Is 0% plagiarism always needed?

For those with any knowledge of plagiarism, you may understand the feeling of dread when it comes to handing in an assignment at college or project at work. Accidental plagiarism is one of the most commonly found forms and with the lack of understanding and sheer volume of content available today, it’s easy to see why this may be occurring. With that in mind, is it truly possible to reach a 0% plagiarism report every time, and is it even necessary? Here, we’re exploring exactly that.

A Scope For Flexibility

To answer the above question in simple terms – no, a 0% plagiarism score isn’t always necessary. In fact, the leeway you’re given can often depend on the establishment, the piece that you’re doing, and how well you’ve referenced the content that you have used. If your piece is full of quotes, you’re guaranteed to have a higher plagiarism score than a piece with a few sources but providing that the entire piece is correctly referenced, a higher plagiarism score can often be forgiven.

In general, it is widely thought that a 10-15% plagiarism score is acceptable, with higher percentages often drumming up concerns about the integrity of the piece as a whole. Plagiarized content is not accepted in any university or professional establishment, so understanding this and knowing how to both avoid plagiarism and check for it in your pieces is vital. Next, we’re exploring what you can do to ensure that your content isn’t plagiarized.

How To Ensure Your Content Isn’t Plagiarized

This may seem as easy as just not plagiarizing, but the definition of plagiarism goes far beyond just copying and pasting someone’s written work into your essay or submission. From paraphrasing content to simply insufficiently referencing sources, there are countless ways that students and employees can be caught out with plagiarism. Below, however, we’ve put together a few tips for avoiding this:

• Understanding Plagiarism

To be able to avoid plagiarism, you have to be able to understand it. Plagiarism essentially refers to any duplication of content, whether it’s self-duplication or the duplication of someone else’s work passed off as your own, and can include paraphrasing, utilisation of information without sourcing and even the copying of ideas as a whole. Most cases of plagiarism tend to be accidental, particularly when it has occurred from students or employees who don’t have a full understanding of the issue. For that reason, education could be the key to preventing the issue.

• Checking Your Content

Before the submission of content, it’s a good idea to ensure that your content is plagiarism free or has a lower percentage when ran through a checker. Full, detailed plagiarism reports can be beneficial to students and employees alike, and our plagiarism checker can provide exactly that. There are thousands upon thousands of sources available online, and not each one will be easily accessible within just a Google search. For that reason, a plagiarism checker could be the difference between being sure that your content is safe to submit and knowing that you need to change or rewrite sections that are heavily plagiarized, even if this plagiarism has occurred by accident.

• Referencing Properly

One key way to ensure that you are not accused of plagiarism, accidental or otherwise, is to simply learn how to reference your sources properly. Each university or establishment will have their own preferred referencing style, to make sure that you’re referencing correctly, or linking back to the source in the case of online content. By correctly quoting and citing the sources that you’re using, you’ll be giving credit to the original owner and providing that this is done correctly, you can avoid a plagiarism case altogether.

Plagiarism is a serious issue and while a plagiarism checker can prevent it from going further than your own documents folder before any accidental plagiarism is caught, knowing how best to avoid it can help you learn the best practices and write your content much more precisely the first time.

If you’d like more information or to find out about our plagiarism services, please feel free to contact us.