Melania Trump, wife of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has come under fire for appearing to have plagiarized part of her Republican National Convention speech from First Lady Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Despite quotes from Melania Trump and a statement from the Trump campaign refuting the claim, the internet is not buying it.
Related: Melania Trump: I wrote convention speech with 'little help'
Melania Trump is not alone in being accused of plagiarism. Here is how you can avoid it yourself:
Attribute quotes
According to the Poynter Institute, if the unattributed language runs longer than seven words in multiple sentences with no quotes or other attribution, someone may be plagiarizing.
Don't paraphrase too much
If a speech has too much wording similar to the syntax of another work, it could be an indicator of plagiarism, or at the very least, dishonesty. Plagarism.org says to properly paraphrase, the words and syntax should be changed while retaining the content of the original source. It should also include a citation.
Avoid rewriting
Simply changing out words or rewriting -- commonly seen on sites with aggregated content -- is still a form of plagiarism. Some aggregating is fine, since it cites the original source, and is honest about said source but doing it excessively is still plagiarism.
Don't copy your own, older work
Even copying your own writing could be a form of plagiarism. If you reuse your own writing in whole or in part and don't point it out to readers, not only is it dishonest, but you are still plagiarizing, even if it is to a lesser degree.
Attribute attribute attribute
This is not ,a catch-all for avoiding plagiarism, but time and time again many approaches to avoiding plagiarism involve simply stating where information, words, quotes and phrases that were not originally yours came from.
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