This morning I devoted my time to read about plagiarism before I am doing my papers. I find it necessary because it will benefit me in many ways; as a student and a content creator.
My attempt to understand plagiarism in depth lead me to read several articles along side guidelines made by steemcleaners team. I read their articles and the comment section. The discussion that was happening there are sufficient to give us (content creators, students, whoever) insight on plagiarism.
To read further, here are links to the useful guides to understand plagiarism made by 
Photo of alphabet blur close up by pixabay via pexels
However, after understanding more about plagiarism, it lead me to think about originality. It has been one of my life long question and I finally came into a conclusion that originality is scarce. For instance, how many dating applications out there? how many pomodoro timers out there? They are offering the same damn thing yet the only difference is the design. Will still that be called original? what about general products that we own, for instance, a watch.
That is to say, there are so many general products and ideas out there. How do we draw a line in such case? What about people who take pictures on museum, posting it everywhere without mentioning the original painter? does monetary value is the main measure to plagiarism? What about hundreds even thousands of websites out there who writes under the same topic and even just paraphrasing?
In my opinion, often rule is still blurry because one site says another, one websites says different thing. For instance, I use stock pictures often and pexels, my favorite website mentioned that it is free to use and no attribution required. So, once in a blue moon, I don't link it to the pexels page. I went by this sentence, As cited from their licensing page
: All photos on Pexels can be used for free for commercial and noncommercial use.
source
But then,so and so said I must cite it even it's already written clear that it can be used free for commercial and noncommercial use.
However, I think from now on and in order to become a better writer and blogger, I will ensure it linked back to the main photographer or pexels. Also there is an interesting read I found from Rochelle Terman about plagiarism in digital age. The article mentioned about cases were recognized writers caught doing plagiarism. The author also mentioned that problems presented could be avoided by not being lazy in doing citations.
Yet, Another thing about website is, sometimes an article contains incomplete information. Next time if you (or someone who is reading this) create a website make sure it has author, date of publication, and etc. So, it will be very helpful not only for yourself but also others who want to create a proper citation from your work.If you want to do a better citation for you paper there is tool that will help you such as, citation machine. If you are an artist please write your name(or how you want to be referred) and the date when you create that piece. These practices will benefit all parties involved.
Thanks,
From student who is often struggling with finding free open source textbooks and essays.
