Memories from:
"A Queen's Rambling: All Authors Magazine Issue 1"
Treasure Your Words:
Plagiarism and Its Impact
Being a writer is not an easy road to travel. As a writer, you are in a battle to be noticed by others who are trying to do the same thing. A writer struggles to be original in his/her expression when there are so many different themes being recycled. It is disheartening to read when someone has taken someone’s hard work and made it their own, not just in the realm of book publishing, like what occurred with Tammara Webbers’ “Easy” but with internet blogging as well, in the case of the blog site Beautifully Invisible, who discovered that another person was taking articles from their site, changing the title and slightly reworking the content, and posting the work as her own.
(Links to all the stories are provided below just after this article.)
There are so many attitudes about the act of plagiarism. I can identify with the anger and disappointment of the act being done, along with the empathy and sympathy involving anyone who has gone through this.
What I find difficulty wrapping my head around are people who state the following:
“Well, you should expect it. It’s not that big of a deal.” This phrase isn’t just coming from those on the outside but bloggers and authors as well.
NO, IT IS A BIG DEAL.
It’s atrocious that society has accepted the disillusion of integrity as the standard. I don’t think there is anything wrong or outrageous about expecting another human being to respect one’s hard work and one’s property.
Plagiarism is theft.
Scenario: If someone were to break into your home and steal something, like a brand new TV that you just purchased, or a toy you got on sale to surprise your son with for Christmas, would you still say, “Hey, I should have expected it. It’s not that big of a deal.”
What if someone close to you gave you a family heirloom and that was missing Would your reaction be the same?
Why should someone’s words be treated with disregard yet material possessions are given the highest respect?
If anything, it should be the other way around.
You can put no price on words, no value on the thought process and emotions associated with sharing it with others. It doesn’t surprise me, nor do I fault an individual if it takes a while for her to get over this occurrence.
I greatly value the works I have on my blog, A Queen’s Ramblings, and the reviews I have on The Review Board. However, the writings I treasure the utmost come from No Labels Unleashed, which mirror a lot of my own personal journeys. For anyone to take those things, put another title on them, and pass them off as their own experiences, is sacrilege. That’s going out in the yard after the bell rings for school dismissal type of throw down. In other words, “Steal my shh: get dealt with!”
The Moral of the Story:
Don’t do unto others that you wouldn’t want done unto you. That includes theft in any form. If you have to steal from someone in order to do your writing, then you should not be writing at all. Period.
Resources:
From Beautifully Invisible:
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