safeassign draft

SafeAssign is a tool used to prevent plagiarism and to create opportunities to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase. SafeAssign is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool.

SafeAssign compares submitted assignments against a set of sources to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works.

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SafeAssign is a plagiarism prevention tool that detects unoriginal content in students' papers by identifying areas of overlap between submitted assignments and existing works. SafeAssign can also be used to help students identify how to properly attribute sources rather than paraphrase without giving credit to the original source. The SafeAssign feature is effective as both a deterrent and an educational tool.

Note: Delays in SafeAssign occur throughout the semester based on high demand. Please DO NOT have students resubmit papers as this pushes them to the back of the queue. Blackboard currently reports as much as 24-36 hours or more may elapse before report results are returned.

How SafeAssign Works

Enabling safeassign.

• SafeAssign Assessment Reports

Interpreting SafeAssign Scores

The SafeAssign feature is based on a unique text matching algorithm capable of detecting both exact and inexact matches between a submitted paper and a particular source material. Assignments submitted to the SafeAssign database are compared with several different databases, including the following:

• Internet: Comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the Internet
• ProQuest ABI/Inform database: More than 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from 1990's to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access)
• Institutional document archives: Contains all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions
• Global Reference Database: Contains papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism

Assignments accept every possible file type as an attachment to a submission. SafeAssign will only process and create Originality Reports for attachments with compatible file types. SafeAssign is only able to support file types that are convertible to plain text including the following file types: .docx; .doc; .pdf; .txt; .odt; .rtf; .html; .htm; and .zip (processing files that match any of these file types within the .zip). However, Learn Assignment's Inline Grading feature only supports the following subset of file types: .pptx; .ppt; .xlsx; .xls; .docx; .doc; and .pdf. SafeAssign will only process and create Originality Reports for attachments that match the above file types. For unsupported file types, the SafeAssign Originality Report will omit a matching score. This information is visible in the right-hand navigation bar of the new Originality Report.

These two lists of compatible file types mean that there are only certain file types that can be displayed in the Inline Grading workflow and processed by SafeAssign. Below is a Venn diagram outlining which file types support both features:

• Original Course View
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Enabling SafeAssign in Original Course View

Enable the SafeAssign tool during Assignment creation and editing, under the Submission Details section.

Faculty have the option to Exclude Submissions when creating an Assignment. This option will allow faculty to create Assignments that do not include any student submissions in the Institutional or Global Reference Databases, enabling students to "check their work" against SafeAssign sources prior to submitting a final version without subsequently revised drafts being flagged as matching the previous "draft" submissions. Like other options on Assignments, this option will be point-in-time and editable after assignment creation. If the option were changed at a later date, new submissions would honor the new state of the setting.

Enabling SafeAssign in Ultra Course View

Enable SafeAssign in the settings panel while creating an Assignment or a Test.

• Open Assignment Settings or Test Settings in a new or existing assessment.
• Under SafeAssign , select Enable Originality Report .
• When you enable SafeAssign for the assessment, you can also allow students to view the Originality Report. If you allow multiple attempts, an Originality Report is generated for each attempt a student submits.
• Choose whether to exclude submissions from the institutional and Global Reference Databases.
• Close the layer. Your changes are saved!

You can enable the SafeAssign Originality Report at any time, even after students have started their submissions, but submissions are only checked when SafeAssign is enabled. Submissions received before you enable the setting aren't checked with SafeAssign.

SafeAssign Doesn't Generate a Report when Filename Has Special Characters

Please note that assignment submissions with special characters (i.e., #,:,*,space, etc.) are not evaluated by SafeAssign and will not generate a report.

It is recommended that users only include numbers, letters, hyphens, and underscores in their filenames. In cases where student users have already made a submission, change the assignment setting to allow multiple submissions and then ask them to resubmit the document after making the appropriate filename change.

• SafeAssign Originality Reports

After a paper has been processed, an Originality Report will be available that will show the percentage of text in the submitted paper that matches existing sources. It also shows the suspected sources of each section of the submitted paper that returns a match. The faculty can then delete matching sources from the report and process it again. This procedure is useful to ascertain if the paper is a continuation of a previously submitted work by the same student.

Because the SafeAssign feature identifies all matching blocks of text, it is important that the faculty reads the report carefully and determines whether or not the block of text in question is properly attributed.

Click here for more details about the Originality Report

The sentence matching scores represent the percentage probability that two phrases have the same meaning. This number can also be interpreted as the reciprocal to the probability that these two phrases are similar by chance. For example, a score of 90 percent means that there is a 90 percent probability that these two phrases are the same and a 10 percent probability that they are similar by chance and not because the submitted paper includes content from the existing source (whether or not it is appropriately attributed).

The overall score is an indicator of what percentage of the submitted paper matches existing sources. Please note that this score is a warning indicator only and it is the faculty’s responsibility to review the papers carefully to see if the matches are properly attributed.

• Scores below 15 percent: These papers typically include some quotes and few common phrases or blocks of text that match other documents. These papers typically do not require further analysis, as there is no evidence of the possibility of plagiarism in these papers.
• Scores between 15 percent and 40 percent: These papers include extensive quoted or paraphrased material or they may include plagiarism. These papers should be reviewed to determine if the matching content is properly attributed.
• Scores over 40 percent: There is a very high probability that text in this paper was copied from other sources. These papers include quoted or paraphrased text in excess and should be reviewed for plagiarism.

Frequently Asked Questions

SafeAssign can be used in two ways.

• Faculty Members can set up SafeAssignments in their courses on Blackboard and let students submit papers to complete these assignments, in a way very similar to the Assignmnent tool provided by Blackboard Learning System. The papers will then be delivered to Faculty Members through the Blackboard Learning System together with the SafeAssign Originality Reports, which details the results of the matching process.
• Faculty Members may upload papers directly, without student involvement through the Direct Submit feature.

What information does SafeAssign provide in its reports? A SafeAssign Originality Report highlights any blocks of text in submitted documents that match reference sources, and links back to the matching documents on the Internet or in supported content databases. SafeAssign reports also show similarity ratings for each matching sentence and allow Faculty Members to view a line-by-line comparison of potentially unoriginal text from submitted papers and the matching external documents.

If intructors enable student viewing, each student can view the reports for their own submitted papers.

SafeAssign currently checks all submitted papers against the following databases:

• Internet - comprehensive index of billions of documents available for public access on the Internet;
• ProQuest ABI/Inform database with over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from '90s to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access);
• Institutional document archives containing all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions;
• Global Reference Database containing papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism.

What is the Institutional Database? The Institutional Database is the archive of papers submitted by students in your institution. Each institution's Institutional Database is stored in the central SafeAssign service and kept separate from other institution's databases. Papers are automatically added to this database upon submission and are stored in the central service to be checked against other papers submitted from your institution. The Institutional Database is completely separate from the Global Reference Database which extends across institutions and students must volunteer their papers to.

Can SafeAssign process papers written in languages other than English? SafeAssign can generate originality reports for papers written in all alphabet-based languages with left-to-right writing. The user interface is currently only available in English.

Who owns the intellectual property rights for each submitted paper? Blackboard does not claim any ownership rights on the content submitted to SafeAssign.

How long does it take to generate originality reports? Reports are not generated instantaneously - it usually takes from several seconds to few minutes to receive a report. During peak use (such as the end of the semester), it can sometimes take several hours.

What file formats does SafeAssign support? SafeAssign supports Word (.doc or .docx), plain text (.txt), rich text format (.rtf), .pdf, and .html formats. In addition, supported file types can be compressed to a .zip file for Direct Submit.

What is the file size limit for files submitted to SafeAssign? There is a 10 MB limit on all files submitted to SafeAssign. This applies to individual student uploads to Assignments with SafeAssign enabled as well as .zip files of multiple papers uploaded by faculty using the Direct Submit feature (in which case the .zip file must be under 10 MB). Unfortunately, this limit is set by the SafeAssign servers, which are managed by Blackboard, so it cannot be overridden.

How does the Global Reference Database work? Blackboard's Global Reference Database is a separate database where students voluntarily donate copies of their papers to help prevent plagiarism. It is separated from each institution's internal database, where all papers are stored by each corresponding institution, and students are free to select the option to check their papers without submitting them to the Global Reference Database.

What if a student decides to remove a paper from the Global Reference Database? Students submit their papers to the database voluntarily and agree not to remove papers in the future.

Are students forced to submit papers to the Global Reference Database either by Blackboard or NIU? All papers are submitted to the Global Reference Database voluntarily, and students are free to choose not to submit their papers to this database. Faculty Members can still use the service effectively, even when students choose not to submit their papers to the Global Reference Database.

What is the SafeAssign "Synchronize this Course" option that appears in the "Direct Submit" area? The synchronize function is to deal with breaks in communication or to update a course which is based on a template or has been copied. It is a good idea for the faculty member to click on this when first using SafeAssign and to periodically update it or update if any course level issues arise. It simply synchronizes the papers in the course with the SafeAssign central database, ensuring the correct associations exist between the course and our central database.

Can students directly submit a draft assignment to check without having it deployed as a SafeAssignment via the instructor or having it be tied to the Grade Center in Blackboard? There is the option to make an assignment a draft. In this case, as mentioned above, the paper is not checked into the institutional database.

Why did SafeAssignment scores in the Grade Center get deleted after the students submitted their assignments? Make sure to enter SafeAssignment scores in the Grade Center after the students submit their assignments. Scores assigned prior to SafeAssignment submission are deleted when students submit their assignments. If paper assignments are collected together with a Blackboard SafeAssign feature, make sure to enter student grades after they have submitted their assignments electronically through SafeAssign.

It is possible to download all of the files that the students submitted to a SafeAssignment. This does not include the originality reports. Those must be viewed within Blackboard directly.

To download all of the submitted files:

• From the course with the SafeAssignment, open Course Tools in the Control Panel
• Click SafeAssign
• On the next page, choose SafeAssignments
• Move your mouse cursor over the SafeAssignment you are interested in. When the Action Link appears, click it and choose View Submissions from the menu
• Click the Download All Submissions button at the top of the page

Your browser will download a .zip folder that has all of the submissions. You can open the folder or extract the files to read the individual submissions.

If you get this error and you are logged into Blackboard, it means that the security or privacy settings of your web browser are set to not allow 3rd-party cookies. You will need to change that setting to be able to use SafeAssign.

For Internet Explorer:

• Click Tools
• Click Internet Options
• Click Privacy
• Set the setting to Low

For Firefox:

• Click Options
• Select Accept cookies from site
• Select Accept third-party cookies
• Change Keep until to they expire

For Safari:

• Click Safari
• Click Preferences
• Click Security
• Change Accept cookies to Always

If you or your students receive this error, you will need to re-synchronize your course. To do so:

• Underneath the  Control Panel , expand the  Course Tools menu.
• Click  SafeAssign .
• On the following page, click  SafeAssign Items .
• On the  SafeAssign Items page, click the  Synchronize this course button.
• You may briefly see a message telling you it will take a moment to synchronize. Your student(s) should now be able to access the Assignment.
• How to Use SafeAssign in Assignments Original
• How to Use SafeAssign in Assignments Ultra

Quick Guides

• Using SafeAssign in Assignments
• SafeAssign Originality Report
• Using DirectSubmit Original
• Grading with SafeAssign

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Create a SafeAssignment Draft

Instructors can choose to set up SafeAssignments as drafts, which allows students to submit papers without storing them ( otherwise, if they submitted the paper again, it would have a 100% match against itself! )

To set up a Draft Assignment – go through the regular SafeAssignment set up and click the Draft option to “Yes.” This specific draft SafeAssignment will allow each student to submit once and will check their paper and generate a SafeAssign Report, but will not store it in the Institutional Database.

Please Note –  You also need to create another SafeAssignment that will be your Final Version.  This Final version should have the “Draft” feature set to “No” so that when the students submit, their paper is not only checked for plagiarism, but also stored in the database.

So in summary – to allow for drafts of a SafeAssignment, complete the following steps:

• Create a SafeAssignment and set the “Draft” control to “Yes” – this will be the SafeAssignment students submit to first.  Please remember to message as such in your Instructor Instructions.
• You can repeat #1 for as many draft versions as you want to allow.
• Create another SafeAssignment for your Final Version and make sure the “Draft” control is set to “No.” Again, message this to your students through the title and instructions.

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IN > OIEI > ID&S > Step-by-Step Tutorials

Safe Assign

SafeAssign is a tool that students can use to ensure that they cite their written work properly, and one that you can use to check their work for accidental or intentional plagiarism after they submit it. Many students commit plagiarism unintentionally because they don't understand the rules, or because it's so easy to do a copy/paste from a digital source.

Be sure to reference the academic integrity policies in the NAU Student Handbook and dedicate some time to discussing what plagiarism means and what the consequences can be.

You might recommend the Academic Integrity course built by e-Learning. Share this self-enrollment link (https://nau.edu/bb-self-enroll/227890) and the course will appear in the student's Bb Learn My Courses list.

Encourage your students to follow these three general rules to avoid accidental plagiarism:

• Unless a passage of text is in quotes, the source text should be re-stated in your own words, and credit should still be given.
• Direct quotes should be used sparingly, and only for very important passages of text.
• Unless a statement is common knowledge, you should cite the source of the idea.

If you have additional rules, be specific. For example, is there a particular citation style such as APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. that you expect them to use? Give them some examples of proper citation.

We encourage you to review the rules and consequences with them, and to have them check their writing using the Safe Assign Originality Report before they submit their work to you for final grading. Checking student writing through an interative process of rough drafts with feedback discourages procrastination, and helps students to improve their writing.

Important Note : Safe Assign calls the score the students get an "Originality Report" and it will be a percentage score from 0% to 100%. This is unfortunate wording because a higher score is lower in originality. Emphasize that a score of 100% means the paper is entirely plagiarized. Lower scores are better!

One final piece of advice: If possible, design your assignment so that it is less of a "fact dump" and more of a thinking question, or a defense of a point of view, or an opinion on a controversial topic. This makes it harder to plagiarize, more interesting for you (you don't have to read a bunch of versions of the same report) and it makes it easier to tell if your students have a grasp of the content. For a history paper, don't ask for a biography of Abraham Lincoln, but instead ask students to write about the difficult decisions he made and what they would have done in his shoes. For a biology paper, don't ask what material is stored in the gall bladder and what it's function is, but instead ask what is the effect on the body when the gall bladder is surgically removed. This is much more difficult to Google and come up with an intelligible answer.

To create a Safe Assignment:

• Log into Bb Learn and navigate to your course.
• In the upper right of the screen, make sure Edit Mode is ON .
• From the Assessments menu, select Assignment .
• On the Create Assignment page,  expand   Submission Details .
• Under Plagiarism Tooks , select   Check submissions for plagiarism using SafeAssign .
• Allow students to view the SafeAssign originality reports on their submission s. (We generally recommend this.)
• Exclude all student submissions for this assignment from the institutional or global reference databases . (We generally don't recommend this.)
• Specify the other information about the assignment.
• Click   Submit

Direct Submit gives you the option of manually submitting one or many (you'll first need to compress them in a .ZIP archive) papers manually. A good use case for this is if you see some suspicious text in a Discussion post, for example, and want to check it for originality.

• In the Blackboard course with the Edit Mode on,  select   Course Tools  and then  SafeAssign.
• Select   DirectSubmit.  This brings you to your Direct Submit console.
• If you have already uploaded papers, a list of folders and papers will appear. This list includes papers already uploaded through Direct Submit. It is not recommended that files be deleted from Direct Submit, as this will remove them from the institutional database of existing materials.
• Type  in a new folder name to help differentiate papers uploaded for different assignments or reasons.  Click   Add , and then navigate to a folder or create a new folder where the paper or papers will be uploaded. Note: Papers added to folders in the Private tab are only viewable you you, the instructor. Papers added to folders in the Shared tab are viewable by any one with a role above a student in the course – so TAs, additional instructors, etc.
• Click   Submit Paper .
• Submit as Draft:  A SafeAssign report will be generated however the paper will not be added to the institutional database and will not be used to check other papers.
• Skip Plagiarism Checking:  Adds the papers to the institutional database without checking for content copied from other sources. This is useful if an Instructor wants to upload papers from an earlier course to ensure that current students are not reusing work.
• Select   Upload File  and browse for the file. Individual papers as well as papers that are grouped in a .ZIP package are accepted. Alternatively,  select   Copy/Paste Document  and add the document text or a portion of the document into the paper text field.
• Click   Submit .

Result times vary depending on how many papers are be submitted to the system at any time.  Please allow for at least 2 hours.

Supported file types : Direct Submit supports the following file types:

• Microsoft Word document: .doc or .docx
• OpenOffice documents: .odt
• Rich Text Format: .rtf
• HTML: .htm or .html
• Zip compressed: .ZIP used to upload multiple files.
• Portable Document Format: .pdf

Common Issues :

Multiple Drafts : If you're planning to use Safe Assign on a writing assignment where students submit several drafts of the same paper, be sure to use the Multiple Attempts option because, otherwise, SafeAssign may incorrectly flag the second draft as self-plagiarism of the first.

Use as a teaching tool : Please don't use SafeAssign to punish your students for plagiarism if you haven't given them guidance on the rules. While it might be expected that, at the college level, one would not have to teach students to properly cite their sources, the truth of the matter is that many students don't yet have these skills, and the majority of plagiarism is accidental rather than intentional. Safe Assign allows students to check their paper for originality and, if they do so, then the software will let them know if there are issues to correct before they submit the paper to you. You'll get better papers as a result, and students will learn how to cite properly.

Submissions : Students can either compose a submission in the built-in editor by clicking the Write Submission button, or they can compose offline in a word processor (you should specify which file formats you'll accept) and upload the file by clicking Browse My Computer and selecting the file on their computer. Students sometimes mistakenly attempt to write their submission in the comments box, so be sure to tell them that the comments box is just for comments you would send to the instructor alongside the submission. If the submission is lengthy, or if the student wishes to retain a copy, we recommend composing offline. This also allows students to spell check and save as they go, and is important if they will be revising the paper after your feedback on the first draft. It's also possible to compose offline in your favorite word processor and then copy/paste the submission and submit it.

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Answer Last Updated: Jul 06, 2023 Views: 110

Please see this help page for information about safeassign. .

Be sure to watch the tutorial for  SafeAssign Help for Students   for instructions.

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SafeAssign Score: Interpret Good Scores and Reduce Bad ones

• by Judy Jeni
• January 16, 2024

Safe assign is a plagiarism detector software that many students use to determine the originality of their work. It works by scanning the submitted work against its several databases like such as campus database, information, or global database.

This software is effective in that it uses a great algorithm to detect matches. It will give a percentage of how your paper matches with other sources.

What is a SafeAssign Score?

A SafeAssign score is a percentage that indicates the similarity of the text in the uploaded file to that of the files on the internet and BlackBoard’s global database. The score acts as an indicator of similarity hence it may not be an indicator of plagiarized work. The professor has to interpret the score to determine if there is plagiarism or not.

This is because the score shows the level of the submitted paper that matches the sources from the existing SafeAssign database.

Instructors and students should review their papers to see how they score. By examining the paper, you will take the necessary action concerning plagiarism.

Also, you can employ the SafeAssign alternatives to handle plagiarism before you submit your final draft.

How to Check SafeAssign score

The best way to check the SafeAssign score is to upload the paper as a draft. Suppose they allow for multiple attempts; you will have the chance to see the originality report before submitting it.

nce you upload your document, the SafeAssign will scan your documents and give feedback on the final score.

How to Read and Interpret SafeAssign Scores

Once you upload your document, the SafeAssign will scan it and produce a score for you. The only challenge will emerge if you want to interpret the given score. It will indicate to you the originality report in terms of percentage that matches other works.

Interpreting SafeAssign Scores

When you see the matching scores, it usually implies that the two phrases may carry similar meanings.

When you read the overall score, you will view the entire percentage of the submitted paper against the existing sources.

Before you interpret the report, it is vital to know the three levels of this plagiarism scanner.

They include as follows:

1. Low SafeAssign Plagiarism Score

It is a type of score that occurs below 15%. If your paper has few common phrases or quotes, it is likely to land in this category. As such, it indicates that your documents have a few matches against other works. Most times, such a paper may not need further analysis.

If the score is below 15%, the paper has some common blocks or quotes that may match other documents. The good news is such papers will not need further analysis since they lack any traces of plagiarism.

2. Medium SafeAssign Plagiarism Level

It is a type of score that comes between 15 to 40 percent. That type of document reflects that that has vast materials that you quoted or paraphrased. It is an excellent indicator that you plagiarized depending on the number of similarities that the software detected.

When the SafeAssign score is between 15% and 40%, then it is an indicator that it has some paraphrased materials or extensive quoting.

More importantly, it may also include plagiarism. As such, the faculty must review such a document to establish if the author attributed the matching content correctly.

However, there are times when Turnitin or SafeAssign scan says you plagiarized but you did not and it is just normal. This is an example of false negatives.

Some institutions accept this level, although the content requires extra interpretation from the professors. Such matches could also indicate that it has some external or copied sources.

Once found in a similar situation, it means it may attract the attention of your instructor. You might have to review it again to determine if the content that has some matching needs proper referencing.

3. High SafeAssign Plagiarism Score

It is a unique score that is above 40%. The situation is an excellent indicator that some sections of your work come from SafeAssign and other online sources.

Any kind of plagiarism that is beyond 40% is highly unacceptable.

Besides, since that paper contains a high percentage of matching text, it may require a plagiarism review.

When the paper scores beyond 40%, it shows that the author copied most of the text from various sources; hence it is plagiarism.

The matching text could include paraphrased or quoted text. Such a paper must undergo review for plagiarism. 

The Acceptable SafeAssign Score

Ideally, there lacks an acceptable SafeAssign percentage since every institution has its unique policies on that. The percentage will differ from one university to the next. Remarkably, there lacks a universally accepted level.

However, the commonly acceptable SafeAssign score should be the one that comes below 15 %. This is because low scores show that your submitted work has a few cases of matching text.  Most universities regard that as a good similarity score since it lies within safe levels of 0 to 15% similarity.

When your document ranges within this level, it means that your content is above 75% pure work. The remaining percentage is a result of references and quotes to offer evidence to your arguments.

Since SafeAssign recognizes paraphrased and quoted work as matching text, the instructor and the writer must review the paper to handle such cases.

What is a Bad SafeAssign score

A bad SafeAssign score is that one that is 40% and above. Undoubtedly, it is a great indicator that you got most of your content from online sources. It also shows that you have a low original work which references alone cannot explain.

How to Reduce SafeAssign Score

You can guard your paper against any plagiarism, even if it could be accidental. It would be best if you avoided plagiarism as it is an unethical issue that can ruin your academic life. Writing your work while tolerating plagiarism is like theft since you want to benefit from it.

More importantly, you can avoid plagiarism to promote your work integrity. You can use the following method to overcome it and save your career from the associated consequences.

1. Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is a safe method of securing your work to be on the right side by rewriting ideas from your sources.

You can present the information in your text without altering the meaning of the context. In the same vein, you must be careful since paraphrasing can slip into plagiarism when done wrongly.

You have to dance with words to experience successful paraphrasing. The author must reword and format the writing to make it appear original.

You should also endeavor to avoid making use of similar words without diluting the meaning of the phrase. Since you are using someone’s idea, you must cite it correctly.

More importantly, be sure to paraphrase thoroughly to avoid any matches. Remember, SafeAssign checks the Internet , which makes it very accurate to detect any slight copying from the web.

2. Cite Sources

If you are using an idea that originated from someone else’s work, it is vital to add a citation. This could be an in-text citation or using a footnote citation to identify the original author.

Let every citation correspond to the complete reference at the end of your paper. In the process, it allows the readers to locate the sources suppose they want to get additional details.

Several citation styles exist with varying rules. The most common ones are MLA, APA, or Chicago style. Read the instructions well to know which style the instructor recommended.

3. Put Reference Page

It is always reasonable to maintain records of the type of sources you refer to. For instance, you are free to use citation software like Reference Manager to handle all the citations you used in your documents.

You are free to use many references for the background information. For example, instead of referencing a review, you can refer to or cite the individual papers.

4. Use Quotes

One way of avoiding plagiarism is to use simple quotation marks. The text should be within the quotation mark to indicate that the content is not yours.

You can use a direct quote to let the audience know who the owner of those words is.

When you are quoting, it implies that you are copying text by text. You should use the copied text in the original words and enclose it with quotation marks.

After that, you should attribute it to the original author correctly.

Generally, you should quote sparingly. The quotes could only be relevant if you want to use the exact definition as used by the original author.

Also, you can use a quote if you cannot rephrase the text without losing the meaning. Finally, we use quotes to retain the authority and style of the writer’s words.

5. Explain to the Teacher

Lastly, you can access your teacher and explain your case. For instance, it could be accidental plagiarism which may cause your work to lose credibility.

You can review the content with your instructor and perhaps make some necessary changes to make it above the bar.