Steal But Never Plagiarize

There’s nothing new under the sun. Everyone is going through it or have gone through it.
Even as a writer, we all steal. But it should be done in a professional way.
I could be inspired by your work and decide to turn into mine or use it as a basis to write mine.
It is acceptable as long as I give credit to you.

However, there’s a big difference between stealing a writer’s work professionally and plagiarism.

Plagiarism is likened to intellectual laziness. Taking someone’s projects, word-for-word as your own without citation or credit.
It is more like taking your expensive car as mine without your permission. How will you feel about that?

Tim Denning said, ”I don’t care if you plagiarize my posts on LinkedIn. You know why?
First of all, I am honored that you deem them good enough to copy in the first place. It means a lot.”

He further added, ”secondly, even if you take a post that I wrote which has over 10,000 engagements on it and copy it as your own, it won’t have the same result for you.”

Reasons why people plagiarize:

• To go viral.
• The feeling of making money by going viral
• They likened going viral to success

No matter how much you steal another person’s work, you will never get the same results. Besides, it is painting you bad.
The words of the content are not what makes it get high engagements with the world; it’s the person that wrote it and the people who have watched the creators journey over a long period of time.

It is the result of consistency and quality that have been shown over time. You can’t copy become a millionaire by going viral, you become a millionaire by solving problems.
”Even if you do go viral, from experience, it won’t change your life.” – Tim Denning.

When you copy and paste someone else’s work as your own, you are only cheating yourself. It’s like claiming to be a doctor when you know within yourself that you are a farmer. Nothing beats the truth. You can deceive the world but don’t deceive yourself.

Here is what happens to you when you plagiarize other people’s work:

– People will feel deceived
– People will fish you out and show the world how horrible you are.
– You will lose credibility overnight.
– Your reputation is at stake
– You could land yourself in trouble if the creator takes a legal action

There are better ways to copy others work without losing your reputation:
Reach out to them before using it
Give credit to them
Rewrite it in your own words

”That is why I don’t care if you plagiarize my work. It won’t make you a success or go viral.? You can’t beat putting in the work and being honest in the process. There is no shortcut.” – Tim Denning.

Instead of aiming to go viral, aim to give value. When you bring value, you solve problems.
Going viral is for a while but the value you give will stand the test of time.