: Re: What is the best way to avoid plagiarism when importing information from a source? I have been a habitual writer since my childhood but recently planned to move on to the next level and use

@Phylliss352

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The best way to avoid plagiarising content is by avoiding plagiarising content.

Now, as obvious as that probably sounds when stated like that, bear with me for a second before you hit the downvote arrow. This question really boils down to, do your texts really need to include the actual text of the cited work incorporated verbatim into your own text?

My experience is that a lot of the time, they don't, and it can even be a distraction from the original point that you are trying to make. Assuming that the reader is familiar with the subject matter further exacerbates this: by incorporating text that describes something the reader is already familiar with, you detract from what you are trying to add on top of that.

Thus, verbatim incorporation of the referenced text is at best superfluous, and more likely actively to the detriment of the purpose of the text that you are writing.

People who are reading a text on a "very technical" matter often have some level of background knowledge of the subject matter. The major exception to this is if what you are writing is specifically intended as an introduction to the subject, but in that case, the full and verbatim text of the referenced work is likely to do more harm than good in terms of helping the reader understand the subject matter. In neither case is incorporating the text of the reference verbatim to anyone's advantage (unless you are seeking to strictly increase your word count, but in that case, Lorem Ipsum is quicker).

As a somewhat contrived and almost certainly exaggerated example, I could incorporate the text of Wikipedia's article on plagiarism into this answer. It probably would probably be relevant, I wouldn't be violating any license terms as long as I give proper attribution (both the "subscriber content" of Stack Exchange, and the content of Wikipedia, is licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0), but it also almost certainly would not enhance your understanding of the answer. That last would make copying the Wikipedia article into this answer a poor choice. To a first order approximation, the text of the Wikipedia article is about ten printed pages; this answer would likely be completely buried in that mass of text (illustrating how verbatim incorporation of references can be outright detrimental).

If you feel your audience really need to have the text of the reference provided to them, and the license for the referenced article allows verbatim redistribution, consider attaching the referenced article as an appendix, clearly stating where it's from, who it's by, and any other relevant details (check the specific license for details). However, if the reference itself (as opposed to the referenced work) is any good, chances are you won't need to, because those who want to read the referenced work will be able to get to it and others can just go on with what they want to do.

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