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About two weeks ago I got an article submissionthat instantly attracted my attention. The wasidentical to the name of an article I wrote and whichwas published in.ebProNews in May 1999. "Probably just a coincidence", I thought to myself, and kept reading. Nevertheless, the very first paragraph stopped mein my paths. It was quite clearly differentiated from myarticle.

As I kept reading I realized sentence aftersentence that had been lifted from my article and thenmodified slightly. The whole article was plagiarized. I really could hardlybelieve it. As the English say, I was.ob-smacked'.

------------------------------What Is Plagiarism? ------------------------------.lagiarism comes from the Latin word.lagiarius'. Akidnapper. Below are two dictionary definitions ofplagiarism.' [to] take (the work or thought of someone else). And pass it off as one's own' (Concise Oxford. Dictionary, Third Edition.o appropriate ideas, passages etc. From another.work or writer' (Collins Dictionary of the English. Language, ed. P. Hanks . Plagiarism may be done in a number of ways, but the mostcommon technique would be to paraphrase someone else's words. Here's an example. First. "And when you've matched the ezine to the product you'reselling, you've reached your target audience." . Plagiarized version. "When you have correctly matched the ezine or newsletterto the product you're selling, then you will havereached your target audience." .

----------------------------------------What Can You Do About It? ----------------------------------------. The Internet is so vast, odds are you wouldn't knowif someone had plagiarized your work. I only discoveredthat my work had been plagiarized because the.riter'delivered his article to me for inmy own publication. But if you do discover that someone has plagiarizedone of your articles, you can do what I did. I contacted the writer of the.rticle'and asked that he email everyone to whom he hadsent the article, explaining that it was plagiarized, and that they should on no account print it. I addedthat when he didn't withdraw the article fromcirculation I would contact his internet server and themoderators of any lists that distributed the article.

The writer replied within a few hours and admittedthat the correlation between the 2 articles was "VERYuncanny". He explained that he had no idea "how they may be sosimilar". However, after a few emails, he did withdraw thearticle. It's a compliment when someone plagiarizesyour work: it implies you're writing good stuff. Butthat consolation. If you make your livingfrom writing on the Internet, plagiarism could be thegreatest risk to your livelihood.

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