A Writer’s Theft

As a writer one of your main worries is – what if my content gets copied or duplicated by someone else? Similarly, is all the content you’ve written original or copied from elsewhere?

Writer or a Thief?

Have you heard of the word "P L A G I A R I S M"?

To put it in very simple words, plagiarism is stealing someone else’s content and calling it yours.

Okay… so now we won’t just copy-paste the text, but we’ll copy-paste, and use the "Synonyms" option in MS Word to replace a few keywords.FYI – that’s still plagiarism!

So what Exactly Accounts to Plagiarism?

• Using content written by someone else and calling it yours• Using a part of the original content… even one line• Acknowledging the original work, by providing a fake reference(source that does not exist or is incorrect)• Using someone else’s content without referencing to the source• Providing reference to the original source but modifying some of the content • Copying few lines from ten different sources to make one article and calling it yours – this one is most common!• Copying the flow of content while changing the words• Copying images, photos, videosCopying even three words in a line can account to plagiarism!

Tips to Prevent Plagiarism

How to prevent plagiarism?

Let’s start by thinking of instances when you would land up plagiarising:

• You don’t have the domain knowledge required for the title you are writing about• You are not confident about your English writing skills• You just cat get started on the topic• It’s that one day, you just don’t feel like writing, but have to submit that urgent article• You are working on tight timelines and just want to finish off things

Here’s how you can help yourself remain original – at lease with written words:

Research online; refer at least three websites for your understanding. Close all the reference sites and just write down what you understood. That’s the best way because no two writers can write the same line in exactly the same way… unless you are looking at the line and typing it down or have memorized it.If you want to use someone else’s text, use it as is – no changing anything, and provide the author’s name and source link as a reference. This is not termed as plagiarism.

Ensure that the source you have cited is correct and accessible.Keep track of your citations. It is common to forget saving the source while getting deep into research. Don’t keep this task aside for later, as you may land up spending hours to locate that same source again.

Use free online tools like Copyscape to check for plagiarism.

Would you like it if a plagiarist stole your authentic hard work and credited it to his/her name? It does not matter which community of writing you belong to – blog writers in Mumbai, technical writing services India, content writers in Mumbai, or writers in New York – plagiarism is an ethical fraud and will put a question mark on your career and integrity forever…

A request to all those who’ve read this article… please do not copy-paste it and call it yours! ;-)

Delnaz Edulji, the founder of Stylus aims to characterize documentation through her learning and contributions to the industry in her role as a writer for a start-up firm, moving on to a team lead and project manager at a CMM Level 5 US based company