We get requests all the time from potential clients that start out like this:
On the surface, it sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? Either you want it to be “just like” the sample or you want it to be original. It can’t be both.
Or can it?
That’s what I want to get into today: Where do you draw the line between making good use of research and out and out thievery of an idea? I have a few criteria that I go by and expect from my writers that I’m going to share with you.
Being that I run a copywriting company, I understand a few basic rules of the game. Plagiarism is never OK. Some of us learn that the hard way in high school or college. The problem is that there truly is a finite amount of information out there on any given subject, and the information that goes into a web article or other piece of content has to come from somewhere.
So how do you keep it legit? Is it enough that our work passes Copyscape, or do we have a moral and ethical responsibility to produce content that is 100% original and written off the cuff?
Two Sides to the Story
There is a difference between a doctoral dissertation and a web article about pit bulls. When you’re creating a dissertation, what you write is generally based on firsthand observations and research. It’s your work from the ground up. That’s the point of writing it: It proves what you know based on experience.
I don’t think that anyone who hires a copywriter to write about the treatment of pit bulls in animal shelters envisions the writer accepting the job then going on a three-day road trip observing the conditions in shelters to write 500 words on the subject and collect $10. That copywriter is going to do a little Googling, find some “source material,” and write based on the first couple of articles he or she finds. Sometimes the writer finds just one good article, reword it, run it through Copyscape, hand it in, and forget about it. Is that wrong?
Well …
(Here it comes … my #1 favorite phrase …)
It depends.
Sometimes there just flat out isn’t a whole lot of material out there, so I’m going to give you my take on the three most popular ways that marketers reuse and recycle content and do it in a way that makes it theirs.
Article Spinning
First off, I’m going to be blunt: Article spinning is almost never a good idea. Yes, you’ll wind up with “original content,” but, for the most part, the content you wind up with is garbage.
Article spinning is good if you have a good editor or editorial staff who can turn around and fix all the problems that spinning software creates. Otherwise, my advice is to steer clear. It can save you time, but it can also be very time-consuming going back and making sense of what the spinner spits out.
Yes, article spinning is software-based and heavily employs the use of synonyms to deconstruct sentences and make them unique. Spinning software is almost never sophisticated enough to look contextually at the choices it makes, and it has potential to make damaging changes to the message in an article if left unchecked. The problem is that plenty of marketers do just that, thinking that the content is only valuable for SEO purposes. Nothing could be further from the truth. Quality and relevance are huge factors from both marketing and SEO standpoints.
Rewriting
There’s a right way and a wrong way to rewrite content. The wrong way involves taking the first similar article you find and just rewriting it. Usually, that article is found on the first page of a Google search, which means it’s also popular enough to be recognized. Sure, if it passes Copyscape, you’re free and clear as far as the search engines are concerned, but it undermines your authority on the subject if people read it and think, “I’ve seen this before…”
Here are some good rules of thumb for rewriting content:
1. Find one source that has all the information you need.
2. Verify the information through several other sources.
3. As you research, make note of details that aren’t in your base article and include them in the finished product.
4. Make relevant use of synonyms.
5. Reorder details to create a unique flow in the information.
Curating
This one is trickier because it involves directly “borrowing” content from other sources, whether visual or written. The Huffington Post is the Internet’s #1 master of curated content. If you want to see how content curation should be done, study its methods. HuffPost has it down to a science. Why is HuffPost so popular if all its staff do is re-run content from other sources? Because they present it in an editorial way that gives the content their own unique voice … andthatis what you’re going for – making the content yours through your own insights and perspectives.
So can it be done? Can you work directly with other people’s content and, in good conscience, call it your own? I think it depends on how that content is repurposed and how well you add your own unique voice to the subject. The best formula I can come up with for determining the ethical application of other people’s content follows this progression:
If there’s enough source material to diversify your sources, rewrite it. If there really, truly isn’t, spin it but take the time to be certain it makes sense. If you spin it or rewrite it, make it relevant and unique. If you can’t make it convincingly unique but you can give it your own voice, go the curation route. Follow those steps, and you’ll never have to worry about your credibility.