Topic: Why people plagiarise in the forum and how to avoid plagiarism. (Read 589 times)

The chances of writing the same words is impossible, but the chances of writing the same idea in similar ways is very possible. If the later happens, it may look like paraphrasing.
Moreso, I pointed out that people overtime tends to confuse their original words and/or ideas from adopted ones. This happens to especially great readers, in order to be very sure, it wouldn't cost much to run a plagiarism test before publishing.

No, I am not talking about you, I am only generalizing it in a way I am using you as an example, that you will tell newbies not to plagiarize countless number of times but they will still plagiarized, I just use you as the example because you created the topic, you are not the plagiarist which should not be the topic of discussion in any way. Haven't you told some newbies not to plagiarize and they still plagiarized? I have told some before, I still wonder why they still like to do it.

It is better a student of an institution is dismissed at the 1st year instead of the 4th or 5th year. It is better imagined than real that an account is banned when it becomes a snr member+. Since I became aware of the severity of plagiarism punishment in the forum, I am never tired of discussing it.
This time around, I opened this thread to help newbies avoid the menace called plagiarism.
I will discuss the possible reasons people plagiarise in the forum and suggest solutions.

WHY NEWBIES PLAGERISE:
1. Unawareness of the consequences of plagiarism in the forum:
A user with the full understanding of the consequences of plagiarism in and outside this forum will likely not plagiarism. The victims of plagiarism are mostly people unaware of the severe consequences of plagiarism in this forum, these are mostly newer and lower ranking members.

2. Posting to impress:
When one begins to post to impress other users, he/she will tilt off his/her abilities. This will result to creating unnecessarily lengthy posts, and in the quest to maintain quality throughout the content, will result to plagiarism.

3. Little/No knowledge on the subject of discussion:
This very act results to an epileptic composition. Whenever, a user deviates from his/her core essence, he'll definitely steal to be relevant. This will lead to emergency research that will definitely birth plagiarism.

4. Hunting for merit:
When the purpose is no longer to discuss, learn and impact, the purpose is dead on arrival. In the hunt for merit, a user will unconsciously involve in spamming and plagiarism in order to get the desired goal(merit)

5. Not knowing methods or rules of citation:
Most users not only applicable to newbies may not know the conventions of citation(intext, outtext, quotations, inclusion of url). If a user don't know this, the issue of plagiarism will become secondary. Factually some users will make it a habit to copying someones work verbatim and in the end include citation, thinking it is right.  I will be happy to see someone open a thread on the various ways of citation.

6. Lack of Confidence:
Self low esteem can lead to plagiarism. When you don't believe yourself let alone your work. When you feel everyone's work is better than yours, when you want to be everyone else. This will give you the conviction that you are second to all, hence you will tend to plagiarism to be standard.

7. Geographical differences:
As pointed out by @Lucius on my previous topic, he is of the opinion that why people plagiarism is how strict or lenient plagiarism is in their different countries.

8. Laziness:
Sometimes a plagarist will be aware of the crime he is about committing, but due to laziness to cite the authors, or emanate a fresh idea, he/she will deliberately plagiarise.

HOW TO AVOID PLAGIARISM:

1. Read the forum rules before posting:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.7955645

2. Be Original:
One of the hardest thing to do in life is to live another man's version of life. If you toe this lane, you will end of being a learner throughout your stay here in the forum. When you are your original self, you will discover a part of you that other people will tend to plagiarise, either your tone, your humour or intellect. This will create a niche for you and plagiarism will cease to be part of you.

3. Post only when you have value to add:
Avoid jumping into every discussion, maybe in the quest to completing your weekly task. If you engage in a discussion you don't have value to add, you will see yourself paraphrasing and summarising people's comments to produce yours. Though you might not be punished because of this, but it's also a bad habit.

4. Always be conscious of plagiarism:
When you type with the consciousness of plagiarism, you will overcome what is called unintentional plagiarism. You will likely fall a victim if you don't consider it during your work.

5. Don't post immediately after a research:
Ensure you don't post immediately exiting a research room. If you do, you might likely find it difficult to differentiate your personal ideas and the ones gotten from research that needs to be cited.

6. Have a good time management:
All your works, written, audio, visual etc represents you. If you did it hastily, no one knows and will defend your weakness. Always give your best even when no one is watching, there might not be a second chance. Therefore, always use a good time to prepare your work, if there be things to be cited, you will have time to do so. By this plagiarism would be avoided.

7. Test run your work with plagiarism checker:
That feeling you have when you run your work through a plagiarism checker and discovered that your work is 0% plagiarised and 100% unique. This is what your indicters use, it will be cool you use it on yourself to know the quality of your post before publishing.

8. Cite the real Authors:
If you used someone's intellectual property, it's not big deal, cite the real owner and move your way.

I sincerely wish this can help, especially newbies and guide them not to commit a sin that will later hurt them in the forum.
Thanks all!

Please read the first segment of your reply, it looks as if you were referring to me as the plagarist rather you were generating. A lil edit can clarify. Thanks!

Do you therefore mean that all the victims of plagiarism are not aware of it's consequences? Ofcourse no. Many are aware but still falls victim, maybe because of the following reasons; Laziness to research, Laziness to reason critically, Laziness to cite others works used etc. Will it interest you to know that there are people that cannot read any write up lengthier than 2pages? That can ofcourse be called Laziness.

The only reason i noted while people plagiarised is because of the systematic way of earning merit very fast, their objectives to adventure into plagiarism is not because they want to educate people especially the forum offsprings, i disagree with the concept that laziness can lead into plagiarism, whoever that plagiarised did it intensional because they taught that to copy work is avenue to make quality or meaningful post, from another aspect, if not that many people have notice the consequences or implications of plagiarism in the community of bitcointalk it would have full or made up with copy and paste articles without making the use of intuitive or common sense knowledge.

Lately I’ve see a post whose references were all wrong, and when trying to ament the situation (after been called out), the added references were even worse.

I still wonder how you told someone not to plagiarize and still plagiarized, you will even tell them to always include the link that it can help their post to have more quality, but they still prefer to steal what others wrote on other sites

Do you therefore mean that all the victims of plagiarism are not aware of it's consequences? Ofcourse no. Many are aware but still falls victim, maybe because of the following reasons; Laziness to research, Laziness to reason critically, Laziness to cite others works used etc. Will it interest you to know that there are people that cannot read any write up lengthier than 2pages? That can ofcourse be called Laziness.

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Unawareness of the consequences of plagiarism in the forum

I don't think so that if a member is aware about the consequences of plagiarism and knows in advance that if found guilty the account will be banned he/she will not be lazy to simply copy paste the article and wait for the account suspension

8. Laziness:
Sometimes a plagarist will be aware of the crime he is about committing, but due to laziness to cite the authors, or emanate a fresh idea, he/she will deliberately plagiarise.

I recommend you to disable email address in your profile page. Currently, it is displayed for all viewers and you should hide it for your privacy as well as security of accounts you register with that email.

Another reason I think some users plagiarize is because they think they can't write perfect English in the boards where English is allowed, so they go ahead  copy and paste every article they come across, posting it as their very own.