One of our members, John Welford, a freelance proofreader and indexer, part-time librarian, and also sub-channel steward for the English Language section of the Languages sub-channel, has written a fantastic post in the Helium forums providing some tips and insights about how to avoid plagiarizing articles, especially on Helium. The post has sparked some great debate and I’m hoping we can get some more great insights here!

I’ve reposted John’s entire discourse here:

As has been apparent from a number of posts in these forums, there is a fine line between making use of sources and plagiarising. We all know that very few Helium writers (of factual articles) are truly original, in that they are making use of knowledge discovered by others and not writing from first-hand experience or their own personal research.

That said, there are ways of recycling knowledge that avoid the problem of being accused of plagiarising.

The best way to write is to make use of several sources and add your own “take” on the facts that you use. That, for me, is where Helium wins hands down – the presentation of short articles that summarise knowledge in a small compass and add the writer’s own thoughts. That is how knowledge advances, both in the academic world and the less formal environment of Helium.

If you are making a direct quotation you must say so and give your source. However, this is not always necessary when using material more obliquely. Personally, when I see a long list of sources at the end of an article I am more suspicious of plagiarism, not less, as I tend to think that the writer might have copied someone else’s paper, both text and sources! Common sense needs to be applied here, with cited sources being seen more in the light of guides to further reading than as pleas to avoid charges of plagiarism.

It is always easy to check your text by using a free plagiarism checker. Just cut and paste a section of text (six words or longer) into the checker and you will see immediately if that text has come from somewhere else. I find it amazing that a string of six simple words can be unique across the Internet, but this is usually the case. When a Helium checker finds that this is NOT so, you have cause to worry. I have seen people in these Forums complaining bitterly that their passage was the same as someone else’s purely by coincidence – sorry, that excuse just doesn’t wash! Test your own work in, for example, www.plagiarismchecker.com, and see just how big a coincidence it would have to be for your twenty words to be exactly the same as someone else’s!

I have another tip for avoiding plagiarism, and that is not to do all your research from the Internet! I often find that many sources that can be found from a Google search are remarkably similar as between themselves, simply because they have plagiarised each other. Even if you use several of these sources you are therefore unlikely to be adding anything new, and might well be plagiarising a source other than the one you are using.

Instead, try using that old-fashioned piece of technology, the book, for your research once in a while. Please note, I am NOT suggesting that you should copy screeds of material from books as opposed to off the Web, because the crime is exactly the same, but I am suggesting that you broaden your horizons by including the printed word among your sources.

My usual policy is to use my book collection (or library borrowings) as my primary source material, and update it from the Web, as I fully appreciate that books cannot contain any knowledge that became apparent after they were printed. In other words, I am not doing anything very different from what I did at school and university when writing essays, half a millenium ago, namely using passages from books as the starting point and adding my own interpretation as I go along.

I have found any number of fascinating snippets of knowledge in books and journals that are completely new to Helium, and have therefore been able to earn several “empty title” bonuses by suggesting a title and writing a piece on something that would be difficult to find elsewhere. One of my sources, for example, is a school prize that my uncle won back in 1912!

By using book material, instead of text that anyone could find on the Web for themselves, you are adding more to the pot of knowledge, and are even less likely to be accused of plagiarism. However, I must repeat that direct copying is wrong, whatever the source, and whether or not a plagiarism checker can discover the offence quickly.

So, dear readers, what do you think?