Avoiding Scholarship Essay Plagiarism: Things Everyone Should Know

Getting a scholarship from a renowned institute is incredibly hard. There is a lot of competition out there and you have to present yourself in the most authentic way to be able to get the scholarship. 

Writing a scholarship essay can increase your chances of getting awarded it. The mistake that most students make is that they use a pre-written, supposedly “proven” template to write the essay. 

But the admission committee comes across dozens of such templates regularly. They know when you plagiarize from a certain template. 

So, you need to make sure that you avoid copying or plagiarizing in your scholarship essay. 

In this article, we are going to share with you all you need to know about writing a unique, engaging, and plagiarism-free scholarship essay.

What is a Scholarship Essay?

When applying for a university, you are often given a chance to apply for a scholarship program based on your chosen course or academic history. 

When you apply, you are also required to write a scholarship essay, explaining why you should be the one selected for the scholarship. 

You can express yourself and your competency through the scholarship essay. Your goal is to impress the person reading the scholarship essay so that they find you worthy of the scholarship.  

Why Do You Need to Avoid Plagiarism in the Scholarship Essay?

A scholarship essay can make or break your chances of winning one. If your essay is not good enough, the admission committee is simply just going to move on to the next applicant. 

And if the essay has plagiarism in it, you are going to make a bad impression on the readers. They will categorize as you someone who’s being inauthentic. This is going to make things hard for you in terms of getting the scholarship.

Tips to Avoid Plagiarism in the Scholarship Essay

1. Read Scholarship Essay Samples

If you’ve never written a scholarship essay before, then it is always a good idea to read samples online. Looking at different ways of writing an essay can give you an idea about how you need to go through the whole process. 

You can see the kind of words that people use and the tone of the essay. After that, you can take your story and put it into words using the approach that seems right to you.

2. Take Notes 

When you read scholarship essay samples online, you always run the risk of plagiarism. So, instead of copying the source material, we suggest you take notes of the points that you want to discuss.

After that, you should take a piece of paper and start preparing a rough draft. You can work on the draft to make it better to the point where your essay gets ready. This greatly reduces the chances of running into plagiarism with your scholarship essay.

3. Write Your Story

When it comes to writing a scholarship essay, honesty matters the most. And whether you believe it or not, your writing can reflect your inner self. So, you need to make sure that you write “Your Story”, instead of random stuff. 

When the admission committee reads your story, they understand where you are coming from. Based on the information that they get from the story, they decide whether they should award you the scholarship, or not. 

4. Be Yourself

The most important thing when writing a scholarship essay is to continue being your true self. Doing that will ensure that you don’t have plagiarism issues in your content. 

When you are being true to yourself, you can be certain that you have given it your best shot. After that, it is up to the admission committee to decide about the scholarship. But the good thing is, you’d be completely satisfied with your efforts.

5. Use a Paraphrasing Tool

In case you are having writer’s block and you don’t know how to get out of it, we suggest you use a paraphrasing tool. You can put your content in the Paraphrase tool to make it unique and engaging. 

The rephraser eliminates the risk of plagiarism in your content. It protects you from the struggle of such issues and helps you write an effective essay to win the scholarship. This is why using a rephrase tool is so important in writing a scholarship essay.

6. Don’t Use Too Many Words

If your scholarship essay is wordy, no one is going to bother reading it till the end. Your goal should be to make the essay easily readable. You can do that by making it concise. 

If you are using a lot of long sentences and heavy words, suggest you avoid them. Make the sentences shorter and the paragraphs less wordy to make the content engaging and easy to read for your audience.

7. Proofread

Once you are done writing the scholarship essay, don’t think that your job is done yet. You need to read the essay again to find grammatical mistakes in it. 

If there are mistakes in the essay, it reflects a sense of irresponsibility in you. The readers won’t feel confident in your ability to handle difficult situations. You need to take your time and check the content for mistakes. 

You can also use an Online Grammar Checker to ensure that there are no errors in your essay. It is going to make things much simpler for you.

8. Check Plagiarism

Checking plagiarism is the final phase of the scholarship essay writing process. Even if you have written the entire essay yourself, there can still be accidental plagiarism in it. 

You need to avoid this plagiarism if you want to appear authentic. There are many online plagiarism checker tools out there that you can use for this purpose.

Final Words

Getting a scholarship is an incredible honor that also serves as a motivation for you to give your best in your academic career. So, if you compete for a scholarship, we suggest that you write an effective essay using our guidelines. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions regarding a scholarship essay.