How To Check Plagiarism – A Beginners Guide

Writing original content, passing evaluation, acing the test, or generating high SEO ranks, these are some of the dreams of every writer today.

However, one common problem gets in the way of all of these: and that is plagiarism.

Plagiarism is becoming a recurring problem for students and professionals. While professionals face it because of content similarity in various niches, on the other hand, teachers have always struggled with swaying their students to write original content.

So, how does one go about checking for plagiarism before they finalize their content? What’s the basic procedure?

To understand this, let’s understand plagiarism itself its types, and then find out how to check it in your content.

What Is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the unethical act of stealing someone else’s idea or content then presenting it as your own. It happens when a writer copies someone else’s work, changes it slightly or doesn’t change it at all, then passes it along.

While plagiarism in writing is straightforward, it can also be about copying ideas, concepts, and a general understanding of a written work. It’s widely considered a harmful procedure in academics and journalism of other kinds.

That’s why it’s imperative to get rid of plagiarism in all sorts of content to ensure their integrity and quality.

How Many Types of Plagiarism Are There?

Plagiarism has many types, but there are some that are more common than the others. In order to get rid of a certain kind of plagiarism, it’s imperative that you focus on understanding various kinds.

This allows the writer to grasp whether their content is heading in such a direction.

The most common causes of plagiarism are lack of motivation or plain laziness.

However, sometimes, accidental plagiarism also occurs, and that leads to the same result. So, no plagiarism is ever acceptable in any aspect of life regardless of the intention.

To help you grasp this idea, here are the four primary types of plagiarism:

·         Direct Plagiarism

Direct plagiarism is the blatant copying or duplicating of another content. This happens when the writer copies a section, sentence, paraphrase, or idea without accrediting the original author. It’s one of the most severe types of plagiarism, and that’s why there’s no room for it in any sort of writing.

·         Total Plagiarism

Total plagiarism is much like direct plagiarism, except one thing makes it worse. It’s the total copying of another existing content and presenting it as your own. This happens when a writer copies the entire section or the whole entirety of content without any changes.

·         Source-Based Plagiarism

Source-based plagiarism is when the writer cites a wrong source or something that doesn’t exist. This also falsifies the content’s information, which makes it plagiarized, but it also renders it useless.

That’s why this type of plagiarism is common among students, but it happens all the same in the professional world.

·         Mosaic Plagiarism (Patchwork)

Patchwork or mosaic plagiarism is also a severe kind of duplicity. It happens when the writer copies another writer’s work, changes a few phrases, words and switches it around to make it look original. However, any viable plagiarism checker will catch it without any trouble.

How To Check Plagiarism

Checking plagiarism online isn’t a difficult task. All you need to do is find a tool and use it to scan your content for any sort of duplicity or similarity. In the online world, this similarity isn’t difficult to find. As all you have to do is check your sentences in Google.

But is that really a viable or quick way of doing so? Not at all, and it’s not recommended either. Instead, you need to find a tool that allows you to check for plagiarism without hassle. So, here’s a checklist for beginners who wish to check for plagiarism in their content.

1.    Pick A Tool – Free, Efficient & Capable

The first thing you need to do is find a tool. There are many plagiarism checkers online, which will ask you to pay up before you can use them. While it’s a great tool, Grammarly is also paid when it comes to checking plagiarism.

So, your tool needs to be free, efficient, and capable. Therefore, check for these three things when looking for a tool.

2.    Check Your Word Count

Before you get started, check the word count on your content. If your content is above 1000-1200 words, then it might be a problem in some free plagiarism checkers, as they only allow 1000-1200 words.

However, the tool we picked allows you to check for plagiarism without any word limit. So, check away without any worry.

3.    Paste The Content Or Upload It

Any tool will give you two or one of these two options. Whether you’ll have to upload your content or copy and paste it. Regardless, make sure you copy and paste your content to avoid any problems.

Mainly because text files tend to have formatting that might go unnoticed by the plagiarism checker. However, this tool does its job in either case.

4.    Let Plagiarism Checker Detect It

When you check for plagiarism, you’ll be given a choice to avoid specific URLs. This will allow the tool to skip your own website or any other that you put in this option.

This way, you save the tool a lot of time and yourself. So, once done, let the plagiarism detector go through the internet and look for any sort of plagiarism in your content.

5.    See The Final Percentage: 100% Original vs 0-100% Plagiarized

Once your plagiarism checker goes through the content, you will notice either of the two things. In case of plagiarism, it will show you the percentage of duplicity.

If there isn’t any plagiarism, then it will skip this step entirely and tell you your content is 100% original or all green. So, anything between 0-100% plagiarized is terrible news.

6.    Read The Source Link – Understand The Similarity

A plagiarism checker will allow you to check the link to the original article. Whether you’re the writer or the checker, you can go and peruse this article in person to observe the similarities. However, this is essential in understanding how plagiarism originated in your content.

7.    Rewrite, Recreate Or Rephrase

The last step is to eliminate plagiarism from your content. Once you check through, all you have to do is recreate, rewrite or rephrase your content. This will ensure utmost originality in your content and help you remove plagiarism from your writing.

Conclusion

So, these are the basics of checking plagiarism for a beginner. Follow these 7 steps to secure your content from any plagiarism and ensure its highest quality, originality, and integrity.