Paraphrasing
Plagiarism in scholarly writing involves the use of resources without acknowledging its authors. It is an act associated with the lack of integrity, and most academic institutions are quite strict about the avoidance of plagiarism (Anderson, 2016). Writers should avoid plagiarism through the application of several measures. One of the measures is by writing original ideas without looking into information provided by other scholars.
For instance, after developing a study, a researcher may opt to use their own words and format to create a report. In such a case, the report is not involved with plagiarism. The second and most widely used approach is paraphrasing information provided by other scholars and referencing their work in the report. Paraphrasing is quite an interesting process because a writer uses an idea from a scholar and instead of quoting them, he or she uses different words.
Paraphrasing eliminates plagiarism in writing, but only if the paraphrased ideas are referenced to the relevant scholars. The resources used in the preparation of an essay or a report must contain the paraphrased information.
Grammar and Plagiarism Checker
I have used ‘Turnitin’ to check most of my papers for grammar, spelling, and plagiarism. The platform is quite reliable because one only has to upload their paper and specify the types of checks that are required, before waiting for a short while for the paper to be checked. The platform compares the paper with all the resources available in the online space, and it highlights similarities with different sources. Once a plagiarism report has been provided, Turnitin also provides a link to the resources whose content is similar to the paper.
The plagiarized parts of the paper are also highlighted in the checked paper. This helps in identifying the sentences and words in an essay or report that need to be paraphrased. After paraphrasing and editing the paper, one has to check the paper one more time to see if paraphrasing eliminates all the reported plagiarism. One of the most interesting findings that I have made while using Turnitin is that changing a few words in a sentence can eliminate plagiarism in the sentence.
Recommended Resource
Another online resource for checking grammar, spelling, and plagiarism is grammarly. Just like Turnitin, Grammarly has been designed to pinpoint errors and plagiarized sentences in an essay. The application is quite reliable because it also compares an essay with a wide range of online resources, and it gives a comprehensive report of the resources involved with the plagiarized content. One of the advantages of using the application is that it also suggests some words that can be used to replace the plagiarized words. However, it is always advisable to clear the plagiarized content and paraphrase the associated ideas.
Scholarly writers must uphold integrity in their writing because there are dire consequences associated with plagiarism in their work. Grammarly and turnitin are some of the online applications that can help in ensuring that the final reports and essays are not associated with plagiarism and other writing mistakes.
APA Rules
One of the APA formatting rules on page 23 of the sixth edition manual is that the preferred format of writing authors’ names is the surname, followed by the abbreviation of the middle name, then the first name. This rule was designed to ensure that there is no mistake in identifying authors (WCUPA, 2017). Page 26 highlights the rules of writing an abstract in APA format, and one of the factors to consider is the accuracy of the content.
References
Anderson, R. (2016). The difference between copyright infringement and plagiarism-and why it matters. ACORN: The Journal of Perioperative Nursing in Australia, 29(4), 50.
WCUPA. (2017). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Web.