Abstract Research papers generally cause students a lot of anxiety. There are several things to keep in mind while writing a research paper, but the single most important thing is awareness of plagiarism.
Plagiarism is the Most Important Thing to Remember when Writing a Research Paper Writing a research paper generally causes a lot of headache for students. There are many things that people say to keep in mind, like time management and making good outlines, etc. However, the single most important thing to remember is to not plagiarize.
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary (2013), to plagiarize is “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another), as one’s own: use (another’s production) without crediting the source.” Plagiarism can ruin any research paper, even if it is one that seems to be well-written. There are several reasons that plagiarism should be the number one thing on the mind of someone writing a research paper.
First of all, plagiarism is illegal. According to plagiarism.com (n.d.) “The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions.” This means that pretty much any information that can be found on the internet, in books, magazines, etc. is copyrighted, and to use that information without referencing it is illegal. No one wants to get into legal trouble by plagiarizing a paper for a college class.
Second, colleges each have their own policies for plagiarism and most at least result in a failing grade as the smallest penalty. More than likely a college will not have anyone arrested for plagiarizing on a paper, however most colleges have a strict policy on plagiarism. For example, Black River Technical College (2013) has a policy that states that the first offense of plagiarism on an assignment may grant a failing grade for that particular assignment, the second offense the student may be dropped from the class and continued infractions may result in that student being expelled from the college (pg. 141).
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Many students try to make excuses as to why they plagiarize. Some examples from Penn State (2012) include “ ‘I’m too busy,’ ‘My work isn’t good enough,’ ‘They’ll never find out,’ or even ‘I need to cheat in order to have a high GPA.’” No matter what the excuse is plagiarism is still wrong.
Anyone writing any kind of research paper needs to keep this in mind. There are many ways for students to avoid plagiarism. These include “citing quotes and borrowed ideas, enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and put summaries and paraphrases in your own words” (Hacker & Sommers, 2011, p. 448-450).
Doing things like managing time and making sure that a good outline is made are all good things to keep in mind while doing any kind of research paper. However, the one thing that should definitely be on every student’s mind when researching and writing is to make sure to not plagiarize.
