A 5-Step Guide to Write Plagiarism-Free Research Paper

Writing a research paper is a difficult task that differs greatly from producing informal content such as a blog post. You must know that for any author, their work is of great importance and valuable to them, but it is also a fact that the majority of the content creation process today is based on the depiction of content, ideas, and information that another author has already provided. 

In informal writing tasks, you can always paraphrase content written by other writers without their permission (not advised), but when you are working on a formal document such as a research paper, copying another person's content is considered unethical and, more importantly, unlawful.

Before working on a research paper, you need to know that today, many reliable plagiarism checker tools, such as Turnitin, can easily find similarities between multiple drafts. So there is no room for duplication when writing a research paper of any formal document for that matter. 

Plagiarism in Research Papers

Plagiarism in research papers is a massive problem in the academic world. It is not just about a student/writer getting caught and fined; it also affects the credibility of the institution where they’re studying. 

When writing an academic document, whether an essay, assignment, thesis or even a complete research paper, a student must double-check their work with a plagiarism detector before submitting it for grading or assessment. 

Even if you’re not intentionally copying content from another source, there is always a chance that your draft might have similarities with another author’s, so it is important to check your work for duplication. 

There are two major types of plagiarism found in research papers. These include:

• Intentional plagiarism occurs when a researcher/writer uses another writer’s work as it is or by paraphrasing it and presenting it as their unique creation.

• Accidental plagiarism occurs when a writer crafts content similar to another writer's without knowing it. This plagiarism can also happen when a writer forgets to give credit.

When writing a research paper, you need to be careful when using or referring to other people’s work in your papers, as this will help you avoid plagiarism.

You don’t have to stress about plagiarism anymore, as in this blog, we have discussed in detail the five steps that you can follow to save yourself from the accusation of plagiarism and ensure originality in your work. 

5 Steps to Write a Plagiarism-Free Research Paper

To prevent plagiarism in research papers and other academic documents, you must follow the below steps for your knowledge.

1. Focus on Research and Collect Ample Data

First things first, when writing a research paper, the most important thing is the research stage itself. You will surely commit plagiarism if you don’t have much data or information to present. 

Before you start writing a research paper, you must spend ample time researching and collecting relevant information about the topic or your hypothesis. You can get help from online resources and explore platforms such as Google Scholar to get important key points and ideas. 

You can easily plan an original paper by reading research material in detail and noting all important points to present. An important thing to note when practicing research is that you should take the idea from the author, not their exact words/phrases. This can help you prevent all kinds of plagiarism. You can take help from an online plagiarism remover to avoid plagiarism.

2. Keep Track of Credible Sources & Give Credits

Once you have all the data and information relevant to the paper, you must keep track of all the credible sources from which you borrow ideas. Note that when writing a research paper, you need to ensure that the information you present doesn’t come from untrustworthy sources. 

Ideally, you should take your ideas and information from journals, books, reports, and opinion papers written by credible authors in that field. When using data from these sources, you must always give them proper credit using the assigned citation style. 

By crediting the source, you show your honest intentions and the work you have put into compiling the paper. 

3. Add Quotations but Only Where Necessary

Being a research paper writer, you would sometimes have to use the exact ideas and words of other authors, as paraphrasing them might damage their credibility. By using quotation marks around these phrases or sentences, you can show the reader that the text belongs to another author.

Quoting allows students and writers to copy the exact words of other authors by containing them in quotation marks. Here, a common mistake that most rookie research paper writers make is that they use excessive quotations, which can damage the paper's originality. 

As a general guideline, you must ensure that quotes in your paper are not more than 5-8% of the total content. If you add more quotations than this ratio, it will result in plagiarism and negative marking.

4. Paraphrase the Text and Remove Similar Text

Paraphrasing is one of the most important techniques in academic writing. It refers to explaining the same ideas or existing text in different wording without changing its intent. 

In academic writing, most content is based on the ideas, findings, experiments, and data presented by other authors, so it is important to use the paraphrasing technique to avoid plagiarism.

You would not have to use many quotations when paraphrasing text, and you can reduce the plagiarism percentage in your text. Here, an important thing you need to note is that while paraphrasing or rephrasing text, you must ensure that the main message is not compromised. 

If you don’t know how to paraphrase, you can always get help from a reliable paraphrasing solution like ParaphraseTool.ai! With this paraphrasing tool, you wouldn’t only be able to change the wording of text but also simplify it. Writers can also use paraphrasing tools to remove unwanted/excessive duplication. 

5. Add Extra Information & Give Your Perspective

It doesn’t matter whether you are a student or a research paper writer; you must never be afraid of providing additional information or adding your perspective or opinion to the paper. 

While compiling a document, you need to make sure that you don’t only rely on the information you have collected but also present your arguments and findings. Adding unique and relevant images or infographics is also smart to make the paper more authentic and appealing. 

Ensure the media content you add is relevant to the topic and helps you present your main idea more effectively.

Summary

To write a plagiarism-free research paper, you need to understand the ideas and information from other authors to craft your draft without relying on copy-pasting or quotations.

When writing an academic paper, you must avoid plagiarism as it can badly damage your credibility and your institution's reputation, not to mention the penalties you would face.

This guide lists five simple yet effective steps that can help you write a plagiarism-free paper. Additionally, we suggest you always check your work with a well-reputed plagiarism checker and remove it if you find excessive duplication!

You can get help from AI paraphrasing tools and plagiarism removers if you cannot manually remove duplication. After reading this guide, we hope you can create a paper that will get you the best grades!