Help! I've been plagiarised.

[Dave]

Aug 28, 2009 5:56:45 GMT nicola said:

In case anyone wants to know the outcome, the article was taken down several days ago, and I have since received an e-mail from the editor. The writer claimed ignorance of my article, but the editor agreed that it was all uncannily similar. The writer, therefore, has been suspended from the newspaper.

I was not expecting such a good result.

Hi Nicola,

Let us hope it's a salutory lesson for said Mr. Davenport. If only all media organizations had strong moral principles and behaviour as, clearly, that newspaper has. Not only that, they made it easy for you to get a satisfactory result (article removal and writer suspension) unlike certain other organizations on the Internet (we all know who they are).

Well done!

Cheers, Dave

[postscript]

That is a very good result, Nicola, well done. If you are interested perhaps that makes an opening for you. How about you submitting an article adapted for a general readership next time you write the article you want to write?

Two things happened when I wrote for the newspapers. First, over several years i contributed letters regularly to the local paper on diverse matters. My interest in my community thus expressed meant I was well known in the town when I decided to stand for council election (and got it!).

The second occasion was contributing letters to a national trade magazine on technical issues in the printing industry. The third letter was sent back to me with a cryptic note from the editor. "Stop writing letters to me. Write me articles and I'll pay you!" So I did--and so did he!

You never know where a "passing initiative" may end up.

Very well done and good for you.

Peter S.

[nicola]

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

Very interesting experience you have there Peter. I will definitely bear that in mind from now on.

I'm just so young and lack confidence in the big wide world that I always have trouble asserting myself in these ways. But I must learn to do so if I want to get anywhere.

[postscript]

Aug 28, 2009 20:03:33 GMT nicola said:

Thanks for the advice, everyone.

...
I'm just so young and lack confidence in the big wide world that I always have trouble asserting myself in these ways. But I must learn to do so if I want to get anywhere.

While I totally endorse your sentiments it is important to know yourself well enough as to pace yourself. Positive assertion is sometimes necessary but in my experience it is in the nature of creativity to periodically feel unsure. That lack of sureness should be viewed positively as a form of questioning that helps the faculty of self-criticism. You could of course write under a pseudonym!

I do that sometimes (as here) as a means of separating my different writing styles or subject material.

Peter S.