When you are having content created by heaps for your large website, you end up outsourcing a lot of work to agencies and freelancers. And you probably use a plagiarism checking tool to ensure that you are not receiving copied content.
Plagiarism tools are a must when you’re dealing with tons of new content being developed. But you can’t expect may of them to be fully error-free.
A story can be copied from an existing source by changing almost every word in it. What you receive could be changed words and phrases, but the structure could be the same, even subheads could be the same too! If your plagiarism tool didn’t catch it, what should you do? Here are some tips.
Plain old Google search works very well. And it gives a fair idea of how much of it is word-to-word copy, and what resources have been used to write the article.
A ‘writer’ who is doing this copying in a hurry without applying much thought is likely to leave tell tale signs. Look out for sentences that make no sense, or lack flow, or abruptly introduce something out of context.
If a ‘writer’ has interspersed copied sentences in between her own, you can spot the abruptness, change in use of language, or flow. For this, the copyeditor or reviewer should be well versed with the writing style of the writer. Then it becomes easier to spot departures.
With a mix of use of tools and common sense, one should be able to spot most of the plagiarism cases. To manage the rest, work with tight contracts and huge penalties.
