After reading some 'Men with Pens' info, I've decided that I might try subcontracting some work (with the client's knowledge) in the next 6 months. Since I've been burned by a plagiarizing subcontractor in the past (I went about it all wrong that time), I want to make sure I invest in the most powerful plagiarism software available. Copyscape is fine, but I'm pretty sure it's not as thorough as they would like you to think. I was considering iThenticate but I don't want to waste money. Are any of you familiar with iThenticate or know of any other powerful plagiarism detectors?
I know this doesn't exactly answer your question but I've found my best weapon is my gut. Copied/stolen content just seems to have a smell to me. When I review sites for my directories, my gut has been pretty accurate when I thought a site had non-original content. Someone I've met on another forum asked me to look at his spiffy new article. The content looked too good and was peppered with quotations from people that the average writer could not gain access too. Also knowing that English was not his first language, I knew right away someone else had written it for him. His low-cost "writer" lifted the piece word for word from msn.com! The "writer" only made a clumsy change to the title. I'm pretty sure my forum friend said that it had passed Copyscape. (Don't hold me to that, it's been a while since this happened.) The trouble with all of the online tools is that they are limited to online sources. There was a website being sold here that I had considered buying. The price vs the quality of the materials seemed suspicious. I could not find anything similar on the web but my radar kept telling me something wasn't right. The written materials were just too good and would have taken too long to research for the price to be worthwhile for the seller. I passed on it hoping that I didn't lose a chance to pick up a real gem at a bargain price. Weeks later while in a discount department store I came across a piece of cheapo software that was almost certainly the original source of the content on that website. That site definitely passed Copyscape but was 100% stolen. I am surprised that more of these cheats don't use offline sources. It would be so very much harder to catch them before payment was made. But, I guess that would require them to actually type something rather than just cut and paste. If you are subcontracting on the hopes of getting a low-cost writer to help bump up your profits, it would seem your best bet would be to find someone based on referrals or someone just starting out. If you have more work than you can possibly handle and want to maintain your same level of quality without taking a big profit, perhaps approaching one of the established regulars here would be a safer option.
Thanks YMC. It's not low-paying stuff, well, it's not exactly a King's sum either, but it's certainly not DP rates. I do have a network of great writers to use who I certainly have a 'gut' feeling won't plagiarize, but don't we owe our clients more than our gut?
I agree in that we owe our clients something better than our gut instincts; I just have no decent suggestion as to what it would be. With my examples only one of the stolen pieces would have been detectable by an online tool. As long as you are not doing the writing yourself or can limit the source materials to those that you are familiar with; I'm not sure that there is any way to give a client a 100% guarantee to originality. You would have to have a tool that checks every word that was ever written. A visit to most major universities would provide an almost limitless source of unrecorded, yet published materials - just visit the student thesis section. There are a number of websites, including the University of Florida, that are publishing modern and vintage publications in non-textual formats. Go to any thrift store and you can find tons of books that were published long before the Internet but recent enough to still be covered by a copyright. The possibilities are endless if you think about it. For the most part, it would seem the writers who steal words seem to not be overly creative. I suspect that is already changing. I would really hesitate promising a client a 100% guarantee if I had to hire someone else to do the writing. Most would probably accept CopyScape but I think more and more folks are thinking about it a bit more and realize that the Internet is not the only source for materials to steal. I would have to know a writer really well or get a legally enforceable contract in place that makes them liable for any copyright infringements before I would entrust them with my business. To be honest, I've not had a large enough workload to have to consider bringing in another writer to help me. I will say the thought terrifies me. Unless I truly knew and trusted them or they were sitting next to me while writing the piece, there is no foolproof way to ensure that the materials are truly original. I guess it all boils down to trust. Do you feel that you can trust your business with the writer you plan to use?
IMHO, its much easier to work with people you already trust. When I sub-contract some of my work, I send them to former colleagues who I know to be trustworthy. But of course, I still review their output from time to time just to be sure. However, the anxiety's much less than working with somebody I barely know.
That is the plan but, again, I've done that before and unfortunately, the contractor did plagiarize. How do you get around that and begin trusting again? This contractor was a close, personal friend of mine--not someone I met over the internet. You know, maybe I just don't have the stomach for it after all and will just continue to pass work that I don't have time for onto other writers. I'll sleep better at night if I do.
Hiya A good tool I use for this purpose is Dupefreepro (you can google it). You can copy and paste an article into it and then with a click of a button check to see if there are any other copies of that article on line. The best thing is that it is free too. Hope this helps
Ack, that sucks all the more. Yeah, I guess you'd be better off passing projects to other writers instead. You won't risk tarnishing your reputation that way.
I've used EVE2 before. It's a small software, nice and easy to use. However, I don't know whether it is still available.