Avoiding Plagiarism: A Practical Guide for Native & ESL Learners | Copyleaks

A Guide to Avoid Plagiarism for Native English and Second Language Learners

Plagiarism can happen to anyone—whether you’re a native English speaker or learning English as a second language. Understanding what plagiarism is, how it happens (both blatantly and accidentally), and how to avoid it is essential to academic success and content integrity.

This guide walks you through key definitions, examples, and strategies to help you write original work with confidence.

Definition of Plagiarism

To plagiarize means presenting someone else’s work—ideas, text, or creative content—as your own. In university or academic writing, this often appears when students copy sections from websites, textbooks, or peers without proper credit.

What Is Blatant Plagiarism?

Blatant plagiarism is the most obvious form of copying and easiest to detect. It includes:

• Paying someone else to write your paper
• Copying full paragraphs from books or articles
• Pasting large sections from websites without attribution

These acts provide no credit to the original authors and are considered serious violations.

Less Obvious (But Still Problematic) Plagiarism

Not all plagiarism is intentional—many students accidentally plagiarize when trying to incorporate sources. Two of the most common mistakes include:

• Missing quotation marks: Even if a citation is included, failing to use quotation marks for word-for-word text misleads the reader.
• Poor paraphrasing: Simply swapping out a few words without changing sentence structure or citing the source is still plagiarism.

Plagiarism Means Stealing Words and Ideas

While instructors understand that most plagiarism is unintentional, it still counts as academic dishonesty. The best rule? When in doubt—cite it.

Avoiding Plagiarism

During research, it’s tempting to borrow well-written phrases or explanations. But:

• Even one uncited sentence can be considered plagiarism
• Changing just a few words is not enough—sentence structure and phrasing must be your own
• Always credit the original source, even if you’re inspired by their ideas.

How to Summarize

Summarizing involves reducing content to its key points, eliminating most supporting details. It lowers the risk of plagiarism because fewer exact words are reused—but you must still:

• Write in your own voice
• Cite the original source if ideas or data are used

Detecting Plagiarism

Most universities use plagiarism detection tools like Copyleaks to review student submissions. These tools compare your text to global content databases and flag:

• Identical phrasing
• Paraphrased content with close similarity
• Source links for verification

Warning for Students

Avoid uploading your paper to free or public plagiarism checkers before submission. Some tools store scanned content, meaning your paper might be flagged as plagiarized later—even if you wrote it yourself.

Instead, use trusted academic tools or school-provided platforms like Copyleaks for safe originality checks.

Eliminating Concern

To steer clear of plagiarism:

• Plan your writing in advance
• Learn and practice paraphrasing and summarizing
• Always cite sources when using outside ideas or data

When your work is truly original—in words, structure, and ideas—you reduce the risk of accidental plagiarism and build stronger academic integrity.