I wanted to make a post for everyone talking about plagiarism. This is a serious thing on this platform as well as many other platforms. Many of us not only post on the Steemit Platform but are posting on other platforms like Whaleshares and Weku. If you are creating content on any platform plagiarism is your worst enemy. It can and will cause you to get blacklisted and downvoted and you will not be trusted as a quality content creator.
What Is It To Plagiarize?
According to the dictionary, it means
to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source
to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
"Source"
"Plagiarize." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 26 Dec. 2018.
So plagiarism is using someone's idea to create a post or just copy and pasting it into a post and not give the original author credit for his work. You attempt to pass it off as your own original work. I want to put this in an idea that you might understand, I was in college for two years studying psychology, a fact many do not know, I dropped out because of the problems I suffer from with PTSD from military service. That can be another whole post, the point I want to make is in college we had papers to write and if we were plagiarizing someone else's work we got an "F" on that paper and if we did it three times we failed that course and had to redo that whole course. If we continued to steal someone else's work we were kicked out of school with that reason on our college transcripts. In the real world there is a price to pay for plagiarism, as there is on these platforms also.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/5129607997
I am not saying that we can not use something we found on the internet or in a book to help us convey a message to others and put it in our posts on these platforms. I am saying if we find it from another's writings or another person's work we need to site the sources and where we found it. This also goes for images and pictures, we sometimes want to use a picture and we find one that fits our post. We are not able to take one of own because we are in a different region of the world and what we need is not near us or we need something specific we cannot get access too. The same rules apply for images also, we need to cite a source for that picture or image we used if we did not take it or draw it ourselves.
How To Cite Sources!
Many content creators, myself included, do not go far enough sometimes in citing a source. If people what to know more they can go here and see the whole article, that is most people's opinion. If it is something important to me I want people to go and read that article so I will make use of that are article in my post. Many do this on these platforms using the Monospace feature in the editor, like I did above with the dictionary meaning of "Plagiarize" and then put the source where they got it from below it. If I want others to look at another post on the platforms I am on I will use the Monospace feature to put a quote from that post in my post and get them interested enough to go over and that a look at that post or the content I want to share. If it is a post from the platforms I am on I will put the picture in the post also with the title. I would consider that citing a source. If it is an article I will put the name of that article with the authors name and a link where I found it. If the source of something you are using in your post please us the citation (Source Unknown) only use that if you do not know who wrote it or where the original source is from. Sometimes things are put up as an anonymous writer and no one really knows where it was started. If it is your pictures or images or it is something you wrote own it with putting yourself as the source.
In photos or images I will put where I got it from below the image, some of the creators put a clickable link that takes then to the source.It is all a matter of opinion on how you cite your sources. For am example of how to cite a image or photo look above at the photo in this post! Here is another example of citing an article source.
How Do I Cite Sources?
You have to think about how you want to identify your sources. If your sources are very important to your ideas, you should mention the author and work in a sentence that introduces your citation. If, however, you are only citing the source to make a minor point, you may consider using parenthetical references, footnotes, or endnotes.
https://www.plagiarism.org/article/how-do-i-cite-sources
Make an honest effort to cite your sources and make sure others know where you got the content and add something new to it. Do not let greed or the pressure of having to make a post drive you.
It is my opinion, that if we do not create our own new content, if we just continue to use others content then we will always just be at the same point we are today, all of these platforms will fail. If we are not adding and creating new content we are just regurgitating used content and at that point we are not learning and understanding anything new. Take the old content that we use and make it fresh so we can further our own understanding of it and help others learn and grow. Be an original content creator! If you have questions leave them in the comments below and I will try to answer them the best I can. I am not an expert on this subject but a little effort can go a long way.
Thanks for reading this post! Please upvote, follow, and resteem this post. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and had some time with friends and family. Have a great day everyone!
@steemitbloggers
Plagiarism is a problem everywhere. I teach in a high school, and we are always battling with the students - trying to enlighten them on the problem with using someone else's work without citation. Even with the large amount of online citation generators available now, they still struggle to do this correctly.
I know! most of the articles on the internet have a citation in the footnotes of the article. It took me a little while to get it right when I started college but the instructors were more than willing to help. I have noticed on many platforms when you make a comment about it trying to help, many get mad about it.
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Plagiarism is a No No and will not get you anywhere. Creating original content and photos is much more fun. As you mentioned if using someone else's material should be cited as a respect to the owner. Giving credit to those who worked hard for the material. Happy Holidays!
It is too easy to site your sources and make a great write up of you own. Many will just copy and paste and do not what to make something their own. I guess you could say they do not respect anyone else so they respect themselves even less. Thanks for reading!
sorry to hear about your PTSD. I hope that you have found ways to deal with it now!! and you are right on with Plagiarism
Thanks! I have found ways to deal with it and not taking all the pills the VA wants to push on many vets. Moving out to the middle of nowhere helped a lot. Have family that cares really helps also.
We will never be able to prevent plagiarism completely, but we should not be afraid to point out when we discover it.