Plagiarism is a crime that no one can justify be it a student, a teacher, content writer, or business person. It is not a new concept to the world but recently it is being done conveniently. People think of it as the best way to get the work done in a short time without any hassle but they are not aware of its long-term consequences.
People have lost business ethics and due to fast running world and business people, just copy/paste the work of others. Many companies are paying high salaries to their content writers who are working hard to create unique and informative content. And when some other businesses copy their content without citation isn’t this unethical as well as hurting.
You can’t compete with your contenders based on plagiarized content. To keep yourself up in the race you need to work hard to create valuable content for the audience. Only exclusive content can attract people to your business. This is the only way to engage them effectually.
Kinds of plagiarism:
There are many kinds of plagiarism.
Copy/paste or direct plagiarism: This is when you pick the exact piece of content from a source and put it up on your site as yours. Involving verbatim, and copying a whole paragraph, and publishing it without citation or quotation marks. It is an obvious kind of plagiarism and shows your dishonesty to your readers.
Self-plagiarism: Intentionally or not copying your work is called self or auto-plagiarism. When writing on the same topic or niche many times you can mix your previous content with the recent without knowing. Sometimes you think that you are writing a new article but it includes a summary or repurposing of the old one.
Don’t take it as normal or undamaging because you are copying your own because it has some level of consequences. Google will not see if its self-plagiarized or global plagiarized it will only take your site to the lowest positions.
Patchwork plagiarism: It is also called mosaic plagiarism. When you use paraphrased content of someone else’s without citation or quoting. It is a bit tricky because in this you will be picking up the content from several different sources to avoid getting caught. You change the words with their synonyms and sentence structure but still, it is plagiarism.
Accidental or unintentional plagiarism: Citing the wrong source or missing out on the source as well as not putting on quotation marks on accident is called accidental plagiarism. Plagiarism does not need to always happen on purpose it can be unintentional.
Source-based plagiarism: When you are using content or lines from two or more sources but only mentioning one source on your site. It also comprises when you cite a non-existing source to fool people. What kind of this plagiarism can be the worst? When you fabricate the source.
Complete plagiarism: It is well known as global plagiarism also. It is when you copy/paste A to Z content from one site to yours. Taking up the whole idea, whole content, and concept. It is not only copying, when you get your content written by someone else and then you publish or upload it with your name is also complete plagiarism.
Consequences of Plagiarism for your business:
There are many repercussions of plagiarism that you have to face at any cost.
Destroys brand image:
One of the biggest repercussions would be no trust relationship between you and customers. The image of your brand will be tarnished because prospects and audiences won’t be able to put their trust in your business. People don’t want to see copied, forged, or boring content. They look up to new and valuable content from you. Seeing the old and duplicated work they will be disappointed causing damage to your brand’s image.
Legal penalties:
You must have heard the term copyright laws or copyright violation. Yes, sometimes plagiarism can make you face legal repercussions. When you copy the content of another author without citing his name or reference he can register a case against you. Do you want yourself behind the bars? I think no, then why risk your living or career.
Difficulty to build a business in the future:
When people will lose their trust in you and your brand it will not be easy to rebuild it. In the future, if you will aim to start your business from scratch you will have to work extra hard to get the trust of the audience. You will need to create extraordinary content to grab people’s attention.
What ways you can adapt to avoid plagiarism?
May ways are there for you to escape the title of plagiarized content. Let’s discuss those tips.
- Make a list of sources:
When you are rushing to complete your task or running out of time, there is a possibility that you can mess up the sources. Organize the whole data you are gathering from the internet with their sources beside them. It will help you cite the correct source with its data. You can well organize in spreadsheets, documents, MS excel, or folders. It will also tell people that whatever you are putting up on your site is well understood by you.
- Use quotation marks:
When you want to copy line to line or word to word don’t forget to put a quotation mark around the text. Placing quotation marks will tell people clearly that this particular data or line is taken from such a source or said by a certain person.
Examples:
“How do we define success? There are many different tactics for how to be successful in life, but the strategy that works best for you may depend on your view of success itself. We often think of it as doing well at work or earning a high salary.” (www.verywellmind.com)
Or
“But Dumbledore says he doesn’t care what they do as long as they don’t take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
This is one of the best ways to avoid plagiarism because it makes clear to the people that you are not trying to pass on the particular content as your own. It shows them that you are giving credit to the author.
- Paraphrasing:
Rewording is a good technique to avoid plagiarism. In paraphrasing the concept remain unchanged as of the source but rewording and expressions are different.
You can do this by using paraphrasers available online. They will do work for you accurately and effectively within seconds. They replace the words with their closest alternatives and alter sentence structure. You can try the below-given paraphrasers.
https://www.prepostseo.com/paraphrasing-tool
- Insert your ideas:
After taking the idea and converting it into your own words you can add your new concept into it to make it more exclusive and attractive. This will change the whole vibe of the content and you will not be considered guilty of plagiarism at any cost.
- Check Plagiarism:
This step is most important, before submitting or uploading your content check it over a plagiarism checker. They will show you how much content of yours is copied and how much is unique so that before publishing you can remove plagiarized data. Try below-mentioned tool:
https://www.check-plagiarism.com/
It is super easy to use, you can copy/paste content that has to be checked or can upload a file. After that just click the button “Check Plagiarism”.
After that, it will show you the result shown under,
It tells you how much of your content is unique and how much is plagiarized. You can generate a plagiarism report and can make it unique with just one click.
