Taking someone else’s words and pretending you are the author is nothing new in publishing; back in the pre-internet age, famous Raven guy Edgar Allan Poe accused Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of having three names also stealing his words.
But the advent of the internet and digital publishing means that plagiarism is much more prevalent and lucrative. It’s something that digital authors have to be particularly aware of, since it’s so easy to lift someone else’s words.
A recent article in The Atlantic spotlights some of the more recent cases. We’re not going to share the details here since we don’t want to publicize plagiarism incidents, and we will also suggest you run your original words through a plagiarism checker to make sure nobody has stolen your work.
What would you do if you discover your work has been stolen? Megan says she would spend most of her time obsessing over the plagiarist’s higher rankings on etailer sites; Liz would get into bed wearing a large grey hoodie and crack open a bottle of gin. Her dad always said it killed a cold, anyway.