Plagiarism: You Won't See it the Same Way Ever Again!
When we think about it, pretty much any piece of content does contain some “plagiarized” portions no matter what the topic or the source.
As a freelance writer, I did plenty of “rewording” gigs when clients specifically asked for a piece to be rewritten. And I’m still selling original content. So the concept of plagiarism is on the table, since we all are concerned especially that “content” is the holy grail of affiliate marketing.
“Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.” Wilson Mizner
The idea of taking the words or ideas of others and passing them off as one’s own, is known as “plagiarism”, but this well-ingrained tradition of “immaterial theft” so to speak, does not stop at this limit and goes much further.
Plagiarism is indeed a practice that goes way back in the history of literature and arts, and it is difficult to fix its boundaries.
Throughout the ages, from antiquity up until today, the imitation of authors by successors, has raised many controversies, indignation, and justifications. And the ill-defined concept of “Intellectual Property” doesn’t help.
The practice is directly related to the evolution of techniques of reproduction of texts, from the copyists of ancient times, the invention of printing press, to the disruptive effects of digitization.
In Fiction, plagiarism is less common nowadays and, if any, it’d be glaring. Yet we found a way around: Fan Fic, for example, is basically pure plagiarized content but somehow considered legit. Fanfic writers are like: “ I like that person or that story, this is an homage!” BTW, with all due respect, I think Fanfic writers just can’t come up with their own stories, so they rehash other’s stuff.
In Non-fiction, however, as soon as non-fiction news hits the web, the next day there’d be oodles of websites perorating on it. And there’s nothing wrong about that. But the search for references, associated with the practice of CTRL-C/CTRL-V, sometimes leads to misuse and abuse.
Plagiarism is a Multi-Faceted Issue:
Turnitin, a platform that offers among other things anti-plagiarism software for students, conducted a worldwide survey and asked 900 instructors about prevalent plagiarism practices in education institutions. Their findings are gathered in the two infographics below:
10 Types of Plagiarism:
Frequency and Problematic:
Turnitin gives the results for free as a poster to raise awareness. For more info, you could visit their website.
Then again, Turnitin, to make these infographic, must have "replaced, mushed up and made fit together" the thoughts and words of 900 instructors interviewed :) :) :)
ZED,
Recent Comments
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I think that is an interesting topic and I love your quote: “Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.” Wilson Mizner" - with which I have done another plagiarism, posting it here....
Really, all academic works are citing authorities and then they add a tiny little bit of their own. This is a pure necessity when you want to give your 5 cents to something, you have to state it first - and in its unaltered way. Otherwise you are not trustworthy and people accuse you of falsification or what not.
All the things we have learned in life come from someone else who has taught us. We add something, but we are based on what we got from others. So the attempt of avoiding what others have already said, written or done for not being guilty of plagiarism is just not possible - if we don't want to invent the wheel from scratch.
Absolutely! And I think our present preoccupation of copyright etc is just totally exaggerated. We all have our knowledge from somewhere else, we cannot claim it as our own!
You got it Heidi, that's the point. Some here mentioned plagiarism checkers, which aren't the focus of the post: it's how plagiarism and intellectual property are nuanced. That said, we should everyone his due, a link to a source, or quotation marks won't hurt anybody :)
Yes, sure. Unless the material is explicitly free (like on Pixabay) we always need to name the source and the creator when we quote them, and even name them when we got the inspiration and ideas from them. Certainly, after a time when you have assimilated many ideas from many people, books, films etc, you cannot know anymore which particular piece comes from where. It just has formed your own, self-mixed knowledge base.
The point isn't "plagiarism checkers to ensure original content" and although these tools are useful to "certain extent" they can't specify which of plagiarism sneaky nuanced types the writer used to get unduplicated content, the copy/paste one being the most obvious.
For me plagiarism is not a big deal today.. I'm using a plagiarism checker and then article rewriter so I can transform any text in original.. I can make any text 100% unique..
Thank you for sharing this..
Pat
Sure Pat, we all do, but which of these 10 types you use to get there :)
BTW, article auto spinners fall under the Find-Replace type and in a poorly way.
Thanks, Ziane!
I find, in certain situations, that I have to take care not to brush with the Find-Replace one.
But the longer I do niche research, the easier it will be to steer clear of it......
Great share!
In this context, we're speaking of "keywords" in the more general sense, not affiliate marketing-wise. You get the point.
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Most interesting topic, there's much to be discussed here. Thanks.:)
Vera
You're welcome Vera!