Recognizing Plagiarism Your audience can catch plagiarism in many ways. After submission of papers, professors usually catch on to your writing style. Therefore, sentences that are written in a perfected style and does not follow your usual verbiage is more than likely to be plagiarism. Complex sentence structures and sentence fragments can also serve as other clues for plagiarism. Another clue for plagiarism is when certain paragraphs in the paper are written to perfection with no misspellings or grammatical errors.
Identifying Plagiarism
The student has clearly plagiarized the first two sentences in his rewording of the original author’s work. For example, by using the verb tainted in the original author’s work, the student has stolen the original idea of the author. Secondly, the following sentence by Crossen (1994), “Although biomedical research incorporates rigorous scientific rules and is often critically scrutinized by peers,” is the same as this one by the student: Biomedical researchers incorporate strict rules of science into their work, which is examined by peers. Note that the only difference is that the student has only changed the words “rigorous” and “scrutinized” to “strict” and “examined,” while maintaining the same sentence structure and flow from Crossen.
Examples of Plagiarism
The following are two sentences that have been plagiarized. By providing quotation marks and correctly citing the sentences, the student can avoid plagiarism.
1. But it is hard to know if a conflict of interest between doctors, researchers, and the drug company stockholders has tainted the results.
Recommended APA in-text citation:
According to Crossen (1994), “It is very difficult to discover and virtually impossible to prove that a piece of biomedical research has been tainted by conflict of interest” (p. 167).
2. Biomedical researchers incorporate strict rules of science into their work, which is examined by peers.
Correction:
Biomedical researchers incorporate strict rules of science into their work, which is examined by peers (Crossen, 1994, pp. 166-167).
Avoiding Plagiarism
One of the best strategies to use to avoid plagiarism is to use quotation marks and in-text citations (Indiana University, 2011). If paraphrasing, I would still give credit to the author because it would still be an original idea of the author, but written with different words. In other words, the original idea of the author is still present in your paraphrase (Indiana University, 2011). In my opinion, you should always cite the author when you are trying to get an original idea across. Then, you can support your citation with your own ideas, such as why you may agree or disagree with the author.
Example of Paraphrasing O’Conner (2003) argued that a good writer is one that you can easily understand without having to go through extensive and time-consuming research to try to understand what the writer is trying to get across. As the writer, if you do not understand what you are trying to prove, then how do you expect the reader to comprehend your idea? Just because you use complex words and long sentences, it does not mean that it makes you a scholarly writer. As writers, we need to create a stable relationship between our thoughts and how they are conveyed on paper.
Summary
As a writer, I consider that my strengths in citing and paraphrasing are strong. However, there is room for improvement when it comes to citing secondary resources. It is still confusing for me what exactly is a secondary resource. Although I have read about it in my APA manual, it still does not make sense to me, especially that it is not necessary to reference your secondary source in your bibliography (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 178). As I continue my studies at Walden University, I hope my writing improves in such a way that I may be able to publish an article. I hope that through the instruction of my professors, colleagues, and the online resources, I can master what it takes to become a scholarly writer. I would like to learn how to perfect my writing, and be less hard on myself when I think my writing is poor. I believe that I will be able to achieve my goals throughout my career at Walden University.

Reference
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author.
Crossen, C. (1994). Tainted: The manipulation of fact in America. New York: Touchstone, pp. 166–167.
Indiana University. (2011). Plagiarism: What it is and how to avoid it. 
Retrieved from http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.pdf O’Conner, P. (2003). Woe is I: The grammarphobe’s guide to better English in plain English. New York: Riverhead Books.