Write a Term Paper: How to Avoid Plagiarism

Every student will have to write a term paper at some point in their academic experience. Most will learn the nuances of writing a term paper during high school, and those valuable skills will be further developed as they move into college. In the process of gathering information to support a thesis statement often there is the chance that plagiarism can occur. This is when a student presents someone else’s work as their own. It is dishonest and unethical and will ruin a student’s reputation and of course their grade. However, plagiarism can easily be avoided if a student focuses on creating a unique document.

Learn the Writing Process

The easiest way to avoid plagiarism is to become intimately involved in the writing process. That means that a student should understand the term paper process well. It begins with forming an original thesis and then developing a well written paper supporting that idea. Along the way, all students reference other peoples work. It has to be done in research, not only do you express your ideas, but they need to be supported with facts and historical examples. Understand that each reference needs to be cited. There are a number of different methods for citing appropriately and each educator will have somewhat different expectations. Plagiarism cannot occur when all sources are properly cited in one way or another. Understanding that writing a term paper is not creative writing, but an academic exercise is displaying what you have learned will help in this manner.

Use Legitimate Sources

Consulting a source is going to happen a lot, the author has to understand the source and recognize any biases that may exist within it. For example, if the book was produced by a group with a particular religious or political view, then that source may be biased toward that. If those sources are produced on the internet then they may be further questioned. A student needs to be careful that the source being cited has produced original work and didn’t commit plagiarism themselves. It won’t matter if you present the work of others as your own because of a poor source choice. It is still plagiarism. Only use reputable sources that are guaranteed to be authentic when researching for your term paper or academic project.

It is important to the learning process that each student learns how to properly research reliable sources to answer academic questions for term papers. This allows students with the knowledge that they can find and express the answers to any academic question easily and appropriately.

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