Plagiarism in Blogging: Why Is It Bad and How Can It Be Avoided
Actively preventing plagiarism in blogging is crucial to running a reliable and trustworthy website. Duplicate content worries many bloggers because of the potential consequences for their sites’ search engine results.
Ensuring that the content you create or that other bloggers contribute is original is definitely the best technique and the use of a good plagiarism checker tool can be quite beneficial for bloggers and website owners.
If you face this issue while creating your website content strategy, you’re in the right place. In this post, we will explain what plagiarism is, the different types of plagiarism, and how to prevent it.
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of misrepresenting someone’s work or ideas as your own. This can take a number of different shapes:
- Complete (direct) plagiarism. This is the most obvious plagiarism type. It means that people will copy whole pieces of content from other websites and publish them on their own blogs without getting permission or providing credit.
- Partial plagiarism. Partial plagiarism occurs when someone uses your content in sections (entire paragraphs, a portion of a blog post, etc.) while also adding their own words in between.
- Lazy plagiarism. This type of plagiarism occurs when the author fails to distinguish general observations from actual quotes. This may occur unintentionally or on purpose. The presence of a footnote in a case of lazy plagiarism does not excuse the use of another person’s words without putting them in quote marks.
Why should you avoid plagiarism?
There is a number of reasons why plagiarism should be avoided. By using someone else’s intellectual property without their permission, you violate their trust. You also steal credit for another person’s work and pass it off as your own.
If you steal someone else’s work, you come across as dishonest and amoral, which will hurt your blog’s traffic and damage its search engine ranking. Not to mention, if you are discovered, you may be sued for copyright infringement, which may result in a high fine.
How to prevent plagiarism
How can you avoid copying others? Is there a way to preserve other people’s originality, as well as your blog’s quality and reputation? Here are some pointers to help you avoid plagiarism and ensure you always publish original content.
Do your research
Limiting your research raises the possibility of plagiarism. If you take all of your ideas from a single resource, you run the risk of adopting its format, wording, and other recognizable features. Reading widely and researching thoroughly is the best way to avoid unintentional content duplication.
Don’t rush
Plagiarism frequently occurs when a deadline is approaching and you have to finish your next blog post quickly. For this reason, planning enough time should be the first step of your writing process. To ensure that you don’t include any elements that you didn’t write yourself, be sure to revise and double-check your writing.
Use quotes and attributes
When you use someone else’s words, ensure that your readers understand where those words are coming from. The same rules apply if you intend to include someone else’s original thought or argument. Be sure to provide a link to the original source, even if you express the idea in your own words.
Paraphrase
If the information you are disseminating is universal knowledge and does not require attribution, be sure to rephrase and modify it. Remember, using the same words or phrases will only result in you being penalized for duplicating material.
Check for plagiarism
Finally, checking is the best technique to ensure that your article is original. This entails using a plagiarism checker tool that will assess whether your work is original or plagiarized by comparing your writing to existing online sources.
Final thoughts
With such a big number of articles published daily, there will inevitably be some information overlap and content duplication. But that is no justification for you to neglect your efforts to refrain from misrepresenting the work of others as your own.
By writing carefully, keeping an account of your sources, including links, and using good plagiarism checker tools, you not only protect yourself against accusations of copyright infringement but also increase the quality of your blog and website.
