Plagiarism in web articles
By Qaeyious
@Qaeyious (2357)
United States
March 8, 2009 1:01am CST
I suppose I should have guessed.
I have seen a few sites offering money for articles, short pieces of information on any topic to post to the net, searchable by search engines. You get paid for the traffic, or something like that.
I just responded to "Why do donuts have holes?" I thought it would be an easy topic to answer, and so I started to search.
There were over a dozen different sites that had the same exact story. Others just said that it was for even cooking, but there was a blurb and most that I initially spotted about a sea captain that stuck it on his ship's wheel, creating the hole, and he told his cook to make his fried cakes the same way from then on. Every single article that mentioned this "history" told it in the exact same way, with the same words.
Of course there is no way to verify where the original source was, since none of them included a source of that story.
I am very disturbed that this is allowed on so many sites. I was going to start writing such things on my own, but if this is allowed, I am now somewhat reluctant. Am I going to have to compete with these criminals?
4 people like this
7 responses
@Anora_Eldorath (6028)
• United States
8 Mar 09
I've had two of my articles and several of my husband's plagiarized that we've pulled most of our writings down from our websites. We still have the ezines up, but it was too expensive to prosecute the person who did it.
It still angers me though! It's my work, and I worked hard on it. As a teacher I have lectured my students about the consquences of plagiarism many times. It just amazes me that some adults have so little respect for their fellow human being.
The best one is when I've caught plagiarism and am told "Well you copied it from me". And most sites such as this one do very little about true plagiarism. They are too large to truly care.
I'm in the process of writing my thesis so my hope is that once it is published that I will have one more title behind my name to give me some protection, though I've realized that even for the published author there is very little protection without cost.
2 people like this
@Anora_Eldorath (6028)
• United States
23 Apr 09
Thanks for the BR. This was a really great topic that needed to be discussed. Namaste-Anora
@daneg33 (1128)
• Canada
9 Mar 09
There is such a thing as PLR articles which people buy in bulk. Most of these articles contain basic information, poorly written, so that you are forced to alter the article and put it into your own words to make it flow, so to speak. There will always be people who will copy your work, there isn't much you can do about it unless you have giant bags of money under your bed.
2 people like this
@AnythngArt (3302)
• United States
9 Mar 09
I get really disgusted with the copying that goes on online, but there is little that can be done except by websites who buy the material. Most of them don't spend much time investigating when the author has plagiarized. It's really up to other authors to report it when they see it, and even when we do, it doesn't mean there will be any real consequences.
I get annoyed by people who are too lazy to do their own research or even steal the ideas and work of others, reword them and then resell them. Still, with so little recourse, all I feel I can do myself is to keep on being an ethical person, creating original work online. (Hopefully the karma of these other robbers will catch up with them!)
The Internet is like the Wild West. A certain portion of people are just on there to rob the train when it comes by. Unless you have strong law enforcement, they will continue to get away with it.
@paid2write (5201)
•
8 Mar 09
I do know what you mean. I often write articles that require some research, and I find many websiters, blog posts and articles have simply copied the information from wikipedia, or from another source. If they don't use it as a quote or link to the original content it is plagiarism.
I'm not sure how other writing sites operate, but I write articles for Helium, the world's largest writing community, and they will seriously investigate any reported plagiarism in any article posted there. The Helium rating system compares different articles under the same title and will show if articles have similar content or use the exact same wording.
When I use information in my articles I either paraphrase it and cite the prime source, or rewrite an anecdote in my own words, stating "it is thought" or "it is believed" that this is the origin, because in that case there will be no way to verify it.
People who plagiarize are not always aware they are doing anything wrong, many of them are simply poor writers or lazy ones.
2 people like this
@jazzsue58 (2666)
•
9 Mar 09
I feel exactly the same. It's bad enough we have to know SEO backwards before our content can even be submitted - but then to know some little punk in Asia is 'paying' 30 bucks per 250 copied articles ... and there's always people willing to take the work on, usually from the same poor countries the plagiarists are operating from. Go to getafreelancer, Eulance etc - most of the requests for 'article content' are actually copy-paste-and-plagiarise requests.
2 people like this
@ljbinkop (744)
• United States
8 Mar 09
I think you are right, and there is rampant plagerism out there on the web today, and it sort of makes me mad. I sit down and write original articles, and try to get traffic for them, and others are copying and pasting and getting paid the same!
I do write for one site that really does NOT allow that, and that is eHow.com. I have written over 50 articles for them, and one time, they actually took one of them off the site because they said it was not my work!! I was really mad for that one, because it was a personal recipe, and definately not copied from anyone else. They are presently cleaning up their site to get the people who do plagerize off, so I hope it works.
2 people like this
@Sandra1952 (6047)
• Spain
19 May 09
I write on Bukisa. When you publish an article, you are asked to choose from 3 publishing licences, one of which allows no copying or syndication. I presume there is some mechanism on the site which prevents people from copying, but I don't really know. I always select this option, as I don't like to think of other people profiting from my work.
Plagiarism is rife on the web, and in their enthusiasm to curb it, sites get it wrong. Yesterday, one of my articles was deleted from Helium as I had 'plagiarised content from another author.' So what, you say? Well, the thing is, I'd used a section from ONE OF MY OWN ARTICLES and rewritten it with a different slant. So has someone else plagiarised my work? I'm hoping to get to the bottom of it, but don't hold your breath!
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 Feb 10
Helium, particularly, is well known to be very strict about this. I think that the TOS word it in such a way as to not allow content that has been previously posted elsewhere (which covers your own work as well as the plagiarism of other people's work). If you write for several sites, it's a good plan to publish an article on Helium first and to then submit it to other, less demanding, sites after a suitable delay.
Their wording is "Extra-Site Plagiarism refers to copying content from any source other than helium.com." (my italics). If you rewrote an article you had written elsewhere and left one paragraph substantially the same, Copyscape (or whatever tool they use) would pick that up and flag it as 'Extra-site Plagiarism', even though it's not 'plagiarism' (because it was something you wrote yourself).
1 person likes this
@Sandra1952 (6047)
• Spain
17 Feb 10
Hello, Owlwings. Actually, Helium does allow publication of its articles on other sites, as long as it's your own work. I did get that particular article reinstated, because I was able to prove it was my own work.
I stick with Helium now, because once you work out the system, it offers the best opportunities for earning. I just publish all my articles there, and I'm earning quite nicely now.
