Hi, Steemit Community. Today I will try to inform you about plagiarism. This is really an important issue that everyone should be aware of. Let's start without further ado.

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What is plagiarism?

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The definition of plagiarism in wikipedia is as follows:

Plagiarism is the representation of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work." ^Source

Actually, it can be explained as presenting someone's content as if it were your own or using other people's works or ideas without reference to the owner in any way. It would not be wrong to say that this is a form of theft and it's a crime in many countries around the world.

There are different types of plagiarism like complete, direct, source-based, mosaic, accidental, etc. Trying to use other people's instead of sharing your own ideas is unnecessary and unethical. Also it’s illegal and it can get you in trouble.

Using a friend's presentation as your own at your workplace and using other people's content in the digital environment are not that different from each other. These are both plagiarism. When it is noticed that you do this, it will have sanctions on you in both cases.

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What can we do to avoid plagiarism?

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Firstly, we need to learn what citation is.

A citation is a reference to a source. More precisely, a citation is an abbreviated alphanumeric expression embedded in the body of an intellectual work that denotes an entry in the bibliographic references section of the work for the purpose of acknowledging the relevance of the works of others to the topic of discussion at the spot where the citation appears." ^Source

We can use other people's sentences or thoughts in our own content by referring to the author or source. It also makes our content more comprehensive and valuable. If you don't know how to do it, you can take a look at Markdown for Citation

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Conclusion

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In a world where content creation is valued day by day, it was inevitable for someone to think that they would benefit from copying or stealing other people's content. Naturally, this has also become very common nowadays, and unfortunately, as I write this, people still continue to do it in different ways all over the world. Malicious people will continue to appear everywhere and all the time, but that doesn't mean we'll stop struggling with them.

I wanna summarize with an image I made in Canva.

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I have read and understood the steemit Etiquette on steemit community and I will do well to abide by them.

Don’t forget to smile!
Best regards, Ümit.