How did I Plagiarize | Types of Plagiarism

Family Of Plagiarism

Detection Softwares or Checkers are basically Artificial Intelligence concepts which involve Machine Learning and Computer Vision Algorithms. Before writing an article or doing effective research we should remember the act of Plagiarism.

To know about Plagiarism - Must Read | What is Plagiarism?

Now there is a very basic concept you need to keep in mind. Whenever an entity (documents, texts, images, videos, web pages etc) is uploaded on the Internet, it gets crawled (searched) and stored in a database (index).

Whenever a user searches for something (keywords) the search engines retrieve entities similar to those searched for and displays them to the user.

To know how to do Effective Research- Must Read | 5 Golden Roles of Research Methodology

Now here if you copy-paste someone else’s entity and put it in your webpage, search engines will think that this thing is already in my database, it will ignore them.

The Checker| Detection Softwares basically have this database in their backend and now using some algorithms and techniques they check your content. Please note that this database is dependent upon Checker software. All Checkers do not use the same database and they use different algorithms and techniques.

Types of Plagiarism 

Most of the plagiarism is done accidentally or unknowingly without knowing the concepts behind it.

Here I will tell you some forms of Plagiarism which you can do knowingly or unknowingly so that from your next research you are better prepared with it.

Direct Content (DCP)

Directly copying the content or materials of another entity leads to this type of plagiarism and this is the second most common form of plagiarism found to be done and is easily caught by professional Checkers or Softwares.

You can do this type of mistake, unknowingly the concept of plagiarism.

You can remove this type of plagiarism by proper Citing or by some Black-Hat methods.

Content Stitching | Paraphrasing

This is the most common form done by students and researchers which involves expressing the known concepts and ideas from a source in own words or stitching other content as your own version.

This is one form of Plagiarism removal technique which was used in the late 19th century and now it has been categorized as a way of unethical act.

The stitched work does not contain any valuable information and just merely provides junk to the scientific community.

This cannot be easily caught by modern Checker tools but nowadays paid detection software like Turnitin can detect Paraphrasing by using a sophisticated data mining method call Affinity Analysis.

Paraphrasing Example:

Source - “ResearchMadeGood is the best Blog for Academic Research content”.

Paraphrased - “The one and only blog for the best content in Academic Research is ResearchMadeGood”

Phrase  | Context 

This is a type of Paraphrasing where common word context is taken and stitched together to form similar or different meaning to the same context. Phrase Plagiarism is often done with Paraphrasing and some researchers often tend to do both at a time.

Phrase Plagiarism Example:

Source- “Search Engine Optimization” | “Social Media Marketing”

Phrase - “Search Engine Localization” | “Social Media Advertising”

Patch-writing | Abstracting

Patchwriting is just low-level Paraphrasing where you try to paraphrase the content but you cannot do it completely. This is easily caught by Checker software and can lead to a penalty.

Self Plagiarism | Self Citing

Self Plagiarism is an unethical practice of citing one’s own article in the references of another work. This misconduct is basically done to promote the researcher’s content using a cheap medium, but this can be easily detected by software if the References section is made to be checked.

For example, You can add all your previous work in the references section of your research paper, so that it will gain a citation and it will gain additional publicity. You can also quote your previous work in your current paper also.

Apart from these types the research community also declared Ghostwriting as a Plagiarism method.

Ghostwriting | Is Ghostwriting it detected?

Ghostwriting is a service provided by some content or writing specialist who writes content and later confirms the authorship to the serviced customer. These experts generally write new content or rewrite your work according to your requirements and there are many Freelancers who also do such work. This is not caught in any detection software but is morally unethical and promotes academic dishonesty.

To know how to do Effective Research- Must Read | 5 Golden Roles of Research Methodology