Three Little Steps to Avoid Plagiarism in the Modern Office

Featured guest article by Lyle Frink, PR consultant who’s skilled at simplifying the complex, engaging the mundane, and whose puns are always intended.

Plagiarism is about as old as writing itself. Soon after the first person had some creative thoughts pressed into their stylus, someone else copied those hieroglyphics — and took credit for them.

Notable proven or suspected plagiarists in history have included T.S. Elliot and Martin Luther King Jr. You might even say that Abraham Lincoln lifted some of his notable comments from the King James Bible.

Traditional plagiarism took some effort

Traditional plagiarism took at least a modicum of effort — the person had to physically recopy the text into their own document. Whether this was recopying the text from an encyclopedia (hello 4th grade) or a financial analyst rewriting competitors’ company reports (Prague in the 1990s), at least the plagiarist had to go through the motions of writing.

Uncovering the plagiarism also took some effort and a bit of luck. Sitting in the classroom, you might realize that Johnny is having some problems reading his report, so you pop out the encyclopedia and help him pronounce those big words. The analyst might just have three equity reports spread across desk and lap — and be rewriting them as you walk by. The consequences: Johnny gets a stern wag of the finger from his teacher and the analyst goes on to a stellar career with Enron.

Welcome to the age of cut-and-paste

The modern online era has made plagiarism instantly easy with Wikipedia and cut-and-paste computer functions. Preventive strategies, at least for school children, are multifaceted. Teachers can try to penalize little copy artists with poor grades. They can check out Wikipedia as a preventative step. And they can also require that sources be listed correctly and that the copied material be redone. More effectively, they can design school projects that simply can’t be copied directly from the internet.

We want content now (and cheaply)

The online era and growth in social media has propelled plagiarism far beyond the limits of cut and paste. Companies have a near insatiable need for content and may have practically impossible article generation requirements on their marketing and PR teams. Further down the food chain, members of the marketing and PR teams have an incentive to copy or paraphrase what has been said so nicely before.

The need to have content in multiple languages can also fuel plagiarism. When the desired text needs to be in English, as just one example, but the responsible individual has this as their second or third language — they have a greater incentive to copy.

Exposure is easier than ever

Finding a plagiarist is easier than ever, thanks to programs such as Wcopyfind or even by just entering the suspect text into a basic search engine. While your company copy is going to be less scrutinized than the works of Guttenburg (not the printer) or William Shakespeare — people do compare and contrast. Exposure does come with a cost.

Acceptance of plagiarism or copying behavior is a company ‘purity test’ of sorts. It signals an acceptance of questionable behavior and shoddy work — something you should not want linked to either yourself as an individual or the company you work for.

Stop plagiarism without the HR department

While plagiarism is just not acceptable, the HR department — especially in Central Europe — is probably the last step in dealing with plagiarism. First, it is doubtful that HR or managers are willing to step into this arena. In the above analyst’s case, his boss willfully ignored the issue. Secondly, when you have junior personnel writing reports and copy in a foreign language — they need a writing coach not a reprimand.

Three little steps for you

Even without pulling in HR, there are three steps you can do to combat plagiarism.

Look — Keep an eye out for copied texts and unattributed material. With pull printing technology such as that offered by managed services leader MyQ, you can monitor both what is getting printed and scanned — helping you more easily identify the source of the suspect materials. Most plagiarism cases do not come out of nowhere and you should be able to sense when the newly minted content just does not seem right.

Respond — Let the budding plagiarists know that you know what they are up to. Then give some constructive ideas on how to improve their writing and ways to better structure articles. The goal is to help them get the skills and the confidence to do their jobs better.

React — Don’t accept repeated copying. Send the person a direct note, something like this:

Hello ____.

Thanks for the texts. There is an issue here called plagiarism. According to Merriam Webster, to plagiarize is to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own: use (another’s production) without crediting the source.

You are doing both of those here. Bigly.

You simply cannot make your own article by cut and pasting text together from sources without attribution or without significantly changing the content.

If something is preventing you from writing or developing your own ideas, then get a writing coach or a therapist. Or maybe switch professions. Written communication is key to PR.

I am not going to aid and abet you with this plagiarism. You’re getting paid to do a job at _____. Go do it.

About the author:

Lyle Frink is a freelance PR and communications consultant based in Prague, Czech Republic. As both a punster and a wordsmith, he likes to simplify the message — and make it interesting — for a range of industries stretching from IT security to beer and automotive. His family includes a wife, three kids, and some chickens.