How can I check plagiarism in my research paper?

The simple answer is that to avoid plagiarism, (a) don’t use any outside sources - only based on your own experience and/or knowledge, and (b) cite any/all text derived (whether quoted or paraphrased) from outside sources - other than your own experience and/or knowledge.

Delving deeper, it is important to understand that plagiarism differs from similarity. in that, similarity only indicates the degree that your writing may have been obtained from outside sources; however, that is not necessarily mean that it was plagiarized, if properly cited. Therefore, tools such as Grammarly, Turnitin, SafeAssign, and others will provide an originality report indicated the similarity percentage and associated text, but not whether the text has been plagiarized. For this, review the text to assess proper citation, or not. If not, then there is a probability of plagiarism. To correct, use proper citation formatting (APA, MLA, or other) for the text. Further, as a best practice, avoid overuse of direct quotes and write in your own words (paraphrasing) for optimal originality, with proper citations.

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