APA) formatting. If you are just learning about how to properly cite your work then MLA is a good place to start.
The above link is a handy website that can generate citations and references for you. Choose the style of citations you want and then enter your information. The site will type up your citations for you in proper formatting.
- Write your articles in Microsoft Word?
You can have Word help you create your citations and references section. Click here for directions on how to use this feature.
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