Avoid plagiarism in your thesis in 8 steps

Writing a thesis is no easy task. Presenting literature review, information, evidence, and incorporating ideas and results for previous research is a big challenge. Although all these things put together strengthen your thesis, you could possibly fall into the plagiarism trap in the process.

Plagiarism is considered against ethics and moral values in an academic career. In fact, it is taken to be a serious offence in the world of academics and endangers your reputation, credibility and authority. According to experts on our thesis writing services team,  it is a sufficient reason for your thesis to be rejected.

Plagiarism is an act of publishing somebody else’s content and work and passing it off as your own either with or without intent. Content is usually considered plagiarized for the following reasons:

• Published content has been copy-pasted verbatim from a book, journal or website

• If the content used in the thesis doesn’t give due credit to other authors

• When quotes are used without citations

Your thesis should be representative of your ideas and concepts. It can have some flavor of other people’s work because you have researched a lot of material for your own thesis but the content has to be strictly your own. Our experts on the thesis writing services team have worked out the following tips in preventing plagiarism in thesis writing and securing a higher grade:

1. Paraphrasing

   
   Paraphrasing means to write content from elsewhere in your own words for your thesis. While studying or researching a specific topic, you may have found certain information that is relevant for your thesis. You are allowed to take the idea and subject from there and use it in your thesis after taking care about changing the words but retaining the meaning.

2. Referencing Quotes

   
   By way of this process, you provide proper references and links to the content. If the content has been copy pasted from somewhere, you must put it inside inverted commas followed by the name of the author mentioned prominently.  If you credit an author fairly for his work in your thesis, it is not plagiarism.

3. Citation – Citation is not very different from the citation of a quote. If during your research, you find information that is useful for your topic in any book, journal, sites or anywhere  else, you can copy it from there and cite its name, title, page number and even paragraph number of the source.

4. Using Plagiarism Checker

   
   Plagiarism checkers are software that are used to detect how much content in a thesis has been plagiarized. Every academic institution uses it for evaluating a student’s work. The student can get the thesis double-checked before submission. These software tools will highlight the text that has been plagiarized so that the student can correct it.

5. Employ Your Own Writing Style

   
   You are looking forward to a professional career once you are in your final year of a masters or PhD program. What employers are interested in finding out about you is how creative you are rather than how good you are at taking references and internet help to complete a task. Dissertation not only carries an important weight in what grades you get but also serve as a source of self-learning and its subsequent practice.

Writing a thesis is about collecting data from different sources available but writing it in your own style. Writing in your own style will not only help you maintain a certain consistency in writing style but also save you from plagiarism issues.

6. Knowing What Your Professor Will Check

   
   Professors were able to catch students even when there were no computers or the Internet. The Internet has only made the task easier. So what are the clues that a professor will look for in the material that you have presented as your own has really been lifted from somewhere else?

• Inconsistent style

• Vocabulary that suggests it is not you

• Harshly connected passages

• Deviations in point of view from which the text is written

• Contradictory positions vis-à-vis theories mentioned in the thesis

• The thesis failure to address the specific topic assigned

• The sources/references mentioned in the paper being unavailable in your college library

• Using only web-based sources

• Prior knowledge of the material

7. Know the Style Sheet– Each academic style sheet has a particular way of citing sources. You have to follow the conventions of that particular style rigorously in order not to be accused of using stolen material.

8. Be Wary of “Common Knowledge”

   
   This is one big area that has shades of grey – what really is “common knowledge”? Members of our thesis writing services team believe that if you have even an iota of doubt about a certain piece of information being “common knowledge, it is advisable to cite the source. If you are unable to locate the source, the best option is to drop the information altogether from your thesis.