Plagiarism, one of the most concerning issues when it comes to writing. Be it in hardcopy or softcopy, any form of writing is prone to plagiarism. First of all, what is plagiarism? According to the dictionary, plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. I’d like to add to this definition by including, ‘or without making references or asking for permission.' Regarding writing, it is an act of copying someone else’s writing, be it articles, story, scripts, etc. and using them to create a similar writing. Unfortunately, plagiarism has risen to an alarming rate, especially online.

How does plagiarism apply to online writing?

Plagiarism is more of an issue online than it is in normal day to day activities. We are in a very modern age where almost everything is available and completed online. From blog posts to product reviews, advertising, article writing, E-books, E-banking and so on, there is a constant need for writing and this is where plagiarism comes to play. Many writers are too lazy or just want to duplicate other peoples work either to gain more views or to make it easy. All you do is search; copy and paste, then take it to an article spinner to change the words, then upload and that’s all. It’s more difficult now to trace plagiarizers, why? Due to the creation of programs and software, this has made it easier for writers to escape plagiarism checkers like Copyscape.

Programs and software involved?

There are numerous applications and software available online for anyone to download and most of them are usually free. It just requires you to register on their site and that’s all. Upon completing the sign-up process, you have access to whatever service they offer. Which includes; article spinning, rewriting, synonymizer, content changing, and paraphrasing. I’ve been researching on such programs and software. Here’s a list of a few I’ve gathered.

These are the ones I’ve been able to gather. There are numerous other software, apps and programs available online. In fact, they are visible to the public and not hidden; they are easily found on the internet.

How is it used in freelance writing?

Now, this is where plagiarism is commonly used. In the freelance world, there are a lot of competition and competitors. I don’t know the estimate of how many words are written per day, but it’s surely going to be a significant amount. Every freelance writer is looking to create the perfect content, write up, story, research work and lots more. Most writers don’t have the skill or aren’t good enough, but they want the money. Apart from that, most are lazy to write; others want to gather lots of clients by various means no matter the cost. When you see someone offer a ridiculously large amount of articles or words to be written in a ridiculously short amount of time. What or how do you think they meet such unimaginable demands? They engage into plagiarism.

Writing 6 articles in one day, how?

Now, ask yourself, which experienced writer would produce 6 standard and high-quality articles in just one day? Now a good writer, before writing, first draws his/her outline comprising of the topic, introduction, the body and conclusion. Then he/she does some research or uses his/her knowledge of the topic on hand. He/she then compose their first draft and proofread it before writing the actual article. Now, imagine the time it’ll take to create a 1x1000 word article. Then imagine someone saying that they will create 6 of these making a total of 6000words in one day. Either he/she is going to do a bad job or plagiarize.
Here’s how…
A plagiarizer will simply go online and search for articles on similar content or write up. Then he/she will copy and paste all the information and upload the file on one of the sites or programs listed above. These apps or software will rewrite these articles using synonyms and other tools to change it. Thereby, creating an entirely different but similar article with the same meaning. This method allows a writer to create up to 10,000 words in a day. Can you imagine that? I once heard a fellow freelancer say he started writing a 3000-word article which he had to submit in 6 hours, by copying and pasting the stolen material on a spin bot. As a result, some of those apps are so efficient that they manage to by-pass Copyscape. This is how and what they do. It’s unfortunate, especially for writers like me that work hard to create medium to high-quality content. They make it look easy, which isn’t supposed to be so.

How can someone obtain one of these programs?

You can download them from the internet. By visiting their sites and registering, there are options made for you to download them or take advantage of them online on the website itself. There is software available for each gadget, either it being on your phone, laptop, or desktop. It’s just a click away.

Most popular software used for plagiarism and what they do.

These are the 5 most popular article rewriter programs

Spin Bot: they offer article spinning, content creation and article rewriting.
Ant spinner: content creation and keyword optimization
Spinner chief: article rewriter, cloud thesaurus and supports more than 20 languages.
Content professor: article rewriter, multi-lingual thesaurus, spell checker
Chimp rewriter: article rewriter, content reproduction (with pictures and video), understands the structure of sentences and paragraphs.

Final Thoughts

It's unfortunate that this is what goes on in the freelance world today. Writing has become as comfortable as possible. Plagiarizers are now able to outsmart Copyscape with Fiverr being a popular freelance website, there are plenty of writing services with sellers cheating their customers. For a sequel to this article, we will dive in further with how to choose a good writer for your job on freelance sites. To be continued...on www.itsmechuck.com