Imagine penning down your most intimate thoughts about a topic and then publishing it online. Now think of a scenario where another person ‘borrows’ significant sections from this post for their own article, without giving you any credit for it. How hurt would you be? That is plagiarism.
Practise developing your ideas and writing articles independently at first – without taking the help of quotes, data/statistics, newspaper reports, research studies, etc.
To avoid the need to borrow concepts, ideas and thoughts from others, be sure of your own arguments and how you want to validate them before writing the article itself.
There’s often a very thin line between fact and opinion. Be aware of the difference between the two.
Be careful of ‘copy-pasting’ stuff from other sites and sources. It is only to be expected that the sites and sources would be as protective of their content as you would be, of your own articles. So always credit the source