DID YOU COPY THAT?

You can't always trust what you read on the internet. This may not come as a surprise to you but I confess it did to me, innocent that I am.

I've been doing a piece of research and I have discovered that much of the 'writing' in factual blogs and pseudo-reference sites is simply cut and pasted from elsewhere. This makes it pretty impossible to tell where it was originally written and whether or not it is true.

In case you don't believe me try this little experiment. I think you'll be as surprised as I was.

Type the following piece of text which defines what charcoal is into Google or your preferred search engine.

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents

Now see how many totally different websites it appears in - either exactly as written or in a few cases very slightly altered.

Incredible isn't it?

Some of these sites are commercial, some of them are personal blogs but it is very obvious that they have been 'cut and pasted' over and over again.

Now try it again with the following text:

Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work

I rest my case.