Plagiarism is a challenge for students when working on their assignments, lectures generally provide a limit of plagiarism. Therefore, you have to take the source by paraphrasing it.
Paraphrasing is the perfect solution to avoid plagiarism, paraphrasing is restatement of a text in a different form or words, but the content still explains the same meaning, without quoting it directly.
Paraphrasing will help you to develop and show your ideas, concepts and most important of all, to avoid plagiarism. Here are 5 ways to paraphrase correctly and effectively:
1, Read
1. Read similar topics from various sources
Everyone has their own style of writing, and the difference in style becomes clear when we read about a particular topic in different books, articles or papers. The way to avoid plagiarism is to take keywords from various sources and write them in your own style.
Before writing in your own words, read the topic from various sources so that you can understand its meaning. This way will be useful in your writing instead.
2. Looking for the synonym of word
Another way that you can do is change the word by using a synonym. Synonyms are forms of language whose meaning is similar or the same as another form of language. This method will minimize plagiarism detection. For example, changing the word perfect to correct or the word correct to valid.
3. Changing the sentences pattern
In linguistics (study of language), there are several patterns in sentences which include active and passive sentences, which are based on the use of the subject and object in the sentence. you can turn an active sentence into a passive one or vice versa.
For example, changing the structure into past tense “bring (membawa) and is brought (dibawa)”. In addition, you can also change the position of the subject in the sentence. This is commonly done through online websites, but you should also pay attention to the results of the changes to prevent changes in meaning.
4. Write based on your understanding
If you have read other sources and understand it, close the reading page and rewrite according to your own understanding. Do not look back at what you read because it will make the paraphrased content similar to what you read. So, what you write is what you understand.
5. Using Paraphrasing Websites
Technological advances today can also be used to help in paraphrasing, such as websites or paraphrasing machines that are scattered all over the Internet. The way to use it is also quite easy because it is only by copying from the source that we choose and then it will be automatically paraphrased by the website.
However, the result of paraphrasing that changed through the website still has ineffective language and sometimes is not well structured, so do not take it straight away but make manual revisions first.
Those are 5 ways you can paraphrase to avoid plagiarism and still get good results. Remember, don’t plagiarise!
Read the original version in Bahasa Indonesia.
Original writer: Yuan Fauzil
Translated by: Nabila Rafiqah Awaluddin & Muhammad Alif M.
