How to Avoid Plagiarism on Your PhD Thesis and Dissertation

When you use facts, ideas or opinions that are not your own, even if you are not using the exact words of the author, you should give them credits for incorporating their work in your paper. If you do not do so, you are clearly committing the act of plagiarism. Here is how to avoid plagiarism on your PhD thesis and dissertation

Avoid procrastination

Students that procrastinate are the ones that find themselves in a bind when it comes to the submission of their theses. Even if you are not tempted to deliberately pass off someone else’s work as your own, you can get careless while citing another person’s work and may even end up losing your admission to the PhD programme. You should, therefore, avoid any procrastination that may create problems in the citation of works and referencing.

Take good notes

Be sure to copy quotes accurately if you are making notes from the internet or from some other source of information. Do not lose track of which information has been quoted directly by you and which ones have not been quoted directly by you or have been paraphrased by you. It helps to make a distinction that is visual in your notes. Carefully cite all the information that is available on the internet as well as in books and the other sources.

Cite internet sources too

Just because something is available freely on the internet does not imply that you have to copy it and use it without citation. You must cite internet sources too. Most of the citation styles for the internet sources are also quite specific. You would need to supply the date on which you accessed them along with the URL of the information you got. Beware of copying any materials from the internet directly since it might even result in the cancelation of your admission to the university, where you are studying.