I had to let another writer go today. It saddened me, because she’s been around with me from the beginning. But when Copyscape turns up over 160 words matched in an article, including a 20+ word sentence match, I don’t have a choice.
I know that the medical articles are basically just compiling research from other sources, but you must find a way to put things in your own words. You must use different phrasing. Even for the warnings and contraindications for drugs.
I’ve had a few “false positives” among the drug articles where Copyscape spit back 20 or 30 word matches, but they weren’t complete sentences, and they were more common phrases that were not obviously lifted from another source. I don’t count those against anyone. But I’ve also had over 100 drug articles come back with NO matches on Copyscape – completely original content. So I know it’s possible. And when Copyscape matches over 100 words from your article on more than one webpage… I can’t ignore that.
50 words is the legal limit for a direct quote with attribution. More than 50 words, even if you were to credit the original source, is plagiarism. As we’re generally not aiming to list sources for this project, everything must be in your own words!
Don’t make me let you go for copying sentences from other medical sites. Please. I don’t like doing it. I hate losing capable writers.
P.S. RL071 emailed me to let me know she uses http://www.plagiarismdetect.com/ to check her work before turning it in. This should help you make sure you’ve reworded everything sufficiently.
Thanks for the link! This will make things much easier!
EBSCOhost is periodical database that offers great resources for any topic. Writers can visit their local libraries’ websites to see if it links to this database. They can just enter their library card numbers to access information.
This can help with some of the duplicate copy problems. The problem with researching on the Web is the same info is just recirculated, as I’m sure you’re aware. A database like this might help generate better research. It’s free, too:)
Another checking tool is http://www.articlechecker.com/