ACHIEVEMENT POST 3: Content Creation Ethics/PLAGIARISM

Hey everyone,

Its me again and i am here to complete my achievement 3 today. The word 'etiquette' or 'ethics' means behavior associated with something of high regard. When we talk of content creation ethics, we mean the way we cite or reference and even very cleary show the rightful owners of the work we may have used in our content. Using other people's work (words, images, ideas etc) and not giving them credit is wrong and it is called Plagiarism.

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What is Plagiarism

This is a word that means that you have wrongfully used other people's ideas as your own and have not given them the proper credit for it. It is considered an offense worldwide in the content creation spheres and that is why some work is copyrighted and cannot be used without the lawful authorization of the owner.

It is serious because it is seen a stealing , cheating or thievery. It is actually called 'intellectual theft' and as many educators and writers agree, representing another person's writing as your own is to mis-represent your own opinions and consequently, achievements.

Types of Plagiarism

• Copy and Paste

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Here a user just copies the contents of a site and pastes them on their clip board without endeavoring to show their source and giving due credit to the source.

• Mosaic Plagiarism
  This means trying to confuse the copied and pasted words by patching different sources all together. This turns out to look like a mixture of articles from different sources and this is a disaster as it breaks the rules with so many broken user's copyrights or demand for credit.

• Self Plagiarism
  This entails using ones own work over and over without showing the right source of the articles written by you albeit they are your own works. It is only likely that one needs to give themselves the proper respect and credit to themselves first before they can give credit to others.

How to avoid Plagiarism

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Usually, the double quotes are used to cite words not said or written by us. However, on the steemit platform we use the > sign before a set of words that are not our own. This makes the words stand out of our text and therefore we are free from plagiarism. An example is this;

It is considered an offense worldwide in the content creation spheres and that is why some work is copyrighted and cannot be used without the lawful authorization of the owner.

I got this by putting the > sign before the words i got from this very article in the second paragraph.

However, that's not all about plagiarism. We should use the ICE method to Introduce, Cite,and Explain the words that are not our own. This means we state the words, show who said them and if necessary when it was said, and where it was said. On the Steemit platform, this is given with links to the different sources where such information as well as images have been got.

This is called Referencing and we do this by putting [ ] brackets with the words source i.e [Source], and then adding the link in inverted brackets ( ) i.e (https://mbabazize.com). We write this as: [Source]+( https://mbabazize.com ) which in turn looks like Source

The procedure above shows the reader where you get the info and gives due credit to the original writer or developer. Some people will find it not to do his hectic work, but it shows professionalism and maturity in content creation.

The image below shows other tips to avoid Plagiarism and i have fully referenced it as well as other images in this article.

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In conclusion, Plagiarism is bad! It is unfathomable and it downplays the efforts of others and on the steemit platform, downgrades the quality of work and content. Under all circumstances it must be avoided and taken as a risk to the integrity of the steemit community and the world at large. Thank you.