On again

I was going to write a post about my aborted effort in the garden, until I came across yet another bitchy argument about plagiarism.

Okay, look: there is no such thing as 'good' plagiarism. It is all bad. There is no such thing as 'who does it hurt? It's only a little bit'. It's never a 'little bit'. Why? Because you are stealing. Worse, it takes little effort to actually cite the source of the information and takes more effort to rewrite.

As writers, we spend hours, days, weeks and months creating a piece of work; to have it used without acknowledgement - our talent, our words - is theft, pure and simple. And I never, ever, condone plagiarism.

We all know about Nora Roberts versus Janet Dailey (or, 'she who shall not be named' over at ADWOFF, Nora's popular bulletinboard), now it's Cassie Edwards and Signet publishing versus everyone else.

However, there seems to be some confusion about what is plagiarism. If you go to Smart Bitches, there's a comparison of some of the work involved.

I've read some of it and while it's similar - anyone can see that - it's not plagiarism per se.

plagiarize

/playjriz/ (also plagiarise)

• verb take (the work or idea of someone else) and pass it off as one’s own.

— DERIVATIVES plagiarism noun plagiarist noun plagiarizer noun.

— ORIGIN from Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper’, from Greek plagion ‘a kidnapping’. From Ask Oxford

To take someone else's work and rewrite it, does not fit into the definition of plagiarism. What the Smart Bitches have posted does not constitute plagiarism. What Ms Edwards has done is unethical, immoral and just plain stupid, but not illegal and is a way around that most heinous of accusation levelled against any author.

I know it's not a popular attitude, but the fact remains, unless you are taking parts, word for word, without proper acknowledgement for the author, there is no plagiarism involved.

If rewriting was classified as plagiarism, then all that school work you did falls into the same category, unless the school has paid up on the copyright of the text used.

It's such a lazy and useless thing to do: and you will be caught out. What the hell is wrong with your own work? If you're a creative writer, then you write creatively. Theft ain't creative.

To reiterate: if you take the exact words of another author and publish it under your own name, you are guilty of plagiarism; if you rewrite the piece and publish it as your own work, you're unethical and should be ashamed of yourself, but it's not illegal.

Cite other authors work and you can't go wrong.

And if you want to avoid the kerfuffle going on, re: Ms Edwards, then don't write with the other author's book right next to you; it smacks of malicious intent.