How to Overcome Plagiarism by Reducing Procrastination

"Two pages to go," you mumble aloud as you flip through the pages of a book that you did not plan to use for your research paper. It is three o'clock in the morning, five hours before the deadline of your research paper. Although your instructor gave the guidelines and criteria for the paper months prior, you have failed to fully complete the assignment. You glance at the blinking cursor on your computer screen and hope to gain inspiration. Heavy-eyed and drowsy, you stumble into your Research Methods course hours later to turn in the byproduct of your effort. A week later, you receive the graded copy of your paper with the word "plagiarized" written across the top. Frustrated, you attempt to appeal your case to your teacher, but you soon concede your case. Not only did you "borrow" ideas from the book that you did not intend to use for your paper, but you also plagiarized from a book that was edited by your professor. You realize that you are also guilty of committing two major hindrances to a plagiarism- free paper: lack of preparation and ineffective time management.

The foundation for a good paper is preparation. Many times, students receive paper assignments only to discard them until the night before the deadline of the assignment. As a result, stress becomes the cause of plagiarism because students are unable to think clearly. At the time, the consequence of the potential failure of a course is weighted heavier than the risk of being cited for plagiarism. Therefore, the best way to avoid plagiarism is to carefully construct a timeline for the researching, drafting, and revising of the paper. Within the timeline, it is also important to create a system of accountability to ensure that the timeline is followed. Whether it is setting up a conference with a teacher or making a peer-revision appointment in a writing lab, designating someone to review the progress of the paper assignment eliminates the potential stress caused from procrastination that would motivate a student to plagiarize.

In addition to preparation, proper time management also ensures a plagiarism-free paper. It is problematic for students to delineate the individual tasks of a paper in a timeline if they are unable to devote enough time to properly researching, drafting, and revising. Time management is essential during the early phases of writing a research paper, especially during researching. In theory, students should be able to read a potential source in an adequate amount of time to be able to digest the information, abstract the main ideas, and translate the author's ideas on note cards. When students are able to delineate an amount of time for examining their own initial thoughts about the research assignment, they are later able to use the author's ideas to support their own. This lessens the probability of the writer of the research paper accidentally confusing their work with the information from the cited material.

Plagiarism plagues many students because it is so easy to commit, especially under the pressure of a stressful situation like the deadline for a research paper. Good preparation and proper time management are interconnected principles that help to ensure plagiarism-free papers. Developing a timeline for a research assignment and practicing good time management ensures that an author's ideas from a cited material are properly attributed and not unintentionally ascribed to the student.