How to Avoid Plagiarism in Law Papers
By the time you’ve become the law school student, you have definitely heard a lot about what is plagiarism and why it is dangerous for an academic success. Writing a law paper is about the development of new ideas, using the educational background, as well as thinking about the existing laws and applying them in practice, and plagiarized content may seriously destroy your reputation. However, using some simple tips one can easily avoid plagiarism and thus, keep one’s conscience clear.
Taking into consideration the fact that the development of almost all ideas is based on the ones that were generated before, it is highly critical for the author of the law paper to be absolutely clear about the possible background of the idea he’s going to include into the project. Just make certain to do a little research in order to find out what ideas are your own thoughts, and what ideas have been developed by someone else. The latter will require proper reference.
There’s an interesting fact about academic environment. Here, the use of the words of the other person without any attribution is forbidden and besides, it directly threatens the original author’s livelihood. When the question is about the practice of law, it is good to remember the general rule set for all the lawyers. The primary goal of every lawyer is to reach the desired legal result. That is why they do not usually care about the ownership of their ideas in the way students are. What is more, in many situations, a lawyer would like to remain behind the curtain and to never be known as the author of the idea. This means that some of the ideas can be re-stated in your own law paper without the request to provide attribution.
When you are busy with the research for the law paper, make sure to take detailed notes. Applying this simple principle will provide you with an opportunity to never get confused later with your own ideas and the words that you have revealed when conducting your research. This will help you to avoid plagiarized content and thus, keep your reputation clean.
Always check the source that stands behind any piece of information. Any time you find the words that seem to be eloquent and perfectly reflect what you are trying to say, ensure to google them up to make sure you are not going to steal what is not yours.
Anytime you are not sure about how to deal with the material that does not belong to you and how to properly cite it, approach your tutors. They are there to help.
The reason why one should stay away from plagiarism, when writing the law papers, is that it brings the most negative consequences. The thing is that law schools’ professors are highly strict about the students providing plagiarized content. Depending on a particular law school, plagiarism may cause both –minor punishment and serious castigation, like being expelled from the school.