My Report on Plagiarism | Detailed Guidelines About Plagiarism For Newbies | 20% to @steemit-pak

Hello everyone!

The workload in the community has doubled in this month due to the presence of the king curator. The community account is booming but with good things bad things also come along. Yes, I am talking about spammers and plagiarists. I was getting overwhelmed by the increase in the number of posts made every hour. Some days we are getting posts every few minutes. I tried to comment but I wasn't able to catch up with the authors but I am still trying. Anyways,the more important thing was to rule out any kind of plagiarism.

Active posts (week)	Active Posts (last 24hrs)	Plagiarized Posts % in 24 hrs
334+	54	13%

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The above percentage contains all the minor and major plagiarized content. Following are some of the publications that were under scrutiny in the last 24 hours. The purpose of highlighting these posts is not to shame anyone because clearly there are some newcomers who don't know the rules. But older members need some self-reflection and self-assessment of what they are doing.

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Post Link	Plagiarism Detail	Plagiarism Severity	Warning
Post Link	Citation not done	Minor	1st
Post Link	Copied Text	Major	2nd
Post Link	Definitions Not Quoted, Images not Referenced Properly	Minor	No
Post Link	Copied Whole Text	Major	2nd
Post Link	Copied Whole Text	Major	2nd
Post Link	Copied Whole Content	Major	1st
Post Link	Definitions Not Quoted & Referenced	Minor	No
Post Link	Paraphrased Content	Medium	1st

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What we do with Plagiarists?

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• Give polite warning on 1st attempt.
• Label them as plagiarists and ban them from any kind of support for 1 week on 2nd attempt.
• Downvote the posts and block them from the community on repeated attempts.

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It's a humble request to all members to stay away from plagiarism. I have said this before that Earning money is hard and earning it in the rightful manner is even harder. Stealing others' content is a downright lack of ethics and moral values. One can truly understand it when his own content created with a lot of hard work is stolen.

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Some frequently asked questions...

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1- I have only written a definition, how can it come under plagiarism?

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Definition or not, when you try to present someone else's content in a way that it looks like your own then it comes under plagiarism. You can avoid it by quoting it and giving the reference link from where you took the content.
For Example:

Wrong way:

Gravity, also called gravitation, in mechanics, the universal force of attraction acting between all matter.

Right way:

Gravity, also called gravitation, in mechanics, the universal force of attraction acting between all matter. ^Britannica

Here's the markdown of writing in the right way:

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2- I changed the whole wording of the content. It's not exactly the same anymore. So why am I accused of plagiarism?

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I will again say, presenting someone else's content as your own is plagiarism. It doesn't have to match word by word. Paraphrasing , rewording, stealing the idea all comes under plagiarism.

Now I know you are not a scientist, so if you are talking about gravity then it is based on previous experiments carried out by scientists. The ideas belong to them. So you are just supposed to give the references from where you are taking the information even if you write it all in your own words.

Citation is the key.

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3- I gave the reference of the image. Why I am still accused?

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One purpose of reference is that it enables the readers to dig further into the topic if they are interested to know more details.
Secondly, we are supposed to use only copyright free images, multiple times stated by the Steemit team. The reference link is supposed to lead to the license details of the image where it is clearly stated that said image is free for commercial use.

But I have seen that 80% of people give references like Pinterest, blogging sites or other sites where images are not free or there are no license details given. So it put your images under scrutiny, there's no way to know the copyright claims. So it is most likely your post will be accused of plagiarism or simply not supported.

I have so many times shown the right way of getting copyright free images. Please see these short videos that I made:

How to find free images on Google?