Sunday 10 February 2013

Plagiarism: The Scourge of the Copywriter




As a copywriter nothing is more frustrating than producing a unique, well written article only to discover that it has been copied and pasted and placed on another website under a different author name.

Hours of research and writing are all undone by what can only be described as lazy writers and ‘freelance’ copywriters that take on bulk projects and are unable to hit specified deadlines, therefore resorting to ‘copy theft’ in order to meet the requirements of those they exploit.

A minority of individuals take the profession of ‘copywriter’ quite literally. Simply they copy the work of honest, legitimate writers and pass it off as their own. The problem has become so widespread that websites now exist that monitor the uniqueness of content in order to stamp 
out copy plagiarising.

The World Wide Web is a awash with content and, due to the substantial amount of written content that is uploaded on a daily basis, there is a high percentage chance that content will be copied and re-submitted under another author name.

Some would argue that there is no harm in such a practice, after all much of the news content on the web is often regurgitated and presented in a different way. Whilst this is a true statement, the negative impact that it has on writers that create the original content can be quite costly.

The largest culprit for copied content are freelance sites, whereby certain individuals, describing themselves as copywriters, take on small, medium or massive writing projects advertised by businesses all over the world, yet these so called ‘writers’ have absolutely no writing experience at all.

Such ‘writers’ resort to scouring the internet to trace content worthy of piecing together an article for unsuspecting clients that will meet approval and often that content is plagiarised from the work of other writers.

Whilst the content is ‘well written’, a closer look will reveal that because the content has often been sourced from several different sources, a tactic used to try and hide the fact that content is copied, it often does not flow, make sense or remain on topic.

Therefore, it could be argued that not only does plagiarism devalue the work of the original writer; it means that the recipients of copied content often end up with a disjointed article that is nonsensical, of poor quality and completely substandard for the intention it was purposed for.

Unfortunately, the problem continues to escalate, despite the introduction of websites put in place (e.g. Copyscape) to monitor and penalise those that simply plagiarise another writer’s work.

The continued problem has a derogatory impact on genuine copywriters looking to make an honest living. Trust in the freelance market has also suffered in terms of the quality that freelance service users can expect. However, the use of freelance writers has increased due to economic recession and businesses looking to cut back on costs.

However, although the use of freelancer writers has increased, this has also opened the door for rogue copywriters to exploit unsuspecting customers all in the interests of making quick money.

The key piece of advice that Write House can give is that ‘cheaper is not always the solution’. Common sense should prevail and those seeking the services of a copywriter should do their research, check credentials and references and finally, if you’re serious about using the services of a top copywriter or copywriting service you have to be prepared to pay the going rate.

In this instance, the term ‘you get what you pay for’ could not be more accurate.

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