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Changing the words from the original material by means of substituting words with their synonyms does not free you from the claws of the laws on plagiarism. You must at all times give credit to your source. It even does not excuse you from plagiarism, in some case, even though you properly cite your source. If you have borrowed many ideas and your work contains many quotations from the work of others, you are vulnerable to plagiarism.  It is very conceivable that you have written something with the same topic as somebody else. You need not fear plagiarism for it is never possible to write something in the same manner as the others provided that you have no idea on how the others wrote their work. But, also remember that there are circumstances wherein you are not let off in the eyes of the law. This is when you have read and accidentally patterned your idea from the work of others, then you forget about it and not able to give credit to the author. Even if it is unintended, still you have the same content as that of the source.

Every misconduct has a corresponding punishment. This is also applicable to plagiarizing and consequences depends on the severity. The nature of it will be looked into first before determining who will make judgment on the matter. If plagiarizing is done by students, it is given that the academic institution will be the one to give disciplinary measures. But, if work and money is already associated with plagiarism, he or she committed a crime that is punishable by the law.  At an academic institution, plagiarism is never condoned. They are very strict in implementing rules and regulations against violating this. The student’s professor or the whole faculty will decide on the punishment. Usually, if a student plagiarized an assignment or a term paper, he or she will be failed on that subject or will be expelled. There are times when the timeframe of the copyright expires. When a student still copied ideas form this materials, he or she will not be exempted and will receive a punishment equal to that of copying ideas from a copyrighted material.

There are some who plagiarize documents on private entity such as corporations and establishments. Like in the academe, this is also not condoned here. The most common penalty given to those individuals is termination from work or being denied from application to work.  Plagiarism, if caught by the law, is no joke. If in plagiarism is you are guilty of misdemeanor, you are forced to pay a penalty between 100 to 50,000 dollars and you will be imprisoned up to one year. But, if you committed felony for plagiarism, you will be charged with amount of up to 250,000 dollars for fine and you will be imprisoned for up to ten years. This is when you reproduce and able to gain 2,500 dollars from a material that is copyrighted.

When talking about plagiarism, there are still plenty of questions that are left unsettled.

This is a matter where there is great dispute among other countries and conflicting opinions. It is good to get to know the term, plagiarism and copyright laws to better understand them and how these may affect you.  Just what is plagiarism all about? USA have copyright laws. Every time you make use of someone else’s idea, not properly acknowledging the source, and much worse, claiming it as your own, you are committing plagiarism. Plagiarism is considered a very serious crime that cannot be tolerated.  Copying someone else’s ideas and works is unlawful as stipulated on the copyright laws. Intellectual property may be in the form of music, write-ups, videos and many more. These laws prevents an intellectual property from being mass-produced or copied without consent from parties. Before, you are able to determine copyrighted materials by the © symbol placed on these products. But with the amendment of the laws in 1989, copyrighted materials do not necessarily carry the © symbol. You should be careful with the copyrighted materials that have no symbol.

Even if you make a slight or a huge change on the original material, as long as there is resemblance on the content, you are still infringing laws regarding copyright.  There are some information that you are able to borrow ideas from freely, and you will not be held liable when you use them. These are when you use works considered as public property as long as you write down the source; number works issued by the government of USA; information that is collected and compiled; and ideas that are not derived for research. A good example of an idea that is not a result of research is the fact that there are a total of seven continents in the whole world. This is because not all works that are published are copyrighted, only those that are original.  Any facts that came from a research are considered to be the property of the person/s who conducted the research. There is a confusion regarding the intellectual property and “common knowledge.” When you use intellectual property, you are obliged to acknowledge the source.

But, when you are using the internet, some of the information is free for public usage. So, you need not cite sources every time. If in any case you are in doubt whether it is a “common knowledge” or an intellectual property, better write down your source just to be on the safe side.  There is a saying that goes, “Ignorance of the law excuses no one.” Checking if you have plagiarism in your work or not is a must. Although you do not intend to copy someone else’s work, but still have written the same idea, you can be greatly punished by the law. Punishment ranges from mild to severe depending on the gravity. Citing sources and authors is somehow the best way to refrain from violating copyright laws.

There may be people who feel that they are not capable of writing something meaningful without the use of different sources and use it as part of their work, just so they would become recognized by a lot of people as well as feel as if they were able to fulfill something worthwhile since they were able to make use of another person’s work. But this kind of thinking should not be tolerated since every person has been blessed with a unique kind of way in terms of perceiving things as well as thinking about various perspectives in life, which means that each one would surely be able to come up with something significant. People, who are capable of acquiring something yet in reality it is not theirs, only show others that they are not capable of working hard and would be contented to finding ways as to how they would be able to do tasks the easy way. Plagiarizing is a manifestation of a corrupt mind and a selfish person as well.

Why Do People Plagiarize?

One should definitely become aware as to why people do the act of plagiarizing in order for him or her to have the discipline of avoiding it. The concept of copyright is not only limited to written work because this is also applicable to various kinds of work like ideas that a particular person was able to come up with, innovation in terms of developing something that would be beneficial to a lot of people. Even the titles of songs and even a song itself may also have a copyright. What is quite alarming is that it may be seen through the Internet that people, no matter what the age is, may already be subjected to the act, which means that even those children who are still in school may actually be doing it. In order to help eradicate the problem of plagiarism, more and more people should become aware that there are corresponding penalties for those who would violate the rules or restrictions under a copyright.

Preventing the Act of Plagiarizing

Truly there are a lot of ways that may be considered in order to prevent a person from plagiarizing. This includes making everyone aware that there are negative consequences once he or she plagiarizes. It would also be to everyone’s advantage if they would be able to gain better understanding regarding the different situations wherein plagiarism has already taken place. By informing people regarding the gravity of plagiarism as it is already considered a crime would also discourage a lot of people from doing so. With regard to those who are still studying, schools may consider providing more time in order for students to be able to really finish their schoolwork. It would surely be best to provide instructions whenever a certain paper or work should be made so that people who are assigned to do this work would be able to veer away from plagiarizing. One should never underestimate his or her own work since the ideas included in your work may even contribute to further study and provide more information to others. By preventing this act, the efforts of those people who were able to come up with original work would now be encouraged even more to come up with other important ideas.

Plagiarism, the use of the work of others and misrepresenting those works as your own, is one of the most common forms of dishonesty nowadays. What further heightens plagiarism is the accessibility of  information online, as well as electronic books and libraries. Just like other things, accessibility of information has its own drawbacks.

The growth and success of the people are threatened by the increase rate of plagiarism that is why steps to prevent them need to be taken.

Reasons Why People Plagiarize
People plagiarize because they want to get things done quickly. They choose the convenience and having more free time over the significance of work. Others do not have the environment that has controls over plagiarism.  The peopleТs lack of knowledge about the different types of plagiarism is also one of the reasons why  plagiarism is common.

For example, in a research paper of a person, he includes other personТs analysis in his own conclusions.

Even if he has no intention of claiming the analysis as his own, without proper referencing, he can be legally responsible for the copyrights. It is not only the copying of words that the plagiarism includes. Plagiarism also includes the taking of otherТs concepts, expressions, and other works.

There are 3 types of plagiarism according to intensity.
They are the Substantial Plagiarism, Minimal Plagiarism, and Complete Plagiarism.

Substantial Plagiarism is the most common in the academic institutions. Here, the plagiarist reworks the original, and replaces the words with their synonyms.

In Minimal Plagiarism, some information are added in the text, and the patterns of the text are altered.

In Complete Plagiarism, there are no changes in the information taken from other sources, and the information is presented as the writerТs work.

There are also other types of plagiarism that should be remembered. There are works wherein the sources are not mentioned (Ghost Writer, Self-Stealer, Potluck Paper, Photocopy, Poor Disguise, and Labor of Laziness), and there are also works in which sources are cited but are still plagiarized (Resourceful Writer, Too-Perfect Paraphrase, Misinformer, Perfect Crime, and the Forgotten Footnote).

Sources Not Cited:
In Ghost Writer, everything is copied from otherТs work.
In Self-Stealer, past works are incorporated in the new one.
In Potluck Paper, there are different sources used, and the sentences are changed to fit together while the original words are kept.
In Photocopy, certain important parts of the otherТs works are copied from one source without alterations.
In Poor Disguise, the look is changed by changing the keywords and replacing the words by its synonyms.
In the Labor of Laziness, the writer rephrased the sentences from different works and fit them together.

Sources Not Cited:
Resourceful Writer is the type in which the writer cites all the sources, but everything is taken from other sources and are just paraphrased, nothing is original.
Too-Perfect Paraphrase is a type of plagiarism in which the copied text are not put in quotations.
In Misinformer, the location of the source is stated incorrectly.
In the Perfect Crime, some information are given sources, and those that are not given sources are paraphrased and passed off as the writerТs work.
Lastly, the Forgotten Footnote is the type of plagiarism wherein the author is stated as the source, but the writer disregarded the locations of the source in attempt to hide the plagiarism.

There are many terms that are operatively used in the cases of plagiarism. Everybody should understand every bit that these terminologies mean. They might be able to help you in tight spots that you might possibly get in with regards to plagiarism. As with other things, knowing the basic concepts, like the terms that an idea uses, would help you to better understand more complicated things. Here are the common terms used in tackling cases of plagiarism.

Attribution
The part where you let the reader know the sources of some of the contents of your work

Bibliography
This is an organized and usually alphabetized list of your research materials’ sources. This can be found at the back of the paper, booklet, or book.

Cite
This is another way of recognizing your sources. This can be in the form of small notes which give the details of the exact material that has been lifted off from the sources’ materials too. There are certain formats or conventions that you can follow in order to properly organize your citations for you to avoid accusations of plagiarism.

Citation
This also lists the sources that your whole material was assisted with, through the support that you borrowed from other materials. This is different from the bibliography because this is made up of a shorter version of the list of your sources.

Copyright
This is the legislation that protects the thinkers, inventors, and writers of the books, gadgets, and equipment that are uncommon and revolutionary in nature.

Endnotes
These are found on the body of the paper or book. This will be to give the reader an immediate reference to the sources used by the writer. This will also allow quick verification.

Facts
These are generated based on what can be observed as true, through research and other fact-finding activities. Usually, facts are covered by the copyright laws.

Footnotes
These are little notes found right below every page where you included certain quotations from certain materials.

Intellectual Property
This consists of anything that a person has generated through his mind or hands, like creative ideas.

Original
This is the real, first work or material created by a person.

Paraphrase
This is done by changing the words but expressing the same idea.

Plagiarism
This is when you proudly claim things, literature, and ideas as if they are your own when in fact, they are not.

Poor disguise
This is the style of writing which try to hide the plagiarism done by using a different outlook in the whole material.

Potluck paper
This is a paper that is composed of pieces coming from different materials. This is like combining everything from which you try to make sense out of.

Private owned
This is a material that is under the protection of the copyright laws. Thus, unless you will be given permission by the private owner to use the material, you cannot do so because then, you will be violating the copyright laws.

Public domain
This is composed of materials that are of opposite nature to those private owned. The materials that would be classified under public domain will be freely available and accessible the convent.

Quotation
This is the material that will be directly lifted off from original sources of materials.

Self-plagiarism
This is when you did not acknowledge yourself when you use your own material to be incorporated to another material.

Plagiarism
A booming industry, that is how plagiarism is being described. Students even university staff are reported to being academically dishonest due to plagiarism. Though this is not a new phenomenon, the widespread has been very alarming. Universities could not stop their students because even the university staffs are entangled to this crisis. The new technology plays a very big part of the widespread of plagiarism, the large number of websites and links lead to hundreds and thousands of would-be plagiarists. These online resources make it easy to just copy or download the project or assignment, which should have been more useful to the students if they would have taken time to write it by themselves.
Innocent until proven guilty, accusing a student or anyone of plagiarism is a very serious allegation, and a n accusation needs further and deeper investigation. Investigation to prove plagiarism needs a lot of time and dedication to gather all the original data, and present a convincing case to the Faculty Academic Conduct committee. Knowing and defining what plagiarism really is such a difficult task to do.
An instructor should be very clear as to how to discipline the students with regards to the project they will be submitting. Before the start of the year the educators must be able to reach out to the students that considering plagiarism to increase their grades will be punished and that they should not compete with their grades but with the knowledge that they will acquire.
Strategies to minimize plagiarism:

1. Policies to counter it
2. Proper education
3. Tasks designed to discourage it
4. Visibility in procedures

Strategies Used in Many Institutions
Schools and universities are looking for ways to deteriorate plagiarism. These includes public awareness by having public discussions about the issues, individually tailored assignments that would fit the students to minimize plagiarism, routine assignment scan, checking and updating a database of offenders and having the consistent offenders sanctioned with penalties. Some instructors who have dealt with students who have plagiarize suggest and recommended that educators or instructors should be able to know the students individually because anonymity encourages plagiarism. This may involve series of physical activities some of those are in this kit, it also include discussing academic integrity with the students, circulate and publish ways and guidelines to avoid plagiarism and provide clear definitions of penalties for those who would plagiarize. Most of all, they should dissuade others from plagiarizing, a cheating behavior should never be accepted. Most importantly for these educators and university staffs not to plagiarize as well, and act on it once it is detected.

1. Understanding what plagiarism is all about.
2. Knowing the reasons why many students resort to plagiarism
3. Discussing plagiarism issues with the students
4. Providing assistance to students in regards to academic writing

Resources to support the prevention of plagiarism are likely to change over time.

By definition, plagiarism is a form of cheating. Originating from a Spanish word that means ‘kidnapping’, it is actually the thought of taking another person’s ideas and thoughts. It also means to pass off or steal ideas and accept it as one’s own.
Why is this term becoming more and more heard of?
Why is this term such a big deal, in the first place?
Cyber-plagiarism is fast becoming a term that is causing dread and alarm to teachers and professionals alike. Why?
Students are given tasks, which is supposedly, given to test their knowledge, to test if they have learned something. These tasks are given to make sure that they have learned something from a lesson that was explained to them, in detail or vaguely, perhaps, as what professors in college do, but to think that teachers exhaust ways to make sure knowledge is shared, taught and trained.
It is quite alarming, really, how students use the internet, in a harmful manner. Instead of using the world wide web as a tool to do research, is now used to search for materials to be submitted to the teacher as work, as though their own.
In the past, plagiarism would be copied paragraphs, from old term papers, or school journals taken or borrowed from the library. In these modern times, if you know how to search, you are able to submit a thesis, a term paper, any sort of assignment that would certainly assure you a passing rate without the teacher really knowing the truth.
Except that, fortunately, there are tools that teachers and professors use to know if the work submitted are actually plagiarized. Coincidentally, there are sites created, produced and built to help teachers separate those who try hard to pass, from those who think that studying is something that is needed, a must, to be able to go to the next stage.
Let’s haphazardly talk about this cyber plagiarism started.
In the late nineteen sixties, there already have been sites that advertise terms papers for sale, under the guise of the term “academic research services”. Not only do they harm the true meaning of learning of students who attend school, they earn money out of it as well.
So, how does one really know if the work tendered by a student is his or actually, a plagiarized work?
There is no hundred percent definite way to tell. Most of the time, plagiarism is, really, undetected. Unless the professor or teacher would take time to load all their students’ works and check using the net if the work is indeed plagiarized or not, then, the work would indeed pass and get a that sought after diploma.

When one does research, when one needs to use the world wide web to come up with materials to use as back up to the topic that is at hand…all these are possible instances when an individual could, inadvertently commit plagiarism.
Once you know the rules and what not to do, you can be a more cautious writer, who uses different types of tools and materials, but who is able to pass a work that is original and unique.
Terms that you could use to make sure that the original writer is given acknowledgement and is written in your bibliography with the right form of recognition, then plagiarism is avoided.
The internet is, currently, the best and widest source of material for any type of work. Any search engine, as long as you know how to use it, work it, and get the most out of it, will you be able to submit a work that is outstanding.
One way to make sure you do not plagiarize is doing the copy and paste technique. Make sure your data is complete when you do this method. As soon as you copy the material you need, make sure the website is copied, that is, the url address and other important information that you need to include in your work.
Should you go for the traditional type of research, making use of books, magazines, journals, and the like, it is always suggested and highly recommended for the researcher to include all information together with the intended composition that would be used in one’s material. As long as you acknowledge and grant the original writer’s name as the owner to own that part of your work, you are not committing any plagiarism. Since you are using the traditional type of research materials, include page numbers, chapter and book title, or magazine article number.
Tackling the traditional or old-fashioned manner of research and investigation, one can also make use of index cards. Not only does this show methodical research, but you show a disciplined and orderly way of arranging your research materials.
Should you do paraphrasing, this is still using the original writer’s ideas and thoughts. All you are doing is re-phrasing it, using another set of words, but ultimately, the exact same idea. So make sure you give credit, where credit is due.
Citation, bibliographies…these are but a few of the parts your material uses that should be giving acknowledgement, recognition and appreciation to the materials you have used in your work, that would, eventually, acquire a grade or rating from your professor.
Coming to the point in this article, plagiarism is something that each writer should be wary of, anxious on, or simply be scared of accomplishing.
It takes guts, brains and will power to use what you have. It may take time to get the best results when you’re starting out, especially when you are not one who is quite good at expressing one’s thoughts to words. Reading numerous examples to give you an “idea”, remember, only to get ideas, and not to be used as a ‘copy’, should help you out. Getting other people’s thoughts and feedback on how to make your work more of a representation of ‘yourself’, is yet, another excellent way to show your capability and competence.
After all, the fruits of all your hard work would still be reaped by…you.

Whether it is your intention to plagiarize or not, for the publishers, educational sectors, and for the law, you are violating the copyright laws, and you will surely be given disciplinary measures. If you have amassed money from copying other’s works, you will have to pay fines that is ten times the amount that you have gained, and you will be put in jail for up to ten years.  Educational problems are usually the cause of plagiarism. Students who have instructors who are attentive to the students and are really into the education process are most likely to prevent wrongdoings.   Plagiarism does not do any good to all those who are involved.

Aside from the risk of failing and being expelled, the plagiarists do not get the skills that making their original work can train them. It is also never fair to those students who are working honestly, and they have to keep up with the plagiarist for the admissions and works. In order to prevent plagiarism, teachers need to sacrifice the time spent for the learning process just to handle the matter.

The resources of the institutions are also allocated for the prevention of plagiarism because it damages the principles in which the institutions are established.  As stated by the US Surveys and World Report, 80% of “ high-achieving” high school students revealed that they cheated, 51% high school students said that in their opinion, cheating was not wrong, and 95% of high school students who cheat said that they had not been caught. 75% of college students confessed that they cheated, almost 85% of college students believed that cheating was needed to do well, and 90% of college students did not think cheaters would be detected.

When Professor Donald McCabe, the foremost expert in educational integrity, studied over 4500 high school students in May 2001, he found out that 15% had passed a paper taken in large part from a website or from a term paper, 45% disclosed that they work together on their home works, 52% had taken some sentences from a website without specifying the source, and 72% confessed that they do severe cheating in one or more occasion.   1800 students from nine state universities are asked questions about cheating. 52% had taken some sentences from a website without stating the source, 70% revealed that they were cheating on exams, and 84% said that they were cheating on written tasks.

With the internet, plagiarism has become quite rampant; with just a click of a few buttons you get instant information at your fingertips. The World Wide Web has become the source of major information for a lot of people specially students. It has been the number one source of plagiarized work; however the internet is also the teacher and universities tools in detecting and determining a plagiarized work.

Many professors have become adept in determining if the work has been copied from another source or plagiarized. If the instructor reads the paper of the student, it is easy for them to determine the style and manner of expressing the idea of a student in writing. They look for hints such as, words that are polysyllabic, words that are not often used by students. Unfortunately they cannot spend all their time reading through five page work of every student. So with the help of the same tool that the student use to copy and paste, teachers can use the internet to determine the originality of ones work through commercial plagiarism detection systems.

The same tool that student’s use to complete their assigned task are the also the tool which helps teachers detect plagiarism. There are a lot of commercial plagiarism detection systems that are available on the web which universities use.

One of the easiest ways of detecting plagiarism is by typing on google.com, any five consecutive words that are plagiarized and typed on the google search engine can be and will be seen as a search result. So if the students work is a result of plagiarism it will be shown as a search result.

There is also a website called turn it in. It works by matching the student’s work on commercially available papers and sends you back feed backs that shows how original the paper work is in percent values and possible websites where the paper has been copied if ever.

The need to detect plagiarism has been an issue since the internet has opened new ways for students to copy works of others.  Let us remember that plagiarism is a serious offense and should not be taken lightly, anyone caught can be sued and may face charges. Other than that it is simply unethical to steal someone’s idea and work.
So to avoid the humiliation or a possible legal issue you should know what plagiarism is, learn proper documentation and citation, and check your work before submitting them.