Thesis writing is a time-consuming and complicated task. It includes various steps including borrowing ideas from other published sources to make your points authentic and valuable. This comes with the risk of plagiarism.

Plagiarism means copying someone else’s published ideas without paying them proper credit. Committing it can bring severe consequences that you, being an academic, would not like to face.

That’s the reason why you have to check for plagiarism in your thesis before you publish it. in this article, we are going to provide you with a step-by-step guide to check plagiarism from your thesis. Before we start the guide, it is important that we understand plagiarism a little more.

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is a very critical term. In order to write an authentic and high-quality thesis, you have to understand this term fully so that you don’t get penalized. By definition, plagiarism simply means copying already published content and using it in your own content without giving credit.

It is somewhat of an intellectual theft. That is because you steal someone’s intellectual property in this case.

Being an academic, it is a highly unethical thing to do. If you commit plagiarism, not only your reputation as an academic be harmed, but you might also face legal consequences depending on the severity of your case.

That’s the reason why you have to ensure that your thesis is free of plagiarism before you publish it so you can maintain your academic integrity.

Now, we will provide you with a step-by-step guide on how you can check plagiarism effectively from your thesis.

Step-by-Step Guide to Check Plagiarism from Your Thesis:

Making your thesis plagiarism-free includes some steps that are taken during the writing process such as paraphrasing, providing references, etc. This guide is focused on the post-writing steps that you can take to ensure your thesis is plagiarism-free. Let’s begin.

Step 1 – Check if You Have Paraphrased the Ideas Properly:

Paraphrasing is one of the most promising ways to make your thesis plagiarism-free. This means you get the idea from another source and then write it in your own words while adding some more value to it.

Some people do not perform this step properly. Replacing a few words with their synonyms does not always work. You have to actually rewrite the idea in your own words.

That’s why you have to check if you have paraphrased the ideas properly or not. The following tips can be helpful in doing so:

  • Check if you are replaced synonyms are different from the original words
  • Check if the sentence structure is properly changed or not
  • Compare your writing with the original source to find out if it matches or not

Once you do this, it will be easier to ensure that you have paraphrased the original idea effectively and there is no chance of it getting plagiarized.

Step 2 – Check If You Have Provided Citations the Right Way:

Citations are the details that explain where you got the information you are describing in your thesis. They are mostly used when you have to borrow the idea as it was stated. This means that if you want to add a section of other people’s writing as it is, you have to provide its reference.

Since the content is being included as it is, it can bring plagiarism if you do not provide citations the right way.

But what’s the right way of citing your sources? It depends on the writing style you have adopted. Some of the most commonly used writing styles in academia are:

  • APA (American Psychological Association)
  • MLA (Modern Language Association)
  • Chicago

All of these styles have their own way of providing references. That is why be sure about what your writing style is and check if you have provided references the right way accordingly or not.

Step 3 – Use A Plagiarism Checker Tool:

Once you have performed the above-discussed two steps to ensure your thesis is plagiarism-free, it’s time to check it through one of the most promising ways of checking plagiarism, and perhaps the only promising way.

It is through an online plagiarism checker tool.

This tool compares your thesis with a huge published database on the Internet. You can use free online plagiarism checker tools to locate the matching parts.

After locating these parts, it highlights them and gives you the source link so you can see how the content is matched. When you have located these parts in your thesis, you can easily rewrite them (or even remove them all) to get rid of plagiarism.

Using these tools is very simple. Just put in the text you want to get checked and let the tool do the rest of the work. To give you a better demonstration of how these tools operate, we checked this article in a plagiarism checker tool to see if any of the content is plagiarized or not.

Since this content is unique, no plagiarism was detected. If any part of this content was copied, the tool would’ve detected it and given you the link source.

Conclusion:

Checking plagiarism from your thesis is an essential thing to do before you publish it. The plagiarized thesis is not very much appreciated by the academic institutes. It is even a legal crime in some regions of the world. Making sure that your thesis is plagiarism-free can be a hectic task.

To check for plagiarism in your thesis, the first thing you have to do is check if you have paraphrased the borrowed ideas correctly. After that, you have to ensure the provided citations are correct. Lastly, you can use a plagiarism-checking tool to see if your writing matches any other published source or not.

If it does, you can make essential changes accordingly to make the thesis plagiarism-free.