What is and is not Plagiarism

Some years ago, on another site, I wrote an article about the Black Plague.

I researched the Bubonic plague, and got a great deal of information. I posted my first article on the topic. I was quite proud of it when I posted it.

The next day I was doing a search of the site for interesting articles I saw one about the Black Plague written by someone else!

I raced to that post, ready to ring the plagiarism bell.

As soon as the article came up, I knew it was not plagiarism. It was totally different.

The chap who wrote it got in touch with me, because he’d seen I had written about ‘his’ topic, and had the same first reaction.

It seems that both of us were watching a particular programme in our respective countries, about plague. He, as well as I, had gotten a few sentences from the show, our intellects had been activated, and we jumped into research… not Wikipedia, but going to various sites. Going to different sites and getting our information.
I wrote mine, actually breaking it into three separate articles as I had garnered quiet a bit of information I wanted to share; going from China, through Europe, then into England.

He wanted to deal with it as one of the many infectious diseases that race through a country; i.e Ebola, Zika, etc.

Our items were published, on the same site, within hours of each other. There was no plagiarism.

Every article you write has probably been written in whole or part by someone else. Whether you are writing about a historical or current event, a scientific discovery, a how to, or even describing a personal experience, someone else has written/will write an item on the topic.

What prevents the attack of plagiarism is when the items are written from a specific point of view which is particular to the writer.

We can go to the same football match and what might catch my attention might mean nothing to you. We might leave the stadium, you angry over the unnecessary red card, I might leave amazed by the goalies fantastic save.

If you wrote about the match and I did, sitting at the same table, you with your laptop, me with mine, the articles would be totally different, although we are writing about the same thing.

The only time one need be afraid of plagiarism is when they really do copy and paste, and present the same item with just a few word changes.