What is Digital Plagiarism? | Effects and How to Fix it.
Starting with plagiarism, it is an act of using someone’s else’s ideas or work without prior permission or attribution to the real owner of that idea or work.
Digital plagiarism will be recognized when someone copies any physical object’s basic idea to generate similar digital versions, such as digital calculators, watches, digital clocks, and many other items.
If you copy any project from google into a CRM, it will also be known as digital plagiarism.
In short, passing off any idea or concept that is not created by you and not giving credits to a real creator will be recognized as digital plagiarism or plagiarism.
Types of plagiarism
There are numerous types of plagiarism, such as:
Complete Plagiarism
It is one of the most severe forms of plagiarism. Whenever you take the original concept of anything and forward it to everyone as your concept, it will be known as complete plagiarism.
It is identical to intellectual theft and has a serious legal consequence.
Source-based Plagiarism
When you take the concept from different places, then the chances of source-based plagiarism will increase.
For example, if you reference an incorrect source, it will be considered as a misleading citation and, as a result, generates source-based plagiarism.
Additionally, when you use a secondary source of data but add the citation of only the primary source of information, it will increase source-based plagiarism.
Direct Plagiarism
When any author copies the text of another person, as it is, without acknowledgment, and presents it as his or her work, it will be known as direct plagiarism.
It is considered a violation of academic rules and ethics of works.
Self-Plagiarism
Self-plagiarism will occur when you will reuse any portion of your published work and do not mention it.
Resulted creation will not generate expected productivity, thus leading to poor outcomes.
Mosaic Plagiarism
This kind of plagiarism is difficult to spot because it has the concept of someone else rephrased very carefully.
Presenting someone else’s basic concept in a way that it will look like your creation is labeled as patchwork plagiarism or mosaic plagiarism.
Furthermore, it is also known as an intentional yet dishonest practice.
Accidental Plagiarism
Sometimes, plagiarism may be accidental when it occurs because of carelessness or mistake.
It is common among students, especially when they are creating something for the very first time.
By improving the quality of education, this type of plagiarism can be reduced.
Consequences and Effects of digital plagiarism
Digital Plagiarism has been a major issue for many fields of technology. To increase your services’ credibility, it is essential to remove them effectively; otherwise, it will negatively impact your business and products. Some of the effects of digital plagiarism are as follows:
Damaged SEO
If any search engine detects that your content has some copied parts, you will be penalized and blocked for several months or permanently in severe cases.
Your rank in SEO will be damaged and drop instantly. It will affect your position in SERPs, and you will lose web traffic automatically.
Plagiarized Research
Plagiarized research can lead to no productive outcomes. People won’t be able to draw a valid and productive conclusion.
So there is a need to know and learn about plagiarism.
Before writing any research project. Look for ways to avoid and eliminate it. Follow the rules and if there is any doubt, use an online plagiarism checker tool to assess your writing.
Plagiarized content can cause a ruined reputation, the loss of a profession, and legal complications.
Corrupt Status in the long run
Whenever you copy any Intellectual ideas and sole creation of anyone, it will be considered a heresy, and you have to pay the price as a punishment.
It will bring harm and serious damages to your business. Furthermore, if you are caught advertising and selling a copied product, you will lose your credibility and trust on the spot.
Once you lose your reputation, it will become impossible to gain the trust of your consumers again.
Loss of confidence
When you start to copy the products and services, you are making a big mistake, it will lead you to guarantee the loss of trust as your customers won’t find anything new and interesting. They will have the feeling of using replicas.
Legal Consequences
The legal consequences of plagiarized work are quite serious. Copyright laws of any product are absolute. You are not allowed to use another person’s material without mentioning them.
If you fail to cite properly, then any author has the right to take legal action against you. Every person who is working in any field of technology is well aware of copyright laws.
So it is mandatory to adopt techniques to avoid and eliminate plagiarism.
Monetary Consequences
Numerous reports and articles have opened up the facts about plagiarism by reporters, writers, public figures, digital creators, and investigators. In such cases, a plagiarist has to pay some amount as a penalty.
Damaged Status as a student
If you are a student and caught plagiarizing any ideas in your project, then your institute might suspend you.
It will bring some serious consequences, such as your academic record will reflect the ethics offense and bring difficulties while entering college from high school.
Almost every academic institution takes plagiarism seriously and sometimes suspends students for their first violation.
Damaged Professional Status
If you are a businessman, well-known politician, or any public figure, then plagiarism has the potential to destroy your entire career.
Delivering a copied material will not give you individuality, and people won’t trust you with your products or ideas.
Higher authorities might ask you to step down from your current position, and it will be difficult to find another suitable job. Other than that, your damaged Status will not attract any sponsors as well.
How to fix and avoid digital plagiarism
When you are creating content, you must research to avoid and fix any detected plagiarism.
Plagiarism-free work is important for gaining good grades and securing a good reputation among your competitors. Some tips for detecting and avoiding plagiarism are as follows:
Use plagiarism checker tool
Plagiarism checker supports every content creator in detecting plagiarism along with Percentage so they can eliminate it to increase the credibility of their services.
The plagiarism checker with Percentage indicates the ratio of your content that is similar to other published articles. You have to copy your text and paste it in the input box or directly upload any file of interest from your computer or local storage.
As an example, below is a screenshot that the content is 74% plagiarized (using an efficient plagiarism checker) and this way, we can know that the majority of the sentences are copied.
As a result, you will get:
- Total Percentage of the plagiarized content in your uploaded document.
- Total Percentage of fresh content
- It will give you matched phrases and sources
- It offers you the feature of rephrasing all the matched phrases.
- Total Words Count and Readability of your document.
This tool goes through a deep scanning and then comparison of your content against previously submitted documents to detect even a little quantity of unoriginal material.
Your upload will be 100% safe and secure as it respects your intellectual possessions and doesn’t save them in any repository. It allows you to download plagiarism reports in HTML and PDF format just by Clicking on the Download Report button.
Practice Paraphrasing
Once you have detected plagiarism via an online plagiarism checker tool, the next step is to eliminate it. Rewriting the plagiarized content may lessen the chances of plagiarism if done accurately.
So it is recommended to find any written material, read it thoroughly, and try to understand its true concept.
Now re-create the information in your own words. Always stay focused on key points to hold the original concept of the content.
Add Citations
After paraphrasing any content, add Citations to acknowledge another author’s work in your creation. Improper and insufficient citations will lead to plagiarized content.
You cannot copy any piece of information word-to-word. However, if it is necessary to use the exact data, then it is mandatory to use quotation marks. But it is also important to keep in mind that You cannot quote more than 40 words.
Attach Reference list
To avoid plagiarism, it is essential to attach the reference list at the end of your content. In this way, you will be able to give credits to all digital content creators and sources from where you have taken an idea or information.
A reference list will have the name of the original authors, date of publication, the title of the original content, and all other relevant details.
Proofreading
Once you are done with all the essential steps, do proofreading of your document and go through all the necessary editing to guarantee uniqueness.
After that, you can again Use a plagiarism checker to confirm that you haven’t accidentally plagiarized any content.
Closing Remarks
Many tools and tricks can help you to avoid digital plagiarism. It is significant to take help from any online plagiarism checker tool as well to enjoy its advantages without putting in any extra effort.
Any category of plagiarism is becoming easier to detect in this digital age because of the advanced technology so take help to avoid and fix accidental or intentional plagiarism in any of your content.
This post is in collaboration with http://netreputation.com/