You're Being Scammed! How To Find Out

Here's a little piece of trivia for you. With the emergence of the Internet and the ease of use when it comes to wireless hotspots, 3G networking and other ways that make it easy for us to communicate, plagiarism has also increased tremendously over the last couple of years. In some studies that were conducted, they say that the number of cases on plagiarism has increased to as much as 40 per cent over the last couple of years. This means that more and more people have been taking the lazier route when it comes to churning out thoughts and ideas. While others use written and printed material for inspiration, there are also others who use it because of the lack of time to publish something of their own.

How exactly do you know if you are already being scammed? There are several ways for you to find out. You need to make sure that you are able to protect yourself, you understand the actual definition of the terms scamming and plagiarism. Remember that there is no such thing as "borrowing" your work - it's either they quote you as their source or that would already be a count of plagiarism against them. If you are a writer, it is always best to make sure that you are able to copyright your work, which means that you are the only person who can republish your material, and everyone else would need to ask permission from you.

If you are using written work and are hiring other people to publish articles, blog posts or the like, it is also best that you stick with professionals instead of just hiring someone off the street. Should you wish to do that, you should make sure that you are very conservative in hiring a writer that can do the job for you. As a company, if one of your staff members commits an act of scamming or plagiarism, then you will also be held accountable for it, so it is much better for you to be cautious.

Scamming Is Addictive

If you have never had anyone try to plagiarize your work, well, you are in luck. There is no worst feeling in the world than reading something written by another person, and then seeing parts of your article in the mix. What's even more horrible is if they just took the entire piece you wrote and changed the author's name to theirs! I have been in this situation before, and while it can seem flattering at first, it could really be frustrating and mind boggling to think that a person can be lazy enough to just change their name to suit their own personal needs.

Technology has certainly changed the way we do things, and plagiarism is actually something that can be done in a matter of seconds. I don't know if you have heard of those article spinning tools that manage to replace some of the words in your written work and change it with something else. These rewriting mechanisms are perfect for those who are trying to churn articles and posts in bulk, but can be a real pain for those who took the time to do their own research on the subject.

In the fast paced and crazy world that we live in, it is certainly very tempting and addictive to just plagiarize. Whether it would be to make money, to meet a deadline or just to take credit for someone else's, we have already established the fact that plagiarism is a lazy man's job. Someone who does not want to take the time to conjure up words of their own will just grab off someone else's. Embarrassing, but there are a lot of court cases on intellectual property rights that can be quite obvious and lengthy.

If you absolutely have to use someone else’s thought or idea, keep in mind that that is what quotes are for. There is absolutely nothing wrong in using quotations. Don’t fall into the easy way out. Remember that the long term effects of plagiarism can ruin your reputation and yoru career, so no matter how addicting it is, it is better to stay away from it.

Plagiarism, Redefined

We have talked about scams and plagiarism in a few other articles, but in the field of writing, you want to make sure that you are able to have a good understanding of the nuances that go with the term. While a lot of people may automatically assume that plagiarism can easily be avoided, the World Wide Web has made it extremely difficult (and tempting at that!) to try and copy off someone else's work or ideas.

What exactly does plagiarism mean to us? Almost every industry would have their own interpretation of plagiarism, and while there may be varying degrees to it, in essense it would be the conscious stealing of another person's thoughts and passing it off as your own. This is typically used in studies, experiments, theories and articles, but today, almost any kind of printed matter can be passed along as plagiarism.

This is not to say that you can only print words that are your own and nothing else. Remember that being able to refer to another person's thoughts or ideas is perfectly acceptable, only as long as you are acknowledging your sources. Remember that you do not always have to seek their permission to be able to print something that they wrote. All you have to do is quote the author and the book that you got it from and making sure that it did not appear like you were the one who actually wrote it.

Being able to avoid plagiarism can be tricky, but it is certainly not impossible to avoid. The minute that you are quoting off a sentence or two from a different source and passing it off as your own can make you use your entire career, so you want to make sure that you are really very careful about adapting words and phrases that you have read somewhere else. At the end of the day, you want to be able to take pride in written work that was based off of your own imagination and creativity, not something that you mooched off of the hard work of someone else.