A few years ago a young colleague of mine wrote a column for the weekly paper at which we worked that just flowed. Her words sang. She was funny. She was clever. She wrote an AWESOME piece.
I was exceedingly jealous. And in awe. I knew she wrote well. But THAT well? Wow!
And then it hit me. That column looked very familiar. Like something I’d just read in our small office’s copy of Cosmpolitan magazine. I grabbed Cosmo, checked the column and there it was — my colleague’s column and the one in Cosmo was almost word-for-word the same. Not exactly. But enough that I knew she’d tweaked it just a tad and then passed it off as her own.
And this was from a sweet young woman. Someone who would never think of stealing anything from anybody. Someone I knew I could trust with my darkets secrets.
I gently asked her about it. She started crying and told me she felt so inadaquate at the paper. She had no talent. She couldn’t possibly ever be a writer. She felt such pressure. She told me she knew she shouldn’t have done it and she was sorry she did. It would never happen again.
I knew it wouldn’t. I knew this was a freak incident on her part and I told her so. I also told her I would never tell our boss — and I never did.
And I’m happy to say my colleague never plagarized again (as far as I know). And she has gone on to a very successful career as a public relations professional.
Of course, our relationship was never the same. Her shame was too great — she could barely look me in the eye. .Oddly enough, she never felt she could trust me — after all, I knew her secret.
And, I must admit, I have always wondered if she truly could be trusted again. There was always some doubt in my mind about her.
Which brings me to plagarizm on the Web. It happens. A lot. Too much, does it happen. And if you use someone else’s content without his or her permission and without giving the writer the credit that is the author’s due, you are a thief.
Rewrite someone else’s article, changing a word here and there, omitting a paragraph or sentence or two. You’re still a thief.
And should you be found out, your site’s readers will always doubt you. Always.
Don’t let that happen to you. Either write the content yourself or hire me do to it for you.
Losing your site’s visitors’ trust is not worth it.
Business Writing That Means Business 