Blog

Avoid Plagiarism in Your Ph.D. Thesis in India by Following These Rules

How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Ph.D. Thesis?

To add up to the promotion of academic integrity and minimize plagiarism cases in research papers in an Indian university, UGC has adopted strict policies to combat plagiarism in your Ph.D. thesis in India. Hence, it has become a compulsion to learn the policies to avoid plagiarism in the thesis paper.

To strive against plagiarism in higher education, India has undergone severe reformations in norms and policies to raise academic integrity and content quality in Ph.D., papers. University Grants Commission UGC has rigidified the anti-plagiarism policies to combat plagiarism in Ph.D., thesis in India. It has been acknowledged by various Indian universities that oversee the Ph.D., research papers undertaken by the students.

In the year 2017, the draft got presented. However, the approval came in the year 2018 from the Human Resource Development body of the Ministry. The ultimate goal is to produce plagiarism-free Ph.D., thesis student papers, and contribute to academic integrity.

The new regulation has been named the University Grants Commission UGC Regulations (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions), 2018. It applies to students, researchers, faculties, and the staff of the educational institute.

Cases of Plagiarism

While delivering a briefing on the regulation, in June 2018, the HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had declared that there had been detected prior plagiarism cases in Ph.D., papers. Therefore, he strongly recommended the usage of anti-plagiarism software applications and essay correctors to develop fresh content.

In the Rajya Sabha in 2018, there has been a discovery of three significant plagiarism cases in thesis papers in the past three years. One was the Vice-Chancellor of the Pondicherry University, Mr. Chandra Krishnamurthy, in the year 2015.

The second was the reader of the Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith of Varanasi, Mr. Anil Kumar Upadhyay, in the year 2017. The third case was the Vice-Chancellor of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University in Lucknow, Mr. Vinay Kumar Pathak, in 2018.

Objectives of the New Set of the Anti-Plagiarism Regulation Act

  • Promoting awareness and realization of proper academic conduct and discouraging plagiarism.
  • Establishing an academic mechanism that works towards academic integrity, avoiding plagiarism, and adhering to a much more responsible academic conduct.
  • Organizing an academic mechanism that detects, prevents, and punishes the act of academic misconduct.

Inclusion of Self-Plagiarism

Self-plagiarism is an act of ‘borrowing’ your own previously published content without citing it. The inclusion of it in the new regulation act has established that a thesis must be fresh and original without the influence of old content, even if it belongs to the author.

Thus, citation and acknowledgment of the previous work are equally important when one wants to prevent plagiarism in India’s thesis.

Emphasis on the Application of Anti-Plagiarism Software

With the rising plagiarism cases in higher educational curriculums, the new regulation has emphasized teaching anti-plagiarism tools to check for plagiarism in your Ph.D. thesis papers. Applications like those of the Moodle anti-plagiarism services are designed to cater to such solutions.

There exist different types of plagiarism, which are sometimes difficult to avoid and thus may be unintentional. Hence, to prevent plagiarism in thesis papers, it is expected that the intended thesis plagiarism checker or a university plagiarism checker is used. It helps to check for plagiarism or detect plagiarism and also prevents the occurrence of unintentional plagiarism.

How to Make the Thesis Paper Unique?

Writing a thesis paper for a Ph.D-pursuer may be a troublesome task with such a lot of things to consider. A literature review is required with data and evidence to stand by the ideas and opinions that present the paper as unique content.

While inserting any piece of information, it is necessary to give due credit to the original authors if they intend to produce plagiarism free content. Quotation marks are essential while citing the source.

While one may be considering that to avoid plagiarism in your Ph.D. thesis in India, the writing skill would prove sufficient. There are many types of plagiarism where only writing skills will not save the situation.

When one has to quote or present a previously established idea in the thesis while providing a quotation or once established data, the researcher should always provide citations.

When one is looking for an overall solution to plagiarism in the Ph.D., thesis in India, a plagiarism checker combined with an essay corrector or essay checker must also be recommended.

Essay correctors execute grammar and spell check and run-on sentences to improve the quality of the sentence structures. It overall polishes the English grammar of the essay by detecting spelling errors and grammar mistakes.

Some Ways to Avoid Plagiarism Are

  • Paraphrasing
  • Quote referencing
  • Citation
  • Write in one’s style

Penalties for Plagiarism

According to the new regulation, duplicate content in research papers shall be considered only up to 10% of the total content. Content duplication, more than 10%, can cause penalties.

  • Level I: With content similarity above 10%, the students are expected to withdraw their manuscript.
  • Level II: If the plagiarized content is infected with 40% to 60% content duplicity, then the academicians must be subjected to a denial of one annual increment.
  • Level III: When encountered with more than 60% of content similarity with the original sources, the academicians related to the duplicate content might end up to a suspension of three years from supervising other research papers of Masters, M.Phil., or Ph.D., students.

Exemptions from the Charges of Plagiarism

  • Quoted works that are correctly attributed or granted permission.
  • References, acknowledgments, table of contents, prefaces, and bibliographies.
  • Content with minor similarities.
  • Standardized equations, symbols, laws, and general terms.

So, one is doing a Ph.D., in India, one needs to remember all these things to avoid duplicate content issues.

Find out what's in your copy.